101 Ways to Eat a String Bean

For supper this evening, my mother made chicken casserole - delicious, by the way. There was also bread and green beans, aka string bean. There were two choices: fried, by her, or baked in the oven with egg and Ritz crackers on, made by my dad. I ate casserole and bread. :-)

Let me clue you in on something: to me the green bean is like lettuce. By itself, it is bland - it needs something - and that something is not being fried or having an egg on - can you say "yuk?!" No, it needs something good, like cream of mushroom soup - and dried onion thingys are ok too. They are also good with bacon. I decided to research and see how many ways there are to eat a green bean. I present you with my findings:

1. Cooked. Plain, with butter and salt. The equivalent of lettuce with salt on it.
2. Cooked with cream of mushroom soup, dried onions an added bonus
3. Eaten in mixed vegetables
4. In vegetable soup
5. Creamed potatoes & beans - very tasty
6. Cooked with dill butter
7. Armenian Green Beans with ground meat & tomatoes - sounds promising
8. Blanched green beans - sounds like lettuce with no dressing again
9. Ginger garlic green beans - hmm, not too sure about that one
10. Greek green beans - has onions, olive oil, tomatoes, garlic, sugar - sounds intriguing
11. Green green beans & potatoes - not sure about it, tomato paste and potatoes?
12. Green beans a'la' Waterman's - chicken stock, butter, garlic - doesn't sound too bad
13. Green Beans Almondine - butter, salt & pepper, and almonds - don't see how almonds would help
14. Green Beans Almondine With A Hint of Lemon - uh, no
15. Green Beans Almondine With an Asian Flair - garlic and soy sauce in addition to the almonds - don't think so
16. Green Beans Almondine With Mushrooms - not to be confused with cream of mushroom soup that has tiny microscopic pieces of mushrooms, this is just sliced fungus - no way
17. Green Bean Casserole, Campbells: cream of musroom soup, milk, soy sauce, french-fried onions, black pepper - sounds promising
18. Green Bean Casserole, Cook's: butter, fungus, garlic cloves, flour, pepper, chicken broth, and cream - drop the fungus and it sounds good
19. Russian green beans with sour cream and tomato sauce - ok, now the Russians want in on it: onion, butter, green pepper, tomato. basil, sour cream, black pepper - actually sounds good
20. Green Bean Salad, Dill, Parsley and Savory: don't think so - nor the other 3 salads listed - yuk
21. Green beans with coconut - just for my friends in the Matlock family, all of who detest coconut - also has vegetable oil, ginger, turmeric, green chili - don't think so
22. Green beans with ginger butter - just like it sounds, plus lemon - nope!
23. With onion paste - actually sounds good, long recipe
24. With Shallots - a shallot is a type of scallion/onion - might be ok - and yes, I had to look up what a "shallot" is :-)
25. Italian green beans - tomatoes, garlic cloves, olive oil - sounds good
26. Oven-roasted - olive oil, salt & pepper - roasted in the oven - nope, sounds too close to fried
27. With pears & bacon - uh, no way Jose' - and the vinegar didn't help sell it on me
28. Persian green beans with rice - add onions, ground beef, saffron(?!), cinnamon,tomato paste, rice - not sure about the cinnamon and saffron - sounds like a spice, but sounds do-able
29. Sauteed with hazelnut crumbs - hazelnuts, bread crumbs, butter, shallots, s&p - dubious about the hazelnuts
30. Sesame and portobello - uh, no - fungus
31. Sit-fried with pork and chilies - still not sure about frying them, otherwise sounds interesting
32. Sweet & sour green beans - bacon, vinegar, onion, sugar and salt - a bit dubious about this, though it is served warm

Ok, so I didn't come up with 101, but I'm sure there are other recipes out there :-)

By the way, I WILL eat them plain if I have to

Most of the recipes found here: http://www.greenbeansnmore.com/green-bean-recipes.html

If nothing else, you found out what a shallot is :-)