Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Tastes Like College: Four-Bean Salad

Freshman year of college, my friends and I ate dinner almost every day in OU's cafeteria. It was actually really good — they had a whole bunch of stations, and a salad bar, and a vegetarian section, and a Chick-fil-A in it. Oh, and a frozen yogurt bar and cake stand. It's a miracle I didn't graduate 700 pounds heavier.

In an attempt to pretend I was eating healthy, I did start out every dinner with a trip to the salad bar. (This was to negate the copious amounts of pasta and fro-yo I consumed that year.) They always had these mixed "salads" in addition to regular salad, and one of my favorites was four-bean salad. After we moved off-campus, I didn't get my four-bean fix again, until ...

I was not much of a cook in college. If it could fit in my Crock Pot and was a ham, I would cook it, but that was about it. So my first-ever cookbook was a gift from Matt (don't worry, I requested it!) called The I-Don't-Know-How-to-Cook Book. Now that I'm actually cooking regularly, this book isn't as great since most of the things in it contain a lot of oil and sugar. But it did have a recipe for four-bean salad, and it is SOOO GOOOOD!

I took it to a church potluck. This is how these things always work out, I guess.

There's that Crock Pot I told you about. It cooks more than ham now, I swear.

Ingredients:
• Onion
• 3/4 c. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• 1/3 c. corn oil (I used vegetable oil. Canola would probably be fine too.)
• 1/3 c. white vinegar
• 1 can kidney beans
• 1 can garbanzo beans/chickpeas
• 1 can cut green beans
• 1 can wax beans

Chop the onion. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Let chill for a few hours. Devour.


What's your favorite type of "salad"?

4 comments

  1. I'm a fan of salad bars, my favorite salad is a seafood salad.

    Your comment on eating on campus in college reminded me of my freshman year, and how my parents assumed I would eat 3 meals a day. I had so many meal plans left over at Christmas time I had to stock up in the common store and bring stuff home.

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  2. Ok, I've never tried a wax bean before, but this sounds really good! I like just about any kind of salad, including pasta and potato salad...mmm, carbs!

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  3. @Morgan, wax beans are pretty much the same as green beans. I also love pasta and potato salads!
    @Lauren, that's exactly the reason I picked the world's smallest food plan!

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  4. I never had a food plan in all four years of college... However, My Matt had one for his first two years and it enough for me to join him for lunch and/or dinner almost everyday. I ate more Sbisa and Pie R Square than I'd care to admit...

    Also - Yum! I'm a caesar salad in the traditional sense, but pasta salad would have to be my favorite "salad". Oh, or fruit salad. -sigh- Can't decide. :)

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