Fried Green Beans – Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Fried Green Beans. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post. The original recipe was found in the Cooking With Pryde cookbook by Pressley Ridge.

Robyn’s Take:

This week’s recipe was one that Nance found in a cookbook, scanned, and sent to me for my approval. As is the way, when I got the scan, I thought “Oh, that’ll be neat to try”, and then when it actually came time to MAKE the recipe, I was all wailing and rending my garments, asking why why whyyyyyy Nance hates me so much. I mean, I know. I KNOW. It’s my own stupid fault for okaying the recipe, right? But seriously. Why do you think Nance hates me? Is she jealous because I’ve got so many cats, you think? I bet that’s totally it.

So, fried green beans. Fried. Green beans. I swear, I’ve fried more stuff since we started this site than in all my previous mumblety-six years combined.

Your ingredients:

Fried Green Beans (1)

2 lb fresh green beans (I ended up with 1 1/2 pounds, I think. There’s only the two of us, after all!), flour, eggs, milk, salt, baking powder, and oil.

Just a note – I was all ready to make these damn things, when I realized that the milk was 2 weeks past the expiration date. Yeah, apparently we don’t use milk all that much! But I’ve read – somewhere – that you can use evaporated milk in place of regular milk when you’re cooking or baking (I don’t think I’d eat it on my cereal or anything), and since I always have a can or two of that on hand, I decided to give it a try. I’m pleased to announce that it actually worked okay, so I’m going to keep that in mind for the future.

First, you cook your green beans in salted water. The recipe gave no guidelines (“cook beans in salted water” is all it says), so I’m telling you that I boiled my beans in salted water for 10 minutes so that they were cooked through, but not overdone. You can see that I threw the beans in the pot, then remembered I was supposed to salt the water, and just dumped some water in on top of the beans. I’m such a professional.

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Alice snoopervised from her spot near the top of the kitchen cabinets.

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“Why you never make anything tasty, lady?”

When the beans are done cooking, drain them and let them cool.

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I let them cool for about 10 minutes, then I was impatient and unwilling to wait any longer because AS USUAL I’d waited until an hour before dinner to start making this shit, and WHY do I do this?!

Place the beans on a sheet of waxed paper (I used parchment paper; I’m sure I’ve got waxed paper around here somewhere, but I have no idea where the hell it is. You’d think “With the tin foil and plastic wrap” would be the correct answer, but NO.) and then cover with flour.

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I used my hands to kind of roll the green beans around so they’d be coated on all sides.

In a large bowl, mix eggs, milk, baking powder, and salt; whisk together well. Take your floured beans and place in the bowl of egg mixture, then stir so that they’re well coated. I imagine this might work better if you do it in batches, but I did all the beans at the same time.

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Heat an inch of oil in a skillet over med-high heat. When it’s hot, spoon beans into the oil and fry until browned. “Turning only once”, says the original recipe. Yeah, well, fuck that. I didn’t turn them at all. I just reached in with the (metal) spoon and stirred once or twice so that the beans wouldn’t stick together too badly.

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It didn’t take them too long to cook, and then I put them on a thick layer of paper towels to drain. I think it took about three batches to get all the beans done.

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The verdict? NOPE. I mean, they weren’t BAD, but nothing to write home about, nothing I want to have again, and WAY too much of a pain in the ass. NO THANK YOU.

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Nance’s Take:

Our family grew our own food and that’s probably the reason I can’t be bothered with gardening to this day. I’m over the whole becoming one with nature bullshit. That dream died as a child when I was snapping bushels of motherfucking green beans while trying to avoid that little yellow bug that lurked on them. We canned the green beans (oh, the joy of washing jars in scalding hot water) and fried them in lard.  Full disclosure: I do not appreciate fresh green beans.

Fried Green Beans

Since this was a new recipe I decided to buy a bag of what appeared to be fresh beans. I’m suspicious of any green bean that isn’t limp and has a color that resembles camouflage hunting pants.

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The color of these green beans looks fake. More full disclosure: I was also making dinner (another new recipe coming soon) and my mother was finishing up the batch of homemade pierogies we had started that afternoon. What does this all mean?  My kitchen was in chaos when I made these stupid green beans.

Fried Green Beans

The recipe called for 2 pounds of green beans. I had exactly 14 ounces.  I realized my error after I had already dumped the full 2 cups of flour on the damn things.

Fried Green Beans

This part really pissed me off because how in the hell was I suppose to stop that baking powder from clumping? I have the same problem when I make French toast and add flour to the eggs/milk. This kind of shit annoys me and if anybody has any idea how to do this, please tell me your secret.

