"everything" potatoes & a string bean sauté

i had this brilliant idea the other night to smoother roasted potatoes in "everything" bagel toppings: poppy, sesame and caraway seeds along with roasted onions and garlics. it was a concept fully worth testing out. only one problem: it required turning on the oven. while slowly lugging ourselves up the hill to our home from the overly-hot bouldering gym, we debated whether or not it would be worth turning the oven on to execute our dinner plan. our west-facing apartment gets rather warm in the afternoons. adding oven heat is about the last thing i wanted to do. but there was little else we could fix for dinner in our fridge. so we did. we chopped up vegetables and sipped on cucumber dry sodas (my new addiction) and roasted heaping piles of "everything" potatoes. 

it was worth turning the oven on. they were delicious. but equally so, were the sautéed green beans we had picked up from the farmers market. smothered in feta cheese and drizzled with lemon juice. they were so simple, but so phenomenal that the recipe must be shared! 

lemon, feta & string bean sauté ~ serves 2

two large handfuls fresh green string beans

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1/3 cup firm cow milk feta

salt, pepper & aleppo chili flakes to taste

in a large sauté pan, heat one tablespoon olive oil over medium-low heat. add beans (i left the little stem on, but you could remove them if you prefer). cook for a few minutes, uncovered, stirring often. add 1 tablespoon lemon juice and quickly cover with a lid to steam for a minute or two. toss and return lid to cover and continue to steam over low heat until they reach your desired texture - slightly crisp, yet for tender. remove cover, and crumble feta over the beans and season to taste. serve warm straight from the pan so that the feta has a chance to warm a bit. optionally, serve with a few wedges of lemon or a sprinkling of lemon zest! 

"everything" potatoes ~ serves 4
1.5 pounds fingerling potatoes
1 red onion
1 full head of garlic
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
2 tablespoons raw sesame seeds
2 tablespoon caraways seeds
2 teaspoons medium or coarse sea salt
1/8 cup olive oil
fresh cracked pepper to taste

preheat oven to 400 degrees. in a small bowl combine seeds and salt. cut potatoes in half, lengthwise. peel the full head of garlic, and cut large cloves into halves or quarters. cut onion into large chunks, maybe into twelfths. line a large baking tray with parchment paper and pile all the root vegetables together. coat evenly with olive oil, tossing with your hands. then add at least half of the seed & salt mixture, and toss to coat. make the potatoes as seedy as you like, adding more if you want. or reserve a some seeds for plating. crack fresh pepper over the potatoes and pop the baking sheet into the oven for 10 minutes to start. stir just once, and return to oven to continue cooking until desired crispiness (at least another 10+ minutes). serve warm with a sprinkling of fresh seeds.

*note: this seed mixture is also amazing over roasted chicken breasts coated with just a drizzle of oil. thinly sliced, "everything" chicken is a great topper to salads!