Grandma's Kitchen Table

Good Friends Good Food - Green Beans: Green Beans with Bacon and Onion

       This week we are cooking with green beans, mostly because they are still in season here and we all happen to love green beans.  I cook green beans a lot, and one of our favorite ways is to steam them and then mix a little stone ground mustard into them, no other seasoning.  While that is an easy and handy method to have on hand, I remember loving my grandmother's green beans from my growing up years.  Sadly, the recipe went with her when she passed.  Why did I not think to write that down while we were making them?  After searching online I found a few recipes that matched ingredients and maybe would work, so I experimented a bit, mixing and matching, until I came up with one tasting very close, if not exactly, like hers.
       Ingredients:  One Pound of Fresh Green Beans
                                3 slices of bacon
                                1 small red onion
                                1 teaspoon cornstarch
                                1/4 cup water
                                2 Tablespoons of cider vinegar
                                1 Tablespoon of brown sugar
                                1 Tablespoon of German mustard
                                1/2 teaspoon salt
                                1/4 teaspoon black pepper
       Wash a pound of fresh green beans and cut off the stem end (she always left the tails on, so I do that, too).  Snap or cut the green beans into one inch pieces. Steam the green beans to your desired doneness. 
       While the beans are steaming, in a small saucepan saute 3 pieces of bacon cut into one inch pieces until slightly crispy.  Drain all but one tablespoon of bacon drippings and set the bacon aside. 
       To the pan with the 1 Tablespoon drippings add one small onion in thin half-moon pieces and cook until they are opaque.
        In a small bowl combine 1 teaspoon of cornstarch, 1/4 cup water, 2 Tablespoons of cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, 1 Tablespoon of German mustard, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.  Stir and add this all to the pan with the onions, cook until thickened and then add the bacon pieces back into the pan. 
       When the green beans have finished cooking, place them in a bowl and pour the sauce mixture, stir gently but thoroughly and serve warm.  Serves 4-6
       We loved these Green Beans with Bacon and Onion, and while they aren't meant for every day, having them as a special treat now and again makes me happy.  To see what the others made with their green beans, you can click on the members' blogs listed here.  Peggy, Margaret, Ulrike, Nancy, and Donna
       Next up is Tomatoes, posting on October 9th.  If you would like to join in, just leave a link to your post in the comments section at any of our blogs and we will come and see what you made!

Good Friends Good Food - Squash: Stuffed Delicata Squash

        This week Margaret, Peggy, and I were chatting about missing our times cooking/baking/blogging together in all those groups for all those years and decided that maybe we would enjoy doing that together again.  Food blogs have come a long way since those early days when we all met in Tuesdays with Dorie and cooking with the Ellie Krieger groups, etc., baking and cooking together each week.  Food blogging became a little intimidating and I didn't particularly want to keep up with all the new things, sponsorships, and food photography programs that go into today's food blogging, so we just sort of let it go.  Our real joy was in making friendships and getting together weekly in our separate kitchens, bonding over our joint endeavors, comparing notes, chatting about recipes/ingredients/tips/life...you know, like you would over your grandma's kitchen table.  Always in the back of my mind, there was that sense of loss about those weekly friendships and the new recipes we would all enjoy making together. So, nothing fancy, nothing too involved, here we are again, just cooking and posting to share with each other and anyone else who happens along...we are encouraging anyone who wishes to join in, to please do so...we are posting on our pages as Good Friends Good Food and we have a very loose agenda.  (Just link your post in the comments and we will come and find you.)

       Peggy and I had delicata squash on hand, and Margaret ventured to the store to score an acorn squash and this week's theme was born: Squash.  Neither Peggy nor I had cooked with delicata squash before, strange that we both had it on hand.  We googled some online recipes and each chose something we felt our husbands might enjoy as well.  I decided on a stuffed squash recipe and then proceeded to take bits and pieces from the ten recipes I found that looked interesting to come up with one that had ingredients I knew we would happily find on our plates.

        Delicata squash is delicate in flavor, the outside is tender and edible, and the green and cream colored stripes on the outside are charming...I kept looking for it in the stores here but didn't have any luck until I chanced upon the last one at the farm market this week.  I cut it horizontally in halves to form two long vessels that I could fill with a mixture of my choice after scraping out all the seeds.  (My squash was 8" long and the circumference was about 6" so that size is perfect to serve four.)

        After cutting and seeding the squash, I placed it on a sheet pan cut side down to bake it in the oven at 350 degrees, with a very light brush of olive oil on the cut surface.  It baked for 30 minutes and it was nicely soft when pierced with a knife tip.  When turned over, the flesh had a lovely golden brown color while the outer skin retained the green and cream stripes (it really is pretty). I put a little salt and pepper on it.  You could bake the squash with the filling in place, but I wanted that nice golden color and caramelized flavor that you get from roasting it on a pan.  I then filled the squash cavity with a filling that I made in the crockpot for the ease of it all.

        Filling:  Place the following ingredients in a 2 quart crockpot and cook on high for three hours (every crockpot is different so the timing may be different on yours):  1 cup wild rice (not wild rice mix, true long grain wild rice), 2 cups of chicken broth (or water), 1 small diced bell pepper, 2 carrots diced the same size, 1 small red onion diced the same size, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, 1 Tablespoon of olive oil or butter.  After it cooked I added 1/2 cup of dried cranberries and 1/4 cup chopped pecans.

        After stuffing the filling into the squash, I put little pieces of butter along the top and put it back into the 350 degree oven for 15 minutes to warm it all through.  We cut one to share (we served it with baked fish and a tomato salad) and the other we will have at the ready to rewarm for another meal this week.  It was all very tasty.   Definitely a repeat and I'm definitely on the lookout for more delicata squash.  Next post on September 25...theme: Green Beans