Tag: vegetables

Categories
Side Dish

I finally found the cooking method I’ve ‘bean’ looking for

Fresh green beans are a beautiful and delicious addition to the summer dinner table.
Fresh green beans are a beautiful and delicious addition to the summer dinner table.

I absolutely adore green beans. They’ve been near the top of my favorite veggies list since I was little.

My normal ways of preparing them is to open a can, dump them in a microwave-safe container with some salt and pepper and heat them up or to fry up some bits of bacon in a pot and then add the canned beans and seasonings.

But despite my pedestrian preparation of green beans, I am always drawn to fresh ones in the produce aisle when they show up each year. Unfortunately for me (and probably because of my years of canned bean consumption), I’m not a huge fan of crunchy cooked green beans and I seem to struggle to cook them in such a way that they don’t get mushy and overdone.

I still grabbed a big bag of them recently, though, vowing to finally conquer fresh green beans once and for all.

And I totally accomplished it.

So, I thought I would share my green bean process with anyone else who struggles with the perfect line between crispy and mushy fresh beans every summer. I don’t have a specific source for this one, as it’s a product of lots of trial and error over the years, although I’m sure I’m not the first one to try such a preparation.

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Fresh Green Beans

Fresh green beans are a beautiful and delicious addition to the summer dinner table.
Course Side Dish
Keyword garlic, green beans, vegetables

Ingredients

  • 1-2 pounds fresh green beans
  • About 1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
  • 6-8 cloves garlic minced
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • red pepper flakes to taste optional

Instructions

  • Cut or snap the stem end of each bean off (I also snapped the longer ones in half so they’d fit in my pot more easily.) and wash them thoroughly.
  • Put the beans in a large pot and cover them with cold water.
  • Bring the pot to a boil and cook for about 8 to 10 minutes or until they’re just fork tender.
  • When the beans are almost done boiling, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When the beans are done, drain them well and then add them to the skillet, stirring to coat them in oil.
  • Add in the garlic, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes and stir again, letting the beans sit for a couple minutes on each side before stirring them around. Your goal is to get just a little bit of char on the beans and brown the garlic.
  • When the garlic is browned, remove the beans from heat and serve immediately.

These also reheated as leftovers really well, which was nice, because I made way more green beans than we could eat in one meal.

And they turned out just how I like them: a beautiful bright green, plenty of flavor and no crunch when biting into them.

I know a lot of people will argue with me about crunchy beans, but if you’re like me and would rather not have that crisp texture, I’d recommend giving this method a try.

And, of course, there’s always the canned variety, but who wants to get out the can opener during the time of year that gardens are overflowing with fresh veggies?

This piece first appeared in print on July 11, 2019.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Main Dish Side Dish

Make ‘mushroom’ for lots of fresh veggies this summer

Mixing fresh vegetables and sausage with some simple seasonings makes for a great summer dish.
Mixing fresh vegetables and sausage with some simple seasonings makes for a great summer dish.

I’ve mentioned before that my gardening ability is pretty sad to say the least.

Part of that is due to my inability to figure out how much water to dump on my plants, and part of that is due to a thieving squirrel, who convinced me for most of a summer that my tomatoes were vanishing into thin air just before they were ripe enough to pick.

Thank goodness for good friends, local grocery stores and farmer’s markets now that I’ve mostly given up my goals of urban farming.

And with it being the time of year for gardens to begin bursting with lots of great veggies, I’ve started getting really impatient to put them on our dinner table as much as possible.

This week’s recipe is one that Joey and I decided to create while standing in the produce department of our local grocery store last week, so while I’m sure there are dozens of recipes much like it online, we really just made this one up as we went along.

A couple thoughts: if you’d rather make this a vegetarian dish, ditch the sausage and toss in some more veggies. The mushrooms give this a nice, meaty flavor all on their own. Also, once zucchini and summer squash is ready, it would be an amazing addition to this as well, cut into 1/2-inch rounds or half moons.

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Summer Vegetables and Sausage

Mixing fresh vegetables and sausage with some simple seasonings makes for a great summer dish.
Course Main Course, Side Dish
Keyword bell pepper, mushrooms, sausage, tomatoes, vegetables

Ingredients

  • 2 bell peppers any color
  • 8 to 10 ounces grape or cherry tomatoes
  • 8 ounces whole baby bella mushrooms
  • 3 about 9 ounces bratwursts or sausages of your choice
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • black pepper to taste
  • garlic salt to taste
  • onion powder to taste

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
  • Wash and prepare the vegetables. Slice the bell peppers into 2-inch by 1/2-inch pieces. Slice the mushrooms in half. Leave the tomatoes whole.
  • Slice the sausages into 1/2-inch rounds. (We used a chicken, spinach and feta sausage that was out of this world.)
  • Line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil and spread all the ingredients out on it. Drizzle with olive oil and then sprinkle on your seasonings.
  • Use your hands to coat the ingredients in the oil and seasonings and spread everything out into as much of a single layer as you can.
  • Bake for 12 minutes and then give the ingredients a stir. Bake for another 12 minutes or until the sausage is done all the way through and the tomatoes are starting to burst.
  • Serve immediately.

We had leftovers of this and ate it a couple nights later after mixing it with a little marinara sauce and serving it over spaghetti. It was awesome.

There wasn’t much spring to enjoy this year, but at least that means summer gardens can get underway.

For my part, I’ll stick to keeping some flowers alive this year and get my veggies elsewhere. That sneaky squirrel will have to go bother someone else for his meals this summer.

This piece first appeared in print on May 24, 2018.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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