Slow Cooking Green Beans While We Wait for Spring

I worked all weekend so yesterday I had the day off. What did I do to celebrate? I did our taxes and my sister's taxes. Eh. That, and the gray day, and life in general made me want to cook though. Silver linings..... I found a recipe for slow cooked green beans that I wanted to try. There's nothing better than tiny fresh green beans cooked quickly but this slow-cooked flavorful recipe sounded so nice and homey.

It's from one of my favorite cookbook series. I almost wept when I read they were ending the series. Honestly. I did. Sad but true. The last one was The 150 Best American Recipes: Indispensable Recipes from Legendary Chefs and Undiscovered Cooks. The series was edited by Molly Stevens and Fran McCullough and it is all can't miss recipes. You can pick used copies super cheap. I think this recipe was in the 2004 book, or somewhere around there, but it also made it into the final book mentioned above.

Braised Green Beans with Tomato and Fennel

1 pound green beans, trimmed and washed
1 medium yellow onion, pealed and cut into thin strips
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes with juice
1 teaspoon freshly ground fennel seed
½ teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons bacon fat or canola oil (I used olive oil)
2 thick slices bacon, cut into bite-size pieces (I had thin slices so I used 4)

In a heavy pot or Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid, heat the baconfat or canola oil and cook the onion gently over medium heat untiltender, about eight minutes. Add the remaining ingredients, tosstogether and bring to a simmer. Close the pot, reduce the heat to verylow and simmer for about three hours, stirring and tasting the beansoccasionally for doneness. When the beans are tender and flavorful,adjust seasoning and serve warm.

They were extraordinarily good. Yes, they turned kind of an olive green and there certainly was no crunch to them but the held up to the slow cooking much better than I thought they would. We had some nice thick pork chops so I had Ernie salt and pepper them (black pepper and aleppo pepper) and right before I cooked them I just coated them with a bit of flour. I browned both sides pretty well in a pan, then added about half of my glass of wine to the pan and covered them for a few minutes. They were wonderful. A pork chop, some mashed golden potatoes and my almost unctuous green beans made for a lovely meal...especially given the rain and the sad news out of Boston.

The poor cherry trees at work want to bloom so bad....they're trying and trying....and they're just not catching a break....