I know I said I was on a slow cooker/ Crock Pot recipe binge, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to post this ridiculously easy (and healthy!) side dish I made for my family’s Thanksgiving dinner. As a broke grad student, I’ve always viewed Thanksgiving as a wonderful smorgasbord of free food and leftovers for the next five days. But I decided to do a little less freeloading and a little more contributing this year. I asked my mom what I could bring to my aunt’s house for dinner, and she said that nobody had claimed green beans yet. Either I could take them, she said, or she could. Well, when my mom makes green beans, she cooks them in bacon grease, which is a huge ewwwww from this vegetarian. I told her I’d take over, and here’s what I came up with.
You’ll need:
Green beans
Lemons
Garlic
That’s it, really. I usually go with a one lemon to one pound of green bean ratio. The batch I made was two pounds, so I ended up using two pounds of green beans, the juice of two lemons, two teaspoons of minced garlic and half a cup of water. Start by trimming the ends of your green beans. I usually do this in a comfortable chair listening to music. Thanksgiving eve’s music choice was Smallpools.
Mince your garlic, and add to a large frying pan with your lemon juice and the water. Set on medium-high, and let the pan warm before you add the green beans. Stir and cook for about 10 minutes covered- stirring every few minutes. Your beans should look like this when they’re done:
That’s it! pretty easy, right? Not to mention healthy. A lemon and garlic combination is one of my favorites, and as it turns out, it’s pretty good with green beans too!
As for Turkey Day, mine was pretty great. I finally got to meet this handsome fellow, my first cousin once removed, George!
I could spam you with dozens more photos of my holiday weekend, but you came here for my recipe- not my bar pictures. I do want to know, though- what did you make for Thanksgiving?
