Man, this is shaping up to be a busy and fun year already. Just in the next couple of weeks I’ll be in San Francisco and Seattle, and maybe Corvallis! And that doesn’t even include all of the fun stuff going on in town.

I’m trying to be more organized with all of this going on. I actually packed a full week’s worth of gym clothes and took them to my office on Monday. I did all of my photo editing over the weekend. Hopefully I can continue this streak of doing things early! Speaking of photo editing, here’s part two of our amazing dinner from “Jerusalem” from last weekend – that one where we used the entire head of garlic

So far we’ve made five recipes from this book, and all five have been home runs. And, actually, all five have been meatless. It’s far from a meatless cookbook, but I love the bounty of veggie options.

Here’s what we need:
20 oz. green beans, trimmed (this was split between green and yellow beans in the book – we did not find any)
2 red bell peppers, cut into strips
3 Tbsp. olive oil
3 garlic cloves
3 Tbsp. capers, rinsed and patted dry
1 tsp. cumin seeds*
2 tsp. coriander seeds*
4 green onions, thinly sliced
2/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
grated zest of 1 lemon
salt and freshly ground pepper

*We did not have these on hand, so we seasoned the salad with a few shakes of cumin and coriander powder

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Boil about 4 quarts of water while you rinse off the beans. Drop the beans into the boiling water and cook for 4 minutes. Remove to an ice bath for another five minutes, and pat dry. Place in a large mixing bowl.

Next, toss the red bell pepper strips in 1 tsp. of the olive oil. Spread over a baking sheet and bake for five minutes. Remove from the oven and add to the mixing bowl with the green beans.

In a saucepan, heat 3 Tbsp. of olive oil. When it is hot enough (a splash of water will sizzle when it hits the oil), add the garlic and cook for just 20 seconds. Then add the capers, and cook for another 15 seconds. Remove from the heat and pour the contents into the mixing bowl. Toss everything together with the green onions, parsley, lemon zest, salt, black pepper, cumin powder and coriander powder. Serve warm or at room temperature.