She Said (2) - Farm-Style Green Beans

I just realized I'm behind getting the He Said/She Said posts up. Don't worry they will all be up before the end of the month. If you recall my husband and I are having a bit of a contest with each of us using a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens® New Grilling Book to create a meal. In total there will be 12 recipes, 6 of his choosing and 6 of mine. The contest ends August 31 so the first week of September I will post a poll where you can vote for the meal you liked best. The rules are all the ingredients must be used but the amounts can be altered.

Frying Bacon

I found a method for chicken I wanted to try that called using bacon grease. It only needed some of the grease. Now when I frying bacon I really like frying up a lot at one time then putting some aside in the freezer for use in salads and other dishes. Looking through the Better Homes and Gardens® New Grilling Book I found a rather interesting yet easy to prepare side dish calling for 3 tbsp of bacon grease and 4 slices of bacon. Just what I needed! This would give me a couple of meals from the bacon plus bacon pieces in the freezer.

I took a package of frozen bacon from the freezer and cut it across the strips. Once fried this gives lovely sized homemade bacon bits for Caesar salad so is handy to have a few packages on hand. I drained the bacon pieces then reserved 2 dessert spoons of them for the dish I was currently making. The rest of the grease was spooned into a heat proof bowl reserving about 3 tbsp of the grease in the pan.

Tomato Mixture

This dish consists of a two step process in which you make the sauce in one pan and cook the beans in another then combine them for the finished side dish. It would be possible to cook this on the side burner of an outdoor grill. The only two changes I made to this recipe is I did not peel or seed the tomatoes and I steamed rather than boiled the beans.

Farm-Style Green Beans
source: Meredith Corporation, Better Homes and Garden New Grilling Book, 2005. Pp. 136

4 thick slices bacon, cut up
2 medium onions, sliced
3 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped.
½ tsp salt
1 lb green beans

Wash and trim green beans. Cook bacon until crisp. Spoon out the bacon using a slotted spoon and drain. Stir the sliced onions into the bacon grease and cook over medium heat until onions are tender. Stir in the tomatoes and salt. Cook uncovered for 5 minutes or until most of the liquid is absorbed. Place the beans in a small amount of salted water. Bring to a boil. Cook until tender crisp. Drain. Transfer the beans to a hot serving dish and top with the tomato mixture.

Farm-Style Green Beans

We grilled pork steaks for dinner. Unfortunately there is only one recipe in this book for pork steaks which is really a shame. Pork steaks are larger and just as tasty. The pork steak was grilled then lightly caramelized with Diana Sauce®. Sides were steamed potatoes with fresh chives and Farm-Style Green Beans.

The Farm-Style Green Beans quite tasty and easy to prepare. It was a nice way to serve green beans. The tomato mixture itself would pair nicely with meats, rice and potatoes as well. I think the tomato mixture would be nice kicked up a notch with the addition of a splash of hot sauce.
\