Sort-Of a Three Bean Salad

Half-eaten salad. My son grudgingly stopped eating for 30 seconds so I could snap a photograph. He glared at me like it was child abuse or something.



Danny loved this, and he's not the sort of person to carry on about a salad. I made some major changes to the original recipe, but I liked the idea of using both garbanzo and kidney beans. I had fresh green beans, so I steamed them lightly and tossed them in. The addition of tinned corn wasn't something I would have thought of, though I suspect I'll never be permitted to serve a three bean salad without it again.

I always have difficulty dissolving granulated sugar in oil and vinegar for salad dressings. I'm sure it is just laziness on my part, but I usually resort to using either honey, golden syrup or Cane syrup instead. This time, I used two tablespoons of Steens boiled cane syrup and I suspect that was what took this rather ordinary bean salad into the top tier of my seven year old son's "Best ever" dishes. He insisted I blog it, lest I forget what I did different from the recipe. I do think you can manage with sugar, or honey, or what have you, but a bottle of Steen's in nice to pour over French toast (and no, they aren't compensating me to say that, I just like and use the product).

1 tin kidney beans
1 tin garbanzo beans (chick peas)
1/2 lb. green beans, lightly steamed and refreshed under cold water
1/2 cup diced green pepper
1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
1/2 cup corn oil
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons boiled cane syrup or 1/2 cup sugar
Dash lemon juice
Black pepper and salt to taste (I didn't add any salt as the tinned items already had plenty)

This salad improves after a day, though it is pretty fantastic on the first.