This is a lovely bean salad recipe, or more properly, a bean and legume salad.

It is a combination of mixed legumes and green beans in a tasty vinaigrette dressing.

The recipe comes from a cookbook called The Best 30-Minute Vegetarian Recipes by Marie-Claude Morin.

You can serve it as a side salad with either a vegetarian or meat meal.

Prep time: 15 minutes Cook time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:
1 - 14 to 19 ounce (398 to 540 mL) can mixed beans, drained and rinsed
1 tomato, diced
2 green onions, cut into pieces
1/2 red or yellow bell pepper, diced
1/2 zucchini, diced
1 cup (250 mL) halved trimmed green beans

Dressing:
1 tablespoon (15 mL) white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon (15 mL) olive oil
1 teaspoon (5 mL) Dijon mustard
Pinch herbes de Provence (see Tip, below)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:
In a salad bowl, combine mixed beans, tomato, green onions, bell pepper and zucchini.

In a steamer basket set in a pot of boiling water, steam green beans for about 5 minutes or until tender-crisp.

In a small bowl, combine vinegar, oil, mustard, herbes de Provence, and salt and black pepper to taste. Pour over vegetables. Wait at least 15 minutes for flavors to blend before serving.

• Herbes de Provence is a dried herb mixture from southern France. It most often includes thyme, savory, rosemary, marjoram, sage, lavender, bay leaves and basil, as well as fennel seeds. There are many commercial varieties available.

Serves 4.