But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you…Matthew 6:33

I love green beans!  If I have a choice of green beans from anything else, I will always choose green beans.  And to add bacon?  Be still by heart.  This is one of my favorite recipes.  I enjoy making them and eating them.  In a way, I think snapping beans are therapeutic and it  brings back nice memories.  When I was little, I remember my mom sitting at the kitchen table snapping beans and letting me help her.  I loved doing it and felt special because I was helping prepare dinner.  It does take a while to prepare but I promise you it is well worth the time. 

You can actually make these beans in a vegetarian way, since they are a vegetable.  Well, technically green beans are considered a fruit.  No, really they are.  And if we really want to be a smarty-pants, they are also considered a legume.  Why are they considered a fruit? They have seeds in them.  Same reason tomato is a fruit.  It’s all about the seeds.  Probably absolutely worthless information to you, but you never know when this info will be essential to a trivia game. 

Back to making this vegetarian… Instead of bacon, use olive oil to sauté the onions and garlic and replace the chicken broth with vegetable broth or even water.  The broth does give the beans a richer flavor so I would suggest the broth before the water. 

I hope you enjoy these beans as much as I do. 

INGREDIENTS:

2 lbs fresh green beans, washed, trimmed, and snapped in half

5 slices of bacon, diced

½ cup onion, diced

1 garlic clove, minced

2-3 cups chicken broth

Salt to season

DIRECTIONS:

In a large saucepan, fry up diced bacon at medium-high until crisp.  Remove bacon with a slotted spoon and set aside.  Turn down heat to medium and add diced onion to bacon grease and cook for about 4 minutes, stirring constantly.  Add garlic and cook for 1 minute.  Turn up the heat and add green beans and chicken broth just to cover the beans.  Season with salt.  Bring to a boil and then turn heat to simmer and cook for about an hour.  Drain the beans, stir in the bacon and serve.  Enjoy!

*Note- If you prefer a crisp-tender bean, then cook the beans for about 45 minutes.

Yields: 8 Servings