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The first green bean goes in. You can see to your left where I had another burner lit up for something else I was making. I was in A.D.D hell.

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WTF?  It looks like a worm.

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I got fed up and put a bunch of them in the oil because I don’t have all day, beans! Note the oil that’s splattered everywhere – I was getting really cranky.

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At this point I had my mom, Rick, The Beagle, Sadie, Waldo, Julie and Felina all up in my kitchen business. Trey came down to nebshit, but I told him to get the hell out of my way so he went back upstairs to his bedroom. He’s a smart young man.

Fried Green Beans

I had better luck with those freaking corn dogs and y’all know what a disaster that was! Just look at that greasy mess of rubbery vegetable-tasting shit.

Fried Green Beans

This is a grocery bag full of floured green beans. We each tried one, hated them, and agreed wholeheartedly to pitch the rest in the garbage.

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But wait! A few brave souls tried the beans and actually liked them.

Fried Green Beans

The Beagle finished the fried ones off with a little help from The Chihuahua (aka: Felina/FiFi). And now we know who the freaks in the family really are.

This is definitely a recipe that I’ll never make again.

Fried Green Beans - Nance and Robyn make the same recipe
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
: Side dish
Cuisine: Fried!
Serves: 6
Ingredients
  • 2 lb fresh green beans
  • 2 c. all-purpose flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 c. milk
  • salt
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • oil (Robyn used Canola oil)
Instructions
  1. Clip ends of green beans.
  2. Cook beans in salted water for about 10 minutes. Drain and let cool.
  3. Place beans on wax or parchment paper and cover with flour (use your hands to roll the beans around so that they're evenly coated).
  4. In a large bowl, beat eggs and add milk, baking powder and 1 tsp salt.
  5. Take floured beans and place in bowl with egg mixture. Coat beans completely.
  6. Fill skillet with 1 inch of oil. Heat on medium/high heat.
  7. Spoon large spoonsful of bean mixture into hot oil. Fry until browned - turning only once (ha) or using a spoon to stir the beans so they don't stick together too badly.
  8. Life out onto paper towel and drain. Salt, if desired.

 

Sauteed Green Beans & Cherry Tomatoes – Nance & Robyn make the same recipe

Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Sauteed Green Beans & Cherry Tomatoes, found over at EatingWell.com. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post.

Robyn’s Take:

This week’s recipe was my choice, and I foisted it off on Fred because sometimes a girl’s just tired of trying to pick a recipe. After I rejected his okra-based suggestion (I could ONLY imagine what Nance would have said about that – and now that I said that, she’s going to be all “I love okra!” Liar.), he came up with this one. We have tons of cherry tomatoes right now, and harvested 73 tons of green beans earlier this Summer, so this seemed like a good – and relatively easy – way to use up some of that stuff.

The ingredients:

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A pound of green beans – previously in the freezer, thawed – 2 cups of cherry tomatoes (we grow Sungold tomatoes – they’re orange when they’re ripe, so those are NOT unripe tomatoes)(also, if you’ve never tried Sungolds, you are missing OUT)(also also, recipe called for 1 1/2 cups of tomatoes, but I decided to round up), Balsamic vinegar, olive oil (recipe called for extra virgin, but Fred hates the extra virgin, so it’s plain ol’ olive oil), garlic, salt and pepper.

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Step one: heat oil over med-high heat, saute green beans 2 – 3 minutes. Not pictured: add water, cover, reduce heat to medium, and cook for 3 – 6 minutes, depending on how tender you want your green beans. Mine were already pretty tender from being blanched, cooled, frozen, ignored for a couple of months, and then thawed out, so I opted for 3 minutes.

Next step: Push the beans to the side, add the remaining oil, add garlic, and cook until the garlic is fragrant, about 30 seconds. I probably used more garlic than the recipe called for, because I always do. I LOVE garlic.

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Next: add tomatoes (which I got around to slicing in half, you’ll note.)

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Stir all that stuff together, and cook ’til the tomatoes start to break down, 2 – 3 minutes.

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Remove from heat, add the vinegar, salt and pepper, and stuff in your face.

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The verdict? I thought it was just okay; Fred LOVED it. In fact, we had it as a side dish the day I made the London Broil (aren’t I just so EFFICIENT?) and for dinner the next night, Fred had some of the London Broil, sliced, in a tortilla. He topped the steak with a big spoonful of the Sauteed Green Beans & Cherry Tomatoes. Doesn’t that sound gross? And what’s worse is that two days later he was going to have MORE of the green beans and cherry tomatoes on a tortilla by itself (or maybe on a little piece of leftover London Broil, I don’t remember which), and he was mad that I’d tossed the rest of it in the pig bucket.

