green beans

Easy Hamburger Vegetable Soup

This simple hamburger soup is loaded with vegetables and is an incredibly easy weeknight comfort food dinner because more than likely you’ll have all of the ingredients on hand and ready for soup thanks to your pantry, fridge, and/or freezer.

The first time I had this totally solid, totally comforting hamburger soup was when my mother-in-law made it for a family gathering of which I was not yet part of the family. My husband and I had just started dating and it was dinner at mom’s house and I was invited to go.

No pressure. Nope. None at all.

One of the things I learned that night—along with the fact that as a teen my husband used to wear a nylon over his head so his wet curly hair would dry straight—is that getting friends and family together to share a meal doesn’t have to be over-thought or overdone.

Good food means good times, and that’s really all you need.continue to the recipe… about Easy Hamburger Vegetable Soup

Green Bean Casserole with Onion Rings

The classic green bean casserole gets a real food upgrade with fresh green beans and an easy to make, homemade mushroom sauce for a creamy side dish with a surprise crispy ingredient-crunch.

This recipe is brought to you by Alexia Foods

Homemade Green Bean Casserole Recipe

I see you over there, saying to yourself, “But Heidi, the classic green bean casserole is my favorite. Why go changing it?”

I get it. The classics are hard to leave behind, especially when they’re tied to food memories of time spent with family. But times change, tastes evolve, and the last time I was passed an 11×13-inch casserole dish of green bean casserole, it was a smattering of stunted, semi-green beans slathered in a greasy goop of a greyish gravy instead of a flavorful sauce.

Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.

So unless you’re still using a rotary telephone or parading to the sock hop in your poodle skirt, I’m betting you’ll be more than happy to consider this Thanksgiving side dish upgrade, too.

The original green bean casserole was created during the era of home cooks transitioning from making real-food, from-scratch meals to relishing in the time-saving methods that cooking from a box or can delivered. Now…I am the first one to raise my hand when asked to try a method that saves time in the kitchen. But I won’t sacrifice flavor or taste for the interest of time.

That’s why when I can call out my inner Sandra Lee and create a semi-homemade dish that combines real, fresh ingredients with real, time-saving ingredients, everyone (especially me) is happy at the table.continue to the recipe… about Green Bean Casserole with Onion Rings

Easy Green Beans with Browned Butter Almondine

These green beans almondine are made in one skillet, steaming the beans right in with the butter and almonds then finishing them off with some lemon juice.

Easy Green Bean Recipe

This year I’m adding more simple side dishes to the blog’s recipe list because while main dishes are often the star of the dinner time show, it’s the sides that I find always sneak in and steal the spotlight. And this FoodieCrush green beans almondine recipe is proof that statement is true because it’s easy enough to make for everyday, but pretty enough to serve for special occasions too.

I remember my mom making a version of this super easy green bean recipe since before I could even decide if I liked it or not. At our house, there wasn’t really an option. You ate what was served and that was that. But I always loved these green beans.

They’re crisp. Buttery. A little bit lemony, and always with the crunch of almonds. And they are totally unlike the Brussels sprouts my mom tried to poison me with, where with each forkful I’d chew just enough to be convincing, then fake cough the mouthful into my napkin so I could feed them to our dog Posey. But Posey was smart. She didn’t like Brussels sprouts either. But she would have loved these green beans, if I’d been generous enough to share with her.

And yes, it is true. You can feed dogs green beans to help them lose weight. It was our secret weight loss ingredient for our 120 lb. malamute, Akasha, who shed the pounds but still felt full thanks to the fiber in green beans. Or at least she wasn’t howling and writhing with hunger pangs because she was a dog…and since she couldn’t talk and couldn’t sneak her own food, I’m deciding she was just fine with her mix of dog food and green beans.

I’ve often wondered if the green bean diet would help humans lose weight too? I mean, why not? Green beans are high in dietary fiber, low-calorie and virtually zero fat. Not to mention the loads of vitamins they pass along to our able bodies.

But I digress…

Back to the almondy beans…

While this simple recipe for fresh green beans topped with almonds has always been at the top of my side dish list, my husband prefers the canned version and has passed that preference along to our daughter, too. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, especially when it’s totally convenient to pull a can out of the pantry to get a quick veg into a meal.

But in my starry eyes, there’s really nothing better than the al denté snap of these babies. And whether you call it green beans almondine or amandine, those brown buttered almonds are the perfect topper for an easy side dish any time of year.continue to the recipe… about Easy Green Beans with Browned Butter Almondine

Classic Three Bean Salad (That’s Really Four)

Besides knowing how to use a can opener, there’s no need for any special talents when you make this easy three bean salad, and with a homemade dressing, this pantry salad is a classic potluck favorite that can be made in 15 minutes or less.

This straight-from-the-pantry/salad-bar-staple salad is just one reason why I majored in art instead of in math, because apparently I can’t count.

While this salad is most often called a three bean salad, I just couldn’t help but add in another bean to make it four, not just because it added a different shape and a little more color—because you know, food is art—but because how could I leave even one bean out of the mix?

