One of our favorite summer salads (I know, it sounds weird) is chopped ripe peaches with briefly steamed or boiled green beans (4 minutes!) tossed in a mustard vinaigrette. Use a pound of green beans and 2 peeled peaches for 4 people and use your favorite mustard vinaigrette to dress them. Drain the beans, toss on the peaches with dressing to taste and eat. I implore you to make your own vinaigrette—it tastes so much better than any store-bought, no matter how expensive or high quality. Julia Child’s classic dressing recipe is included here, but there are others.

Serves 4