Cooking Yummy Vegtables

Growing up we ate a ton of vegetables. Every night we had two side dishes of some vegetable in addition to a green salad. This was largely do to my father being a vegetarian but also just because we grew a lot of produce and needed to eat it up. My mom didn't just put a pat of butter on top and call it good. She cooked our veggies as if they were the main dish and thus we kids loved them. I have a distinct memory of coming home for dinner in 4th grade and telling my sister, "Oh, I love the smell of broccoli cooking." And feeling genuinely excited to when I could eat that broccoli. It was all because I was smelling onions, garlic, olive oil, and who knows what else cooking along side that broccoli. To this day when I go home and my mom asks me what I would like her to fix for dinner I always answer "just cook a bunch of vegetables!" She really dose magical things to her veggies. So I have decided I need to be more like my mom and put a little more effort into cooking my veggies if I want my kids to love them as much as I did. So here are my latest creations.

Italian Green Beans

These were the hit tonight. I think we eat more of them then our favorite BBQ chicken pizza. They are healthy, a perfect vegetable for an Italian meal, and not very much work.

1 bag or frozen green beans
1 TB butter or olive oil
2 TB chopped onion or according to taste
Chicken broth or water
Chicken bullion
garlic powder
basil

I defrosted my green beans by placing them in a large bowl with warm water. While they warmed up I sauted the onion in butter. Once the onion was golden and soft I added the green beans, 1/4 to 1/2 cups chicken broth, a dash of garlic powder, a couple dashes of basil, and seasoned with chicken bullion to taste. I covered them and let them simmer until they were tender. Then I sprinkled the beans with freshly grated Parmesan and serve to my hungry family.

*If you omit the basil this is a basic yummy green bean recipe that goes great with any meal.

Awesome Corn

We don't have a microwave and so we heat everything on the stove top or in the oven. The other day I put a bunch of left overs in the oven and then threw in our left over corn too and to my surprise the corn was divine!

1 can of Corn
1 teaspoon Butter or more you want more
Salt to taste
Pepper taste

Toss your corn with melted butter, salt, and pepper. Then spread it on a cookie sheet and then let it bake until the corn is aromatic and warmed through. It tasted like grilled corn, you'd hardly believe it came from a can!