Garlic Green Beans with Mushrooms

As someone with the same food preferences as the average 8 year old, I find it very exciting when I finally come across vegetables that don't disgust me. In general, when trying to get in my 3-4 servings of greenery a week (I know, it's supposed to be daily, but I'm just one woman!), I usually stick to carrot sticks, celery sticks, cherry tomatoes, or anything else you would find in a child's Barbie lunchbox (yes, because that is where I do my grocery shopping... in school lunchrooms). In fact, with the exception of potatoes and corn (and only corn that is still on the cob and has had nothing weird done to it), there are very few vegetables that I will willingly eat cooked. Raw spinach salad is tolerable, I suppose (but not handsome enough to tempt me), but the smell of cooked spinach is enough to make me gag! I have a similar reaction to cooked broccoli and asparagus (I used to have to leave the room when Kirsten would make dinner in our college apartment because she really liked cooked peas and the smell was overwhelming).

There are, however, a couple dishes of cooked veggies that I've enjoyed over the years. In an effort to create a healthy, affordable lifestyle for myself, I've decided to start trying to prepare some of these vegetable dishes at home. I thought I'd be able to get by by just eating the raw vegetables that I've come to love, but it has become apparent that eating the same unseasoned veggies every day gets old really fast. To this end, I recently made my third attempt at Garlic Green Beans and Mushrooms.

Garlic Green Beans and Mushrooms

Ingredients:

A few servings of Green Beans
2-3 cloves of Garlic
Handful or so of Mushrooms (or, if you would prefer, squash)
1 1/2 Teaspoons salt
1/4 Teaspoon Pepper
1 1/2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Directions:

1) In a skillet or sauce pan, bring 1" of water to boil.
2) Add 1 teaspoon salt and green beans.
3) Boil green beans for 8-10 minutes.
4) Drain green beans and dry pan.
5) With pan back on stove, add olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, mushrooms, and garlic.
6) Sautee mushrooms and garlic until cooked.
7) Add green beans back into pan with another 1/4 teaspoon salt and stir everything together until warm.
8) Serve.

Note: the ingredients and instructions aren't very exact because there is a lot of room for error





My mom started making these green beans a few years ago, and it wasn't long after that I finally tried them and conceded that they were, in fact, delicious. I didn't even mind the mushrooms (or sometimes squash) in the dish, even though I generally dislike them (coating something with garlic can do wonders). I'd tried making these green beans twice before with terrible results (in spite of the extremely large margin for error). Each time, I forgot almost all of the seasonings and used too much oil, thus burning the green beans pretty badly (not to mention that the splattering oil also burned me). This time, when asking my mom for the recipe over the phone yet again, I decided to actually listen and write things down so as to not mess it up. And guess what? I didn't mess it up! I boiled the beans, added the seasonings, sauteed the mushrooms, and mixed it all together just like she said, and it turned out really well!

This opens up so many possibilities!

How do you feel about cooked vegetables? Are there any that make you gag at either the taste or smell of them? Do you really want to learn how to make the chicken shown in the picture? If so, directions can be found here!!