What to do with a glut of runner beans

Even with careful successive sowing or planting, runner beans always seem to come in a glut during August and September.

I don't think of it as a glut, but a welcome harvest and  you can freeze them, or cook with them. Runner beans freeze well and cook easily from frozen. This means you can enjoy your own organic runner beans well into late autumn and winter. They also have an affinity cooked with tomatoes which coincidentally are also plentiful at this time solving two gluts in one go.

This is based on a Greek recipe called Fasolakia, which is a sort of tomato bean stew, and much nicer than it sounds. The Greek version uses a bean similar to French beans, but it works equally well with runner beans.

Freezing runner beans is quick and easy.  The images below illustrate the necessary steps.

Check first that you have a good number of ice cubes in the freezer which will be needed to cool the beans quickly once cooked. Pick all the runner beans of suitable size, wash and clean them and prepare them by removing any strings and slicing into suitable sizes. Before you cook the beans fill a bowl full of cold fresh water.

Have a large pan of slightly salted water on a rolling boil, add the runner beans and just blanch (i.e. cook) for 2 mins. Drain the beans, add the ice cubes to the bowl of cold fresh water and add the beans. Stir them to distribute the temperature, and when fully cold remove from pan and dry thoroughly.

The beans are now ready for freezing. They can be cooked from frozen and having already been blanched, the beans will only require a further 2-3 mins to be fully cooked.