And with a homemade dressing that adds a sweet pickled pucker, this salad shows why once again, real good real food is best…even when it starts with a can. Or four.

continue to the recipe… about Classic Three Bean Salad (That’s Really Four)

Dilly Bean Recipe and 10 Pickled Recipes to Love

There’s this thing I inherited from my mother. Besides her blue eyes, our inability to remember names of acquaintances in the grocery store and our shared aptitude for back-seat driving.

I inherited her love of pickled green beans. Specifically my mom’s BFF’s Dilly Bean Recipe.

My mom’s best friend Mary is the queen of the dilly bean. Mary deserves a crown, or a pretty green bean tiara or a sash that has QUEEN DILLY BEAN bedazzled upon it. Every year she bequeaths a few bottles to my mom, of which I imploringly ask for for in exchange for my undying love.

My mom usually says yes. But certainly not always.

After I bought a bushel of green beans from the farmer’s market last weekend, Mary was my go-to source for my soon to be born Dilly Bean recipe.

continue to the recipe… about Dilly Bean Recipe and 10 Pickled Recipes to Love

Chicken Nicoise Pasta Salad

The New Years resolutions have rung themselves in. And some of them, for some of you, are already on their way out.

This year I’m not making New Years resolutions. Instead, I’m setting goals that aren’t beginning-of-the-year-dependent, the kind that once the shiny sparkle of the New Year has faded so with it go the good intentions of achieving those rock hard abs and closets that look like they were ripped from the Container Store catalog.

That’s just not where I am anymore, looking toward the unknown of what might or might not work, what might or might not make me happy. It’s not that I don’t want to be in good health or have a clean and organized home, its just that I know time is precious and flies by too quickly. Instead, I’m going to go retro this year. I’m going to remember the way I used to behave, the way I used to enjoy, because I know what I did then worked and made me happy. The essentials are there, and can easily be adapted to where I am now in my now, much happier life. So, here are my goals for this year.

continue to the recipe… about Chicken Nicoise Pasta Salad

Friday Faves and Pancetta and Hazelnut Green Beans

With turkey-lurkey day right around the corner everyone is scouting out side dishes to dress up the white bird.

Traditional green bean casserole surely holds a soft spot in my heart and I can never turn up my nose at creamy, onion topped green beans. Of course I have to add mushrooms, but that’s a different recipe.

My recipe for Pancetta and Hazelnut Green Beans is one of those dishes that is so easy to make but looks all fancy, like it BELONGS on the Thanksgiving dinner table menu rubbing wings with the golden bird and touching edges with mashers and gravy. I never did get the whole church and state edict of segregating food from one another on the dinner plate. We’re not in 3rd grade anymore people. I like starting off with individual tastes for sure, but by the end of the meal each dish is happily represented with a bit of turkey, a touch of mash and gravy, some cranberry and a bean or two and don’t forget the stuffing, artfully stacked on my soft, butter Parker House roll for the complete, one-bite, t-day taster.

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Pancetta and Hazelnut Green Beans

Ingredients

1 teaspoon olive oil
½ pound pancetta diced
3 tablespoons butter divided
2 cloves garlic minced
2 tablespoon shallots sliced into thin rings
1 pound fresh green beans trimmed
¼ cup Marsala wine or chicken stock
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
¼ cup toasted hazelnuts

Instructions

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add pancetta and cook, stirring occasionally, for 4-5 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from skillet and drain on a paper towel.
Add 2 tablespoons butter to same skillet. Once butter melts, add garlic and cook for 1 minute, stirring frequently and scraping the pancetta remnants from the bottom of the skillet. Add shallots and cook for 1-2 minutes.
Add green beans, lower heat to medium, cover with lid and cook for 8-10 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Add Marsala wine and additional tablespoon of butter, cooked pancetta and salt and pepper and cook for another 3 minutes or until beans are tender but not soft. Serve topped with toasted hazelnuts.

While all of this turkey talk is fun, we all know it’s just the pre-game warm-up for the Superbowl of holidays: Christmas. Smudge has even taken awares, letting me know that she thinks Christmas is probably the most popular holiday. I wonder how she figured that out? Obviously not from the ads pimping holiday sales before Halloween or the fact that we’ve had a Christmas tree up in our living room since mid-October. She’s a smart cookie, planting seeds for her holiday list just in case someone is listening or watching or might assume it just really isn’t a big deal.

The new Holiday issue of FoodieCrush is going to be a big, big deal too.

From hipsters to Hannukah, this next issue has food bloggers sharing…

Easy yet lush cocktail and entertaining tips…

Their cookie decorating secrets…

Delectable desserts…
And even a special podcast from two of our favorite holiday homefries.

You know you can’t wait. Neither can I! Check out last year’s Holiday Issue for tons of great food blogging ideas, recipes and behind the scenes interviews with some of your favorite food bloggers.

But until then, my Friday Faves…

1. Even the tumult of Hurricane Sandy and 11 days of power can’t keep a good food blogger down. See what Shelly can whip up with a generator, good neighbors and scammed internet connections.

