Nat’s Green Beans

This one is for you Laura Giesemann! There’s nothing really special about my green beans, but I’ll explain it in detail anyways. I grew up in the country. My grandfather was a farmer and everything we ate as a kid was fresh vegetables from his garden. My mom always cooked green beans and I’ve always been a fan. It’s rare that you’ll see me buying a can of green beans (unless it’s for Reveille cause she’s on a diet these days). I buy my green beans fresh. Unfortunately, store fresh isn’t quite the same as garden fresh but it will have to do. I didn’t inherit my grandfather’s green thumb. I tried. It didn’t work. ha! Sorry I don’t have a fancy picture this time but here it is…my secret (not so secret) recipe:

1. I start with a little olive oil and a diced onion.
2. I season the onion with salt, black pepper and garlic powder.
3. As the onion cooks, I chop the ends off of the beans.
4. Once the onion is translucent and starting to stick, I toss in the green beans and add low-sodium chicken broth.
5. If the chicken broth isn’t enough to cover the green beans entirely, I’ll add extra water.
6. From this point, you bring the beans to a boil and you just let them cook.
7. I often add a couple pieces of sausage for flavor (or sometimes instead of using olive oil, I pan fry a couple pieces of bacon, use the grease and then crumble the bacon back in) But I don’t add this until the water is mostly boiled out.
8. You can simply leave the beans cooking, until all of the water is gone and the beans start to stick to the bottom. I like to “brown” the beans to finish them off. Once the bottom of your pot starts to turn brown and sticky, they are done!