Community lunch recipes: greens beans With olive oil

This recipe is a fabulous side dish for any occasion and a stock standard at our community lunch. Perfect because it is best pre-prepared. You can think of it as a room temperature veggie dish or a cold salad.

It comes from Abla Amad’s cook book. I love her cooking (have you been to her restaurant on Elgin Street Carlton? So good!)

Here we go.

• 500 g green beans, topped and tailed

• 1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil

• 1 onion finely chopped or sliced

• 1-2 fresh skinned tomatoes (or 1-2 tinned tomatoes roughly chopped are fine too)

• 1 tsp allspice

• 1 tsp salt

• 1/4 tsp pepper

In a pot put the olive oil and onions and cook for 10 minutes (put on your timer so you cook them long enough because it tastes better in the end).

Add the beans and allspice and cook for a minute, then add the tomatoes and salt and pepper. Put a lid on the pot, turn down the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

DONE! That’s it.  As mentioned, serve a room temperature or cold. Hard to believe something that tastes so good is so simple. See what you think.