Recipe Review - Green Beans With Cheese

I tried this new recipe the night before I made the blog, so I don't have any fun photos or actual websites with the recipes that gave me the inspiration for the dish :( In the future, I will though, I swear it! For now, all I have is a vague recollection of what I did, and what I will do differently next time.

Ingredients
* I don't remember the measurements, but this is one of those things you can probably eyeball.

• Green beans (the frozen ones, not the canned type. A lot of recipes I referenced didn't specify, so you can do whatever you want, but canned green beans really gross me out!)
• Butter (well, margarine really)
• Olive oil
• Rosemary, pepper, salt (sea salt, because I'm just super cool that way)
• Minced garlic (I use the kind in the jar, because who has the time or patience to go mashing up garlic cloves all the time? We go through a lot of garlic!)
• Lemon juice
• Parmesan cheese (the kind that comes in a big shaker bottle, i.e., the cheap kind!)

What I Did
So, I'm no fancy chef, but I do have fun playing in the kitchen (when I get to, anyhow! J prefers to do the cooking, which is fantastic but means that I am a bit rusty these days). What I realized right away, though, was that I am very ignorant about green beans! I've only ever eaten them steamed, and all the recipes I looked at talked about putting the beans in the pan with the oil. I could not for the life of me figure out if that meant I was supposed to throw them in the pan where they would cook, or if I was supposed to cook them first and then put them in the pan . . .   And this was for our Valentines Day dinner (mashed potatoes and filet mignon cooked in a cast iron skillet, I'll have to pay more attention next time J makes it and share how it was done, cause it was AWESOME!) so, the pressure was on!

I decided to cook them briefly in the microwave and then throw them in the pan, where the butter, olive oil, rosemary, and garlic were all simmering. I don't know if it is because of how I cooked them in the microwave or if they just had freezer burn, but some of the beans were really weird. I threw those out before eating them, easy fix :) I stirred those around for about 8 minutes before tasting one, and thought it was really bland. On a whim, I threw in a dash of lemon juice. After another few minutes, I poured it all into a bowl and doused it with parmesan cheese. Then I stirred it up and gave it another good douse. And then again (what can I say, we really love cheese!) Then we ate!

The Results
I have to say, the addition of the lemon juice (which was NOT in any recipe I saw!) was a stroke of brilliance :) The beans were good with all the cheese on them, but every once in a while you'd get a bite of some of the beans that soaked up the lemon juice, and those bites were GREAT! It somehow stopped short of being sour and just gave it a really tangy flavor that meshed well with everything else. I'm not sure how I managed that one, but I really loved it! So next time I'll skip the rosemary (nothing against the herb, it's actually my favorite, but I just couldn't end up tasting it, and it seemed fine without it) and add more lemon juice. J thinks it might end up better if we use fresh beans next time, too.

Reviews
I give it 3.5/5 stars (to be upgraded once I get the amount of lemon juice just right so that ALL the beans have the same level of deliciousness) and am eager to make it again.

J gives it 3/5 stars (his exact answer was, "The beans? Um, I don't know, a 3 maybe? Or a 3.5? I don't know". I think it's important to go with your gut, so I'll say he gave it a 3!) and when asked if I should make it again sometime, he said, "If you want to, babe, then whatever". (You'd never know that he's usually an extremely opinionated guy, particularly when it comes to his food!)


So there is my first recipe review! I'm awfully hungry after writing it up, so I'm going to eat J's food experiment of the day (chicken cooked in homemade hot sauce with an extra coating of a sweet hot sauce) which he has already proclaimed to be a disaster ;) Ahh, the joys of cooking!