(In my defense, I had no idea he liked it THAT much.)

So yeah – great big double thumbs up from Fred, and a meh from me. Maybe a little more than a meh. A meh-plus.

Before I turn it over to Nance, here you go: Inspector-in-training RatBat Picklehead is not impressed with your shit.

2012-09-05
(ie, gratuitous kitten shot ’til I can actually remember to take a picture of him stomping around on the counter.)

PS: Nutritional info is included in the recipe notes ONLY because it was provided in the original recipe.

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Nance’s Take:

I was going to sit here and try to justify why I did what I did to this poor recipe, but telling the truth is a lot easier.  I was being a BITCH.

My mother has made it her mission to repeatedly remind me of things that I am well aware of until I finally lose.my.shit.  Enter:  THIS GODDAMN GREEN BEAN RECIPE.  I had heard so much about it that one night I dropped everything I was doing and made this dish…with the attitude of a 14-yr-old girl that was just grounded from her cell phone.

Back story:  I really dislike fresh green beans.  They’re gross.  I remember as a child having to pick what seemed like acres of them.  Then we had to sit outside in the hot sun and snap those little fuckers by the bushel.  And I won’t even get started on how much I hated those little yellow bugs that were sometimes attached to them.  Trust me, the horror that is my childhood and gardening is best kept to myself.  Just know this:  I DO NOT garden as an adult and I honestly believe that forced gardening is child abuse, MOM.

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So yeah, I conveniently didn’t have fresh green beans on hand.  I just grabbed two cans off the shelf and went to town and justified it by saying that I’m giving people an alternative just in case they also don’t have fresh on hand.  Shush, you.

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They were two different brands and I did not care because they were the last two cans of green beans I had in the house.  And I really couldn’t tell the difference when I dumped them in the skillet. I also didn’t bother to waste the second can of beans as the recipe called for 1 pound (16 ounces) and the cans were 14.5 ounces each. I just threw them all in the skillet and sighed heavily so my mother would know how annoyed I was.  Oh, is that a Polish Pottery spoon holder back there?  I think it is!

Don’t get too excited to play this game, I only have one more piece.

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Blah, blah, fry in olive oil, push to the side. Can this recipe get any more boring?

During my childhood I ate a lot of green beans. Because they were fried in a cast iron skillet with LARD. My mother canned them so it was very common to just bust open a jar, dump it in the skillet and fry them until they were partially burned. We called this a side dish and I loved them (of course, because I am Fatty McFatt).

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My mom sliced these cherry tomatoes for me. Probably because she knew I was agitated and felt guilty. My poor mom. Oh wait, she’s the asshole that kept bothering me about these damn beans!  So she deserves it! Heh.

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Get my garlic from a jar (like normal people do, ahem).  And didn’t bother to measure it because hello, I am an immature human being that is pissed off about green beans!

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Action shot! I haz mad skilz!

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This is what they turned out like. I have to admit that I was truly not impressed and it had nothing to do with my hissy fit. They were just not that great. Rick didn’t like them and I really thought he would as he likes them when they’re fried in soy or Worcestershire sauce. The balsamic vinegar didn’t help it at all and I thought it would. Shirley said they were okay, but eh, she doesn’t care either way if I ever make it again.

It’s not a winner, but it’s not a loser either. I just think it’s not our thing.

9/14/12: Comments closed due to spammers.

Nance & Robyn make the same recipe - Sauteed Green Beans & Cherry Tomatoes
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Original Source/Author:
: side dish, appetizer(?)
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
  • 1 pound green beans, trimmed
  • ½ cup water
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1½ cups halved cherry tomatoes
  • 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
  • Salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste
Instructions
  1. Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
  2. Add green beans and cook, stirring often, until seared in spots, 2 to 3 minutes.
  3. Add water, cover, reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, about 3 minutes for tender-crisp or 6 minutes for tender.
  4. Push the beans to the side; add the remaining 1 teaspoon oil and garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
  5. Add tomatoes, stir everything together and cook until the tomatoes begin to break down, 2 to 3 minutes.
  6. Remove from heat; stir in vinegar, salt and pepper.
Notes
Nutritional Info: Per serving: 71 calories; 3 g fat ( 0 g sat , 2 g mono ); 0 mg cholesterol; 11 g carbohydrates; 0 g added sugars; 3 g protein; 5 g fiber; 157 mg sodium; 379 mg potassium. Nutrition Bonus: Vitamin C (45% daily value), Vitamin K (26% dv), Vitamin A (18% dv). Carbohydrate Servings: ½ Exchanges: 2 vegetable, ½ fat