My Favorite Green Bean Recipe

Forgive my photo taking skills. They are definitely not the best, in fact I might say I'm camera/photo challenged.

But I am not green bean cooking challenged, even my KIDS love this!! (I'm assuming the bacon pieces are what draw their attention.)

I've loved green beans for as long as I can remember, but it wasn't until I met my husband that I actually had young, tender, green beans. Ones that still had some snap to them and I absolutely fell in love. I'm from the Midwest, so for us green beans were always boiled with potatoes and bacon = no textural differences. Now I'm not slamming that way of preparing them, it's just not my first choice anymore.

If green beans are in season I recommend getting them fresh, snapping the end pieces off and blanching them before doing anything else. If you don't have that luxury then opt for frozen young whole green beans. We prefer the VIP brand. So let's dive right in.

Ingredients

4 strips of bacon chopped

1 small onion chopped

3 cloves of garlic minced

1/4 cup white wine

1 pound green beans (thawed if frozen)

Sea Salt

Fresh Ground Black Pepper

1. Start out with a cold sauce pan and put your bacon pieces in it (I know most people start bacon in a hot skillet but to render out the fact, keep the bacon from curling and get it super crispy you start it out cold and heat both the pan and bacon at the same time)

2. Once your bacon is passed the limp stage but not quite super crisp dump in the onions and stir to combine, if you are using a stainless steel pan the onions will help pull some of the cooked bits off the bottom. Let this cook for about 5 minutes or until the onions are tender. Stirring occasionally.

4. Now dump in the garlic and stir together, cook for about 2 minutes and then add in the white wine to de-glaze the pan and pull up all those yummy cooked bits.

5. After the wine has reduced by half throw in your green beans and warm through.

6. Season with salt and pepper to taste and then serve.

We'll be having this tonight with baby back ribs...YUM!

First "Harvest"

Here I am again, apologizing for my absence. Someone should just throw something at me! I can defend at least 7 days!! We finally took a much needed family vacation to the beautiful Puerto Rico. My parents celebrated their 25th anniversary with a fantastic vow renewal ceremony and I ate until I could eat no more. Bacalaitos, arroz con habichuelas, pulpo, chicharrones de pollo, the list goes on and on.

When we got home from vacation I was greeted by my garden, who in a lush show of green beckoned me closer. That tiny plant above with a small yellow blossom would be Audrey's watermelon, the only one to survive might I add.

Left is our two corn stalks that weren't carried off by our greedy backyard squirrels. As you can see (since I'm a horrid blogger and never provided pictures) the corn is growing out of the Miracle Grow Garden Soil bag. Since we live on base we're very restricted on what/where we can plant so a raised bed was required. A raised bed would be too much of a hassle so we opted for this method to see how it turned out. So far so good.

Everything has seemed to adjust really well to this method, it all had a very slow start and we worried a few times that they just weren't going to make it. We lost a few plants along the way but that much we expected.

This is our first garden here, last year we tried a container tomato plant that we purchased at Wal-Mart, I think it gave us 2 tomatoes and quit. This little green bean plant here is tiny but oh so mighty. It's produced a lot more beans than I had ever expected at it's size.

The tomatoes are doing really well too, and those were the ones we were really concerned about. The heat our here has been outrageous and I was just waiting for the morning when I'd walk out there and the tomatoes would be kaput. Instead I was greeted one morning to 6 tomato plants that seemed to grow a foot overnight. I'm really excited about putting these up. I will definitely blog about that process, might even throw a little canning party. We chose Roma tomatoes and beefsteak tomatoes, next year I'll up the ante to some heirloom varieties and see how that goes.

The one plant that I still have some worry over would be the summer squash.

They've got lovely blooms but we have something that keeps eating them, I'd guess it's little bunny foo foo. I'm open to how to keep them out if you have any suggestions!

The next few pictures are to show the set up so you get a better idea of what we did with the little space we have and the restrictions that we're under.

Two of the kiddie pools had different varieties of potatoes and the third is where our lone watermelon resides. We lined the rest of the bags up along the back fence where they get the best light and are out of the way of wild children. We pulled the potatoes today and are going to replant some more soon.

Here's what our little garden has produced for us so far :)

Yes. I am aware that the Roma tomato is green. This is what happens when you have a 2 year old who insists on "helping" Mommy and Daddy. Don't say you weren't warned. A green tomato here and there is nothing in comparison to the knowledge and connection your children will have to the Earth and their food. Don't worry if they pick a few things before their time, just be sure to let them know when it IS the right time. I will feel successful in parenting if my kids garden at all, even a tiny herb window box would make me happy.

Hopefully I'll have an abundance of pictures to share of our micro harvests.