French Beans

French beans are very much like regular green beans, but you can recognize them by their thinness. When you taste them, you’ll notice a difference too.

I haven’t posted any recipes yet, because to be honest, we haven’t had anything I could call a ‘recipe’ without laughing at myself. The first time we ate them, Will and I just washed them, put them in the microwave for 1 minute, then ate them in front of the TV with our fingers while watching the Olympics. You wouldn’t have thought it would substitute well for popcorn, would you?

Today I had them for lunch, with this ridiculously easy cooking method that I also hesitate to call a ‘recipe’.

Sautéed French Beans

2 tsp butter (or olive oil if you like)
1 large clove garlic
1 slice onion (or shallot cut up fine, or green onions chopped)
1 pound french beans

1. Melt the butter in a frying pan and add the garlic, minced, and the onion, cut into quarters and broken apart. Leave it on a fairly low heat so the butter doesn’t burn and the white stuff doesn’t brown.
2. While that’s cooking, prep your beans by washing them and cutting off the stem end.
3. Throw the beans, still wet, into the frying pan. Pop the lid on for about eight minutes. Stir them once or twice.
4. Either eat them hot out of the pan with your fingers, or let them cool and eat as a salad the next day.

Sharing this with someone gives you each 1 Weight Watchers point (for the butter or oil), plus two servings of vegetables.  If you’re counting calories, it’s 118.

P.S.  Artistic note: please cut your onion slices skinnier than I did, so your onion bits don’t end up looking like albino earthworms.