What to do with frozen green beans

[japple]

I've got quite a store of green beans from the garden in my freezer and other than just making plain green beans as a side dish or putting them into veg. soup, I can't think of many ways to use them. I love fresh green beans from garden or grocery store, but frozen ones aren't that great. I saw a recipe for roasting them in olive oil, but that recipe was for fresh beans. Anyone have ideas to share?

Fortunately for me, my niece and her family (who live next door), started raising chickens for eggs, so I do have a great way to recycle them.

[Kali]

1. my Mom's green bean soup

boil a ham bone and then chop the meat or use a ham steak or even some bacon, cook beans in the broth till enough time left to cook some cubed potato. add salt to taste and a generous amount of ground pepper. serve with (lots of) fresh chopped onion.

[japple]

2. Sounds very good. Thanks for

passing that along.

[northoftheborder]

3. I love green beans just barely cooked, and have noticed that .....

....they just are not very good after being frozen, even though they were barely blanched first. For me, soup is the best idea to use frozen beans, and added near the last of cooking the soup. Has anyone tried pureeing them and using some way???

[Warpy]

4. If you've got eggs, consider making spaetzle

You saute some bacon, remove the bits and add the green beans and a little water and steam. Prepare the spaetzle and scoop up while they're still very al dente. Allow most of the water to evaporate from the beans, add the spaetzle and bacon bits and stir until everything is coated with the bacon fat.

The problem with frozen green beans is that they tend to dry a bit and toughen. Either you overcook them and render them a weird sort of army surplus green or you chew a lot. The contrast of the toughened beans against the light as a feather noodles is beautiful.

Green beans were one of the veg I preferred to can rather than freeze. You do need to can them under pressure unless you're pickling them, another good way to preserve them.

ETA: This is a Bavarian standard and there are as many recipes as cooks, some making fancy sauces and others adding things like chestnuts or slivered almonds. Mine was just the basic recipe idea. You can gussy it up as you wish.

[japple]

6. Oh my, that sounds tasty and no doubt my family would love it.

I never liked canned green beans. Pickled might be the way to go in the future. For the few in our family who like them, maybe we should just eat them while the garden is producing them and put the rest of the space into things we really love, like greens.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. You can always use them in casseroles. I like either

a simple one like this:

2 cups cooked green beans, drained
1 large onion chopped
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
Potato chips, crushed.

Put beans in casserole; mix in onion. Pour soup over mixture; sprinkle with cheese. Cover with potato chips or you can use can of French-fried onion rings. Bake at 375 degrees until bubbling.

[littlewolf]

7. sauted green beans

cook bacon or ham .. add onion
cook till just done
add the green beans cook tender crisp
my favorite

[hermetic]

8. My Thanksgiving "casserole"

came out great. Beans in the crock pot with a tsp. of dried onion soup, water to cover, for a couple hours, until soft. Add cream of mushroom soup along with sauteed onions and mushrooms. A splash of soy sauce. Get it all heated up again then sprinkle with canned onion rings, or not, depending. I totally narfed that down.

I've been doing the frozen from the garden for several years and find that cooking them in the crock pot yields best results, taste and texture wise.

[Retrograde]

9. Dry braised beans

I adapted this from some local Chinese restaurants. Heat a skillet (or a wok, if you have one) with a small amount of oil; add crushed red peppers - a few if you don't like hot dishes, more if you do. Let them cook for a minute or so, then add the green beans. Cook the beans, stirring occasionally, until they're heated through and brown or black spots start to appear on them. Serve plain, or add a small amount of fried ground meat, or some hoisin sauce. Some people add onions or garlic to the oil with the dried chiles. It's a very versatile and forgiving recipe.

[trof]

10. Miz t. is my food authority. Roast 'em.

She roasts frozen beans as well as fresh.
375, 20-25 minutes (frozen) sprinkled with olive oil and a little salt and pepper, wrapped in foil.
Says you can smell 'em when they're done.

Also, pickle them like dills.