Charred Peach + Green Bean Salad

All around us, there have been love letters to the end of summer. The last pool day, the last mountain foray, the final gathering, spread and celebrations of the best season of the year. I’m not yet tethered to the calendar in a way that dictates the changing of seasons, as I will be when Leo starts school and our adventures and celebrations start to hinge more on his freedom. And so, I can allow the fruits and our farmers tell me when the season is ready to wrap. And by all indications, that time is not yet.

The market is exploding with goodness: juicy tomatoes, perfect peaches, crisp green beans, tender lettuces, golden corn, pungent radishes, too much zucchini. And because I’m a hoarder when it comes to local, and because I interpret the abundance as a sign that nature still wants me to fill my tank, savor the bounty, and use it to fire up a few weeks more adventures, I’m being as creative as I can with how to use it all up.

This salad came together in a flash the other night, when we had unexpected family in town. I wanted something fresh and different to serve, and loved the way that a little bit of everything that had come home from our CSA share, and a healthy portion of the “fruit altar” I’ve been making each week got it’s time to shine in this sweet, bright, salad-turned-perfect-side-dish.

AND, let’s not forget this insane basil dressing that brings it all together. It practically deserves a post of it’s own, as it’s so perfect over grain bowls, salads, on tomato sandwiches…you get the point.

If you’re like me, and you’re looking for quick, easy, fresh, inspired ideas to enjoy this last push of summer, this Charred Peach + Green Bean Salad is the peak.

Is that fruit with other foods?

Yes! It is. Little reminder that what grows together goes together, and, if you’re honoring digestion 80% of the time by not eating fruit with other foods, giving space to meals, keeping stress and anxiety at a minimum and practicing good sleep hygiene, your digestive system is strong and robust enough to manage these peaches with other foods in the season when they’re absolutely undeniable.

Two oils?

Yes. It might be a bit confusing when you read the instructions below, to see that I recommend sauteéing your garlic in avocado oil, then adding cold olive oil to make the dressing. Reason being that olive oil is something that I don’t heat – ever. The smoke point of ghee is 485°F degrees, avocado oil is 570°F, while the smoke point of extra-virgin olive oil is only 375°F. Well before a cooking fat or oil reaches its boiling point, it will begin to smoke, and when it starts to smoke, this is a sign that it has started to denature. Denatured oil means that the nutrients are lost, the organic compounds toasted, and in their place a  toxic chemical called aldehydes remains. These aldehydes have been linked to alzheimers, dementia, cancer, heart disease and, from an Ayurvedic perspective, dysfunctional digestive health. Because the smoke point of olive oil is so low, pretty much anytime we’re grilling, baking or sautéing anything, we’re going over and beyond 375°F on the surface of our food….which means (yep) the oil is denatured.

So, I steer clear! And when I need to cook something in oil, I use ghee or avocado oil as in this dressing.

Warm salads are the best salads

One more time for the kids in the back: raw salads are really really hard for us to digest. And when we’ve got full plates of life, full of all sorts of other things that also need digesting, a cold, raw, rough salad can just be too much. Yah, I know that you’ve been hearing for years just how “healthy” they are for you. Particularly raw. And you might still be of the mind that a calorie deficit is a thing. But, newsflash – while vegetables are great for you, they don’t do you much good (in fact, they actually cause harm, digestive struggle and eventually weight gain and disease) if you can’t digest them. So we wanna make sure that’s happening.

Eating cooked vegetables is a wonderful way of supporting the critical digestive system, and a beautiful way of getting more of them into your meals. Not to mention all of the grounding benefits of eating cooked foods instead of raw ones.

Trust me here, cook your salads. Particularly this one.

This peach + green bean salad:

…is a perfect vehicle for snappy-yet-tender green beans, and juicy, not-too-soft peaches. You’re going to grill both of these and you want them to hold shape. The dressing is a non-pesto way to use the boatload of basil that your neighbor brought over, or that was produced on the tiny plant you’re keeping on the patio. And, if you don’t have basil, you could us a host of other herbs – parsley, tarragon, mint, oregano and thyme come to mind.

There’s not much process here, but let me add that the technique of sautéeing the peaches, green beans, garlic and shallots happens in an oil different than the main oil we’re using in the dressing. This is to build flavor, and preserve the nutrients of the oil so don’t overlook it, and don’t skip it!

Lastly, I batch up the basil dressing here massively – something like 8x so that I can use it on all sorts of things. I’ve saved you the commitment to this condiment in the quantities below, but trust me – you may want to batch up yourself!