Stories from Catbird Cottage

Stories from Catbird Cottage

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Stories from Catbird Cottage
Stories from Catbird Cottage
The biggest, butteriest beans

The biggest, butteriest beans

A win for delayed gratification: slurp up all the textures

Melina Hammer's avatar
Melina Hammer
Mar 07, 2025
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Stories from Catbird Cottage
Stories from Catbird Cottage
The biggest, butteriest beans
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Welcome to today’s Stories from Catbird Cottage, and hello new subscribers, it’s great to have you here! I am so pleased that last week’s big pantry post resonated with so many of you. Today I’m sharing a recipe that pulls from a well-stocked pantry, with a goody from my freezer stash (aka chilly pantry) that I stock up on over the growing season… scroll down for more on that!

First though, with many new folks here, it feels like a good time for a little refresher on who I am… ;)

I was a professional food photographer-turned-stylist (I fell hard for the food) and for years worked with the likes of The New York Times, Eating Well, Blue Apron, and others, cooking, styling, *and* photographing assignments. I made the leap as a cookbook author with Kid Chef, a book aimed at empowering young people in the kitchen (it is actually filled with grown-up recipes I make to this day, with a killer glossary to spark curiosity). Fun fact: Kid Chef is a best-selling book and appeared in the Disney movie Noelle, with Bill Hader, Shirley MacLaine, and Anna Kendrick!

Pre-pandemic, we moved to a sweet little Cape Cod in upstate NY, nestled on a plush, mossy hillside. We’ve spent the last 6+ years hosting travelers from near and far at our Catbird Cottage, building humanity at the table. I grow heirloom foods and established gardens to attract loads of pollinators. I love foraging wild foods and use many of them in curated, seasonally-driven dinners. I also produce lively supper clubs - get in touch if you’d like to be added to the list!

supper club prep + revelry

Inspired by it all, I wrote the award-winning book, A Year at Catbird Cottage. It is a love letter to food reflecting the seasons and celebration menus I’ve dreamt up over the years, and the layers of nature I’ve been lucky to connected with in my time here.

I’ve developed recipes for The Kitchn, Food52, Bon Appetit, Cooking Light, and Edible Communties, and I devote time here to a weekly newsletter, aimed at making zesty eating more available to us all. Please check out The Recipe Index! Every single recipe I’ve developed here is linked - it’s like a living cookbook.

Consider upgrading for the full experience, which includes musings on the growing season and the many tips and tricks I have grown to rely on to make good eating (and entertaining) attainable.

Keen to know more about foraging? Looking forward to more deep dives into the pantry and freezer? Stories from Catbird Cottage is a reader-supported publication. Consider becoming a paid subscriber for the full experience. Huge thanks for your support!

And now, back to today’s post. This is a recipe I’ve dreamt about for a while, and one I am VERY happy to share with you…

It’s only when the ground begins to thaw in late winter that I feel comfortable officially saying goodbye to the many preserved foods I’ve diligently bottled up during the overwhelming growing season. Squirreled away in the pantry or freezer, I employ frugal judgement as when they’re to be brought back out to shine again.

Every year, I make batches of tomato confit from my harvest. I grow a variety of small tomatoes explicitly to use in batches of this confit, varying the aromatics depending on mood or what I have available. Some tomatoes I use include sungolds, Santorini, currant tomatoes, and pink-striped blush. For those of you starting seeds soon, consider adding one of them to your list! Each varietal is so cheery and beautiful, and each delivers a different sweetness or acidity.

Preserved under a layer of fragrant olive oil, the confit keeps for up to a month in the fridge. But I usually freeze most batches, because I am serious about extending this summertime joy, to incorporate over the brittle months that lead me back to warm days again. I covet jars of this confit, sparingly sprinkle ramp salt, and reluctantly dole out pickled shiso, wild blueberry jam, and garlic mustard pesto, until I am certain I’ll be able to make more again. I attribute this to “the saver” in me, instilled by my mom.

Refer a friend

After recently paging through Ottolenghi’s new book Comfort, I had an a-ha moment and my idea finally gelled: I’d make a great gigante bean dish and use a container of the confit to crown it, to guarantee seduction. I pulled a bag of royal corona beans from the bean shelf in the pantry, made a quick batch of whipped feta, thawed last summer’s tomato confit, and fried up a batch of crispy garlic. Voilà, some pretty exceptional eating and the only time demand really, is cooking the beans. If you don’t already have tomato confit, it can bubble away while the beans cook, then be stored. This dish is very much greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts and the harmony of textures is bliss.

The beans are unbelievably buttery. On their own, they are somewhat spicy in their broth. With the intermingling elements, the perfect balance is struck. The gigante beans become more robust, soaking up the potlikker when given the chance to sit overnight, after cooking. I promise your patience will be rewarded with very plump, remarkably creamy beans when it’s time to serve.

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