Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Green Beans with Mushrooms, Shallots, and Garlic


As you know, I work hard to get my husband to "eat his vegetables." Sometimes I'm more successful than other times. Some vegetables are more challenging than others. With green beans, it's always a real challenge. They are not his favorite, and that's a real understatement. So, you can imagine my surprise when we visited good friends who served these green beans alongside a main course, and his green beans disappeared. I mean he ate them all! Here's the recipe for awesome green beans.

Ingredients:

2 cups green beans, cut into 2 inch lengths
1 tsp olive oil
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 shallot, sliced
1/2 tsp garlic
2 Tbs white wine or chicken stock
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves, or 1/2 tsp dried thyme leaves
sprinkle of sea salt

Directions: Bring a saucepan of water to a boil. Prepare the vegetables while the water comes to a boil. Heat the olive oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add the mushrooms, shallot, and garlic, cooking for about 1 minute. Add the white wine or stock, along with the thyme, reduce the heat to low and continue to cook for an additional 3 to 5 minutes. Add the green beans to the boiling water and cook until just tender, about 3 to 5 minutes. Drain the green beans, then add them to the mushroom mixture. Taste, then add salt if needed.


Serves 4

Stealthy Cooking Tip: Adding a favorite vegetable to another vegetable may make it more palatable. In this case, I added mushrooms (a favorite) to green beans (not a favorite). The outcome is that the green beans now taste wonderful to those who like mushrooms. This strategy works well with all kinds of veggies. Think about adding oranges to beets, carrots to peas, or peas to celery. It's all good!

No comments: