Green Beans and Bacon

Growing up my mom would fry some bacon, then as she boiled her green beans she would throw the crumbled bacon in.  I loved the flavor, but not the soggy bacon.  I decided to try something new.

Ingredients:

• Green beans, ends trimmed and snapped into pieces
• a couple pieces of bacon

Directions:

Steam the green beans until almost done.  While green beans are steaming, fry bacon until crispy.  Remove bacon from pan and pat dry, leaving drippings in pan.  When green beans are almost done, transfer them to the pan with the bacon grease and fry saute them for a couple more minutes to finish cooking.  Crumble bacon and toss with green beans.

Verdict:  These didn’t have as much bacon flavor as I had hoped, but I still liked them.  My kids were really funny about this.  They only wanted the bacon, but I told them they had to eat the green beans too.  My 6 year old, when I asked her if she like the green beans, she told me not really, right after she put 2 of them in her mouth.  Oh well, even if they didn’t really like them, the bacon got them to eat their veggies, right?

This Week’s Bounty

Here’s our haul this week.  As soon as I saw the tomatoes I was super happy, and I know my daughter will be too.

• 2 head lettuce
• 2 bunches celery
• 2 yellow onions
• 1 bag green beans
• 5 white sweet potatoes
• 1 clamshell various cherry tomatoes
• 4 mangoes
• 8 white peaches
• 7 plums
• 1 cantaloupe
• 1 clamshell strawberries

The tomatoes had red, orange, yellow and purple in there. super yummy!  Now, what to do with the sweet potatoes?

This Week’s Bounty

I was so excited as we were unloading the truck this morning to see Salad Savoy!  If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry, I didn’t until the first time we got it in our Bountiful Basket.  Here is a great link to my Salad Savoy Chips.

• 2 heads salad savoy (1 purple, 1 white)
• 1 Golden Dewlicious melon
• 1 head romaine lettuce
• 1 head cauliflower
• 1 bunches broccoli
• 5 bananas
• 5 nectarines
• 6 plums
• 2 mangoes
• 2 organic tomatoes
• 2 bunches green onions
• 1 1lb.bag baby carrots
• 1 clamshell blackberries

As I type this, the blackberries are gone.  It was all I could do to get the kids to wait for me to take the picture before eating them.  We’ve never had the Golden Dewlicious melon before so that will be something new.  I have a couple of kids who like anything melons so I’m sure that won’t last long as soon as I get it cut up.

Sausage Pizza with Chard, and Butternut Squash

Did you know that Butternut squash is really good on pizza?  Well, it is.  Pizza is great because you can do so many things with it.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 Butternut squash, peeled and cut into strips or cubes
• 1 red onion, chopped
• sausage
• 1 bunch chard, chopped
• pizza crust
• pizza sauce
• cheese

Directions:

I could put my crust recipe on here, but I just use the one out of my Betty Crocker cookbook.  I like it and so does my family.  Use what you like.  I partially baked my crust and then added tomato sauce seasoned with Italian seasoning, but use whatever pizza sauce you like.

Okay, heat about 2 Tbsp oil up in a pan.  Add the onion and squash and cook about 10-15 minutes until the veggies are soft.   You can also add the chard to this pan if you want.  I didn’t.  I cooked the sausage in another pan and once it was cooked through, I took out the sausage and cooked the chard in the drippings.  Add sausage to the veggie mixture.  While you are cooking, have whatever child is helping with dinner grate the cheese.

Once your crust has sauce on it, cover with cheese.  (I believe cheese goes on the bottom of the pizza, but you can do it last if you want).  Spread chard over the sauce, then top with your sausage/veggie mixture.  Put in the oven and cook for about 12-15 minutes until crust is browned and cheese is melty.

Verdict:  I really liked this.  I went light on the sausage because I’m not a huge meat lover, but my sweet husband thought there were too many vegetables and not enough meat.  He also isn’t a fan of butternut squash on pizza.  I will convert him, yet.  The kids had pepperoni pizza.  For those who want to know how to prepare the squash.  When it is whole, I will take my vegetable peeler and just peel of the outside rind of the squash, then I cut off the top and bottom, scrape out the seeds, and slice or dice or whatever.  Easy, peasy.  I’ve never had chard on pizza, but I could definitely do it again, but next time I will chop it smaller.

Sautéed Chard over Couscous

I made this yummy recipe the last time we had chard, but I never took a picture or wrote down what I did.  I was really excited to see the Chard this week and I was hoping I could remember how I had fixed it last time.  I think I did pretty good.

 (I am having some trouble with getting the picture for this, so once I do, I will post pictures, but I wanted to get the recipe up)

Ingredients

• 1 bunch chard
• 1 can garlic and olive oil tomatoes
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 cups water or chicken broth
• 2 cups couscous

Directions:

Heat olive oil in a pan.  While it is heating, wash chard.  Separate leaves from the stems.  Chop them all up.  I chopped up and used the stems as well as the leaves and I like it that way.  (You could do as my sister does and just chop up the leaves and put peanut butter on the stems and eat them that way.)  Once oil is hot, add the chard.  I did season it with about a teaspoon of garlic salt with parsley and a little pepper.  Meanwhile, bring the water or broth to boil.  Once it’s boiling, add the couscous.  Cover and remove from heat.  Let the couscous sit for about 10 minutes and then fluff with fork.  Once the chard is wilted and tender add the can of tomatoes.  Heat through.  Serve the chard and tomatoes over the couscous. 

*If you are really missing having some meat in this meal, I think a polska kielbasa sausage would be a nice addition.  Also, if you don’t have garlic and olive oil tomatoes, you can always add those flavors to regular diced tomatoes.

Verdict:  This was really good!  My husband, who likes to have meat with dinner, didn’t really mind that there was none with this meal.  My 2 year old gobbled hers up and had seconds.  The rest of my kids mostly at the couscous and the melon that I cut up with dinner.  I did cook extra couscous knowing that my kids would like that better, so you may find that you don’t need as much.  Oh well, they don’t know what they are missing. 

This Week’s Bounty

Grapes!  We love grapes!

• 2 bunches green chard
• 1 head iceburg lettuce
• 1 honeydew
• 2 butternut squash
• 5 bananas
• 8 nectarines
• 3 tomatoes
• 3 pears
• 5 big carrots
• 1 bunch broccoli
• 1 bag red grapes

My Bountiful Basket sure does look good.  I love all this stuff in the summer time.  My kids have really been going through our produce lately, so this is great!  I love nectarines so that is what I’m probably most excited about this week.