Friday Photo

Magnolia blossom compliments of the world's sweetest six year old boy.

Liz's Almost Naughty Green Beans

I have a friend named Liz, I just love her. When our youngest sone was born she brought us a lovely dinner. There was chicken parmesan and hot buttered bread, and then there were green beans. Oh my! The next day I called her and asked her how in heaven's name she made those green beans. They were the most fabulous green beans I had ever put in my mouth. If my memory serves me, I ate them for dessert. She laughed and said, "Oh, the naughty green beans?" Come to find out, they contained a stick of real butter and 1/2 cup of brown sugar! No wonder they were divine! I knew I couldn't live without those green beans in my life but I'm kind of stingy with my butter so I tweaked and adjusted to create Liz's Almost Naughty Green Beans. They have undergone further tweaking as I have been slowly removing sugar from our diet, honey makes pretty great green beans too.

Liz's Almost Naughty Green Beans

1 pound frozen green beans (look for long skinny beans, they work the best)

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons brown sugar

or

1 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 clove garlic, minced

Place all ingredient in a large saucepan with a lid and place over medium heat. After the butter and soy sauce are simmering good, reduce heat to low. Cook for about half an hour until the beans are quite tender and the sauce it reduced to a thick glaze. Taste and add salt and pepper if you think it needs it.

You are just going to love this simple side dish. Or of course, you can have it for dessert too!

Friday Photo

One coconut + one strong husband + a machete = free entertainment for 7 kids and one mama. Who can beat that?

Friday Photo

Just a-swinging.

This week brought cold, cloudy, windy days. All the same, Shortbread had her first experience swinging at the park. To say she was delighted would be an understatement. Squealing, screaming, kicking her chubby legs as fast as she could and laughing a crazy deep belly laugh, she was beyond delighted. I'll never forget swinging her for the first time. How fun to be a baby and get to swing! I hope you have a fun weekend with many new memories.

Friday Photo

Sweet golden-haired girl.

Friday Photo

Fog rolling in at dusk.

French Vanilla Apple Crisp

It was a dark and storm night, only one thing could be done. Bake. Bake is the answer for many of my dilemmas. There's something about assembling ingredients, chopping, stirring and baking until golden brown and bubbly that cure a multitude of ills. You should try it.

So back to last week, when I opened my Frigidaire there were two sad apples leftover from afternoon snack. What can you do with apples with three bites missing? Make them into a crisp. These are the crisps we devoured last week, the baking and eating were mutually enjoyed.

Peel, core and chop up two or three apples. Two if they are large, three if there are bites missing out of some of your apples. Pile them into a mixing bowl and add a couple of tablespoons of sugar, a sprinkling of cinnamon, half a teaspoon of vanilla, a generous tablespoon of heavy cream and a few grains of salt. Mix it up and divide between two buttered baking dishes or one larger dish if you plan to share. As you can see I used my creme brulée pans and they were lovely. We did not share.

In the same bowl you mixed the apples in, mix 3 tablespoons of flour and 3 tablespoons of sugar with 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter until it's crumbly. Stir in 2 tablespoons each of oats and chopped walnuts. Give it a stir and pile it on top of the apples.

After it's piled sufficiently, set them in a 375˚ oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. They should settle some and be golden brown and bubbly.

It's a good idea to set them on a baking sheet to bake unless you like cleaning your oven. I do not like cleaning my oven as anyone who looks in my oven can attest to. Anyway, serve these up to the lucky participants, they would be really lucky if you topped it with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Obviously, you can make this in a larger pan and double the recipe. I didn't because I was only making them for two people instead of eight. This wouldn't last three minutes with the horde. Well, actually they didn't last much longer than that as it was. I hope you try these crisps, they were trés beaucoup!