Here's how I make the tomatoes and green beans. I feel like a genius because it is delicious (!), it uses plentiful stuff from my garden like "post-mature" fat lumpy green beans that are on the tough side plus shellies, and plump overripe tomatoes which are a metaphor for my life, and I developed the recipe partly (largely?) from being lazy.

Quasi-GREEK GREEN BEANS AND TOMATOES

3/4 cup olive oil
2 cups chopped onions
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups green beans, trimmed
3 large tomatoes, peeled and diced
2 teaspoons sugar
1 – 2 chicken bouillon cubes
Oregano, basil, thyme , parsley, crushed red pepper flakes, liberally
"in the true sense of the word"
Parmesan, Feta Cheese

The night before: trim beans and put in pressure cooker, bring just up to the first wobble, then turn off. Leave to cook off the heat overnight. Also: chop onions and put in crockpot with olive oil, garlic and spices, on low overnight. (Not fresh herbs, they are added toward the end.)

Next day: Put tomatoes and onion spice mixture together in a big pot and cook until tomatoes are cooked down and there’s a nice broth. Add bouillon cubes, fresh thyme & basil, parmesan to taste. Serve topped with feta.

You will feel a strange desire to cross yourself right-to-left, bow deeply from the waist 3 times, and become Orthodox.

In the future I will try to tweak this into being Sicilian, so you can be a proper Catholic and cross yourself t'other way. That's because the dear Orthodox do it their way, but the Catholics do it God's way. :o} . :o}

And now for the Sicilian joke:

Young Mario lived in Sicily and bought a donkey from a farmer for $100.

The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day. The next day he drove up saying, 'Sorry son, but I have some bad news, the donkey died.'

Mario replied,’ Well, then just give me my money back.'

The farmer said, 'Can't do that. I went and spent it already.'

Mario said, 'Ok, then, just bring me the dead donkey.'

The farmer asked, 'what ya gonna do with a dead donkey?

Mario said, 'I'm going to raffle him off.'

The farmer said, you can't raffle off a dead donkey!'

Mario said, 'Sure I can, I just won't tell anybody he's dead.'

A month later, the farmer met up with Mario and asked, 'What happened with that dead donkey?'

Mario said, 'I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at $2 each and I made a profit of $898.'

The farmer said, 'Didn't anyone complain?'

Mario said, 'Just the guy who won, so I gave him his $2 back.'

Mario now works for the government.

OH DEAR! I hope you didn't try the tomato bean recipe "exactly" as written, because I forgot to say: when you put the beans in the pressure cooker, also put in a half cup of water.

The water is really important.

I just wrote it quickly, thinking (no, not thinking) surely everybody knows to put a little water in the pressure cooker. It's like you don't write "peel the onions" because everybody knows to do that.

It occurs to me there must be a Scriptural hermeneutical principle involved there by way of metaphor, but I haven't figured it out yet. Give me time.

:o)

Otherwise, that recipe is the best, the BEST. And I am serious about that 3/4 cup of olive oil. Trust me.