For a heartier dinner, add an egg, either poached or fried, over the top. It will add a nice creaminess to the vegetables.

Lardons add a nice smoky flavor and a meaty texture to this otherwise vegetable oriented dish. Skip them if you want to keep it completely vegetable based.

A while back I wrote a recipe for corned beef hash that had a number of different vegetables in addition to the usual suspects present in a hash.  In that post, I mentioned that hash is great with just vegetables or almost all vegetables.  Here, hash is lightened up with a mix of potatoes including sweet potatoes, fresh cranberry beans (which are in season right now), Tuscan kale, and a myriad of other vegetables all brought together with a bit of lardons and topped with a fried egg.  This is an easy ‘go-to’ dinner that Tara and I have not too infrequently.  It’s filling and fairly quick as it takes just under an hour or so to pull together.  I didn’t make this with an egg but usually will serve this with either a poached egg or fried egg on top.  I can’t remember why we decided against the egg the night I made this…we probably figured the hash was enough.  However, we love eggs and love eggs for dinner and this dish is a perfect canvas with which to use eggs.  So, it works for us on a number of levels…eggs or not!  Couple all the vegetables with the high fiber and protein of the fresh beans and this dish really packs a lot of nutritional punch.  Really, you can just look at the picture of the dish with all the various colored vegetables and you know it’s at least somewhat good for you.  They say eating the rainbow is the best way to get all of the various nutritional elements needed in your diet.  This dish succeeds in that regard.

If you are wondering what lardons are, it’s simply slab bacon that is sliced thick and then the thick slices are cut into thick matchstick-like shapes.  They are sweated over low heat, releasing the fat from the bacon.  They shouldn’t be overcooked and turned into little bacon bits.  Rather, they should be slightly chewy with some of the fat remaining on the inside while still having an ever so slight crunch on the outside.  They are very tasty and classically, they are used in frisee salads with a poached egg in French cuisine (and in other classic dishes as well).  If you can’t find slab bacon (unsliced), skip it.  There’s not need to use regular bacon here.  Just use grapeseed oil or some other vegetable oil.  Likewise, if you prefer to keep the hash completely vegetable based, just skip the lardons.  It will be great either way.

P.S.- Parboiled means partially boiled and for potatoes, typically that takes between 15-20 minutes.  Bring the water to a boil, place the potatoes in the boiling water and cook 15-20 minutes or until you can put a fork into the potato easy but still meet some resistance in the middle.

Recipe follows after the jump… Continue reading →