Greek Green Beans with Potatoes and Tomato (Fasolakia)🇬🇷

Fasolakia, which simply means casserole style green beans with lots of extra virgin olive oil, is a simple one pot vegetarian dish cooked in most Greek homes.

It tastes amazing with Greek feta cheese  and some crusty bread. You can replace or add the potato with carrot, and add zucchini if you like. If you do add zucchini, cut it into even size chunks and be mindful that zucchini will add more liquid to your dish, so you may need to monitor the water content. I also love this dish with feta cheese and lamb cutlets.

I don't need to tell you how nutritious this is and how great it tastes the next day for lunch too, so don't worry about left overs 😉

The recipe serves about 7-8 people in my family. 

Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 750 g of green beans, ends trimmed
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 medium size onions, chopped
• 4-5 cloves garlic, chopped 
• 4 medium sized Desiree or Nicola potatoes, quartered and then halved. You could also use sweet potato but keep in mind that it cooks faster than regular potato.
• 2- 3 medium sized zucchinis, halve lengthwise and cut into 2-3 cm pieces
• 1 carrot, cut as above
• 1 small bunch parsley, chopped
• 1 long red chilli, chopped (optional)
•  2 x 400 g quality tinned tomatoes, or 8-10 chopped fresh tomatoes
• 1 bay leaf 1/4 cup water (monitor this)
•  salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon of sugar (optional)

Method

1. Heat approx 2-3 tbs of the olive oil over a medium-high heat in a large saucepan
2. Add the onion, garlic and chilli and cook till soft (approx 2-3 mins).
3.  Add the tinned or fresh tomatoes, water and bay leaf and cook for another 5 mins. 
4.  Add the potatoes and/or carrot, stir, cover with lid. Cook on medium heat for about 10 -15 mins before adding the green beans and zucchini.
5. Cook for a further 50 mins with the lid on or until the  potatoes are just right.
6. Add the parsley, remaining oil, salt and pepper to taste and stir well. 
7. Serve with feta cheese and plenty of bread.

• Notes; Keep a watchful eye to make sure that there is enough liquid and you don’t burn your meal. Also, give it a couple of good stirs while it’s cooking.