What can I do with green beans?

[jane b]

I just received about half a gallon of green beans from a neighbor. She let them get larger than I normally do, so what can I do with them?

Thanks,
jane b

[Aleesha Sattva]

are they woody? cause then i have no idea. i eat them like a snack food. carry them in the car. my daughter calls them my 'french-fries'... (used to be sprouts but being pregnant i can't eat sprouts anymore so i have switched to yellow wax beans LOL)

[Dimond]

I love chopped green beans in my salads. Gives a nice flavor. You can also do a green bean salad by marinating in oil and spices, maybe add a couple of other veggies.

[jane b]

The green beans are not woody, just larger and more plump than I usually pick.

I actually got a green bean salad in my email from Dr. Weil today and since they're larger than I like, I may just do that with them. Slightly cooked, but close enough considering the size. I'll toss them in a raw dressing and throw in some raw sliced almonds. Not such a bad cooked food compromise that way, and I hate to waste food.

I'm getting some hens soon, and I'll be able to feed them scraps and such since my compost pile runneth over.

[coco]

juice some of them! i love green juice, w sweet fruit or as a tomatoey drink. num, delish!

i marinated some green beans the other night. if i had let them sit for longer in they would have gotten soft like they were cooked but i was too impatient to wait. i used olive oil, tamari, lemon, garlic and dill.

[jane b]

That's pretty close to what Dr. Weil's recipe calls for except he's cooking them for a few minutes until crunchy soft and then plunging them in cold water. I have so many, I may split the bunch and do both. Thanks for your suggestion!

[Chickadee]

Aleesha said (used to be sprouts but being pregnant i can't eat sprouts anymore...)

Why is this? Is it something about the sprouts?

[JoyceH]

juice some of them! i love green juice, w sweet fruit or as a tomatoey drink. num, delish!

i marinated some green beans the other night. if i had let them sit for longer in they would have gotten soft like they were cooked but i was too impatient to wait. i used olive oil, tamari, lemon, garlic and dill.

marinating them in the above combination sounds lovely. What about also dehydrating for an hour just after they have marinated a few hours. I like to marinate asparagus for several hours and then toss them onto teleflex sheets for an hour. They aren't soft like cooked but they do taste lovely (more like steamed)

[coco]

My guess on the sprouts would be that it's too risky that you'd get a moldy one, which your immune system could handle but the baby's potentially could not.

i have never heard of this. if that's the case one would have to cut out all nuts and seeds as well since they are way more prone to toxic forms of mold than sprouts. i can't imagine that sprouts are off the list for pregnancy. in all the research i did for both of my kids i never came across anything like that.
besides, what you eat doesn't go directly to the baby. if that were the case doctors would recommend that pregnant women avoid all allergens like citrus, eggs, seafood, peanuts, and especially honey which can be deadly for babies under the age of one. but it's safe to eat all of those (well, i wouldn't eat the peanuts but i'd Never eat those anyhow!)

[jane b]

I think the sprouts thing has to do with the potential for botulism/salmonella, whatever was in the raw spinach scare a few years ago. Sprouts can go hinky pretty fast if you don't watch or use them. Personally, I would trust my own homegrown ones over the commercial ones because I know exactly what kind of water I'm using to rinse them.

JoyceH, you did it again, honey...I'm definitely tossing at least half into the dehydrator.

[jane b]

I wound up marinating the green beans in olive oil, soy sauce, Badia Sazon Completa, and a dried garlic and herb mix. Once I trimmed the beans down, I didn't have as much as I thought so I tossed the entire batch into the dehydrator per JoyceH's suggestion.

I checked on them a few times, and yes, they did taste like asparagus, but I thought, what would happen if I just let them go overnight? The result was yummy crispy goodness and yet another little somethin' somethin' to share with Carnivorous DH. I gave him the task of transferring the dried gbs into a ziplock with strict instructions that he had to put as least as many into the bag as his tummy. :D