2. And more food bloggers are helping the best way they know how: through food of course. Barb and Jenn have taken the initiative to turn the tide from despair into hope. Support them by checking out the participants of Food Bloggers Support for Sandy and follow the hashtag #FBS4Sandy on Twitter and donating to national relief efforts.

3. I am coveting this Instagram-imaged calendar by one of my favorite Instagrammers, Alice, who will be donating 25% of proceeds to hurricane relief. If you aren’t inspired by her photos I’m not sure we can be friends.

4. Which leads us to Instagram lurking. How much do we love that we can now stalk our favorite Instagrammers photos and interchanging header on our computers?

5. This week’s new favorite food blog. I could stare at it all day long.

6. Behind the scenes of Cooking Light’s 25th Anniversary issue.

7. Maria and I are working on something new for the holidays that we can’t wait to share in the next few weeks but until then, here’s Nicki’s sweet story that’s one of the reasons we’re creating it.

8. It’s always been the style of my birthday cake so I’m totally digging following Lora and Anuradha’s #bundamonth baking challenge.

9. Will we finally have private Pinterest boards?

10. And my favorite Tweet of the week: “Put your own mask on first. Plane safety = life mantra.” via @andkathleen

Also, I’m in this little Pinterest contest and so if you haven’t yet, pin this little ditty for me would ‘ya? ‘Preciate it.

Make sure to subscribe to FoodieCrush for sneak peeks and the first reveal of the Holiday issue. Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram too.

Green Beans and Shiitake Mushrooms Plus 5 Simple Thanksgiving Sides

The stories are what I remember the most.

Everyone gathered around my Grandma Mary Jane’s dining table set with her best crystal and china—that I now have. The ambrosia salad that she’d make just for me. Helping my Aunt Jill make the relish tray and sneaking the squeeze cheese minus the celery.

But the best part of Thanksgiving was my Grandma M.J. retelling the same stories each year, with the same style and wit as if it was the first. Her memories of when my mom and and her siblings were young. No matter how many times we’d heard the story, the entire table would wait anxiously, grinning from ear to ear, and roar in laughter at the punch line.

No one could tell a story like Grandma MJ. Except for Uncle Tom, whose laugh was positively booming and infectious, and whose motto is, “I’m on a seafood diet. I see food and I eat it.”

Ah, words to live by.

Lucky for you, I’ve started—just barely—to move out of my ambrosia salad phase.continue to the recipe… about Green Beans and Shiitake Mushrooms Plus 5 Simple Thanksgiving Sides

Zucchini and Dill Pasta Salad

By the looks of so many of my favorite foodie blogs, everyone is searching—and providing—amazing zucchini recipes this week. And with the plethora of veggie madness these plants provide, I say the more recipes the better.

So in an attempt to utilize my excessive zucchini jungle (how does one squash manage to explode into a super-hero size veggie in 24 hours anyway?) I’m discovering as many recipes as possible to incorporate/mask/hide/add zucchini into.

And this is one of my new favorites. It’s a a chameleon of a recipe: serve as a meatless option for a vegetarian main dish or toss in some grilled chicken or canned white tuna for even more extra added protein.

If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram with #foodiecrusheats.

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Zucchini and Dill Pasta Salad

This quick fresh pasta salad is great for summer nights on the patio.

Ingredients

Lemony Zucchini and Bean Pasta Salad
adapted from Donna Hay
Serves 4 as main course 8-10 as a side dish
1 lb. orecchiette pasta penne or farfalle would would work as well
3 medium size zucchini diced into 1/4" pieces
1 15 oz. can organic garbanzo beans drained (I like Westbrae brand)
1/2 lb fresh green beans trimmed and chopped into 1" pieces
1/4 cup fruity olive oil the best you can afford
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
Lemon zest from one lemon
1 1/2 tsp kosher or sea salt
1 tsp cracked fresh pepper
1/4 cup fresh dill chopped
1 cup or 10 oz package queso fresco cheese crumbled (you can also use any dry, white cheese such as feta)

Instructions

Cook the pasta in a saucepan of salted boiling water according to package directions or until al dente. Drain, rinse and set aside in a large bowl.
Blanche the green beans in a saucepan of simmering water for 1 minute. Remove and rinse with cold water, add to pasta. Add zucchini, garbanzo beans, olive oil, lemon juice and zest, salt, pepper and dill to pasta and beans and toss well to combine. Top with crumbled queso fresco or feta cheese. Refrigerate for one hour for flavors to marry. Add more salt and pepper to taste.

And for those of you with the need to fill your ever-growing zucchini fantasies beyond zucchini bread or recipes of the stuffed squash variety, check out the tasty veggie vittles below.

Expanding on Adrianna’s ever-growing list of veggies-turned-into-fries, A Cozy Kitchen‘s Zucchini Fries are crunchy on the outside, creamy in the middle and by baking instead of frying, prep is way easier than trudging out your once-a-year-oily-mess of a Fry Daddy. Oh, and did we mention she serves them with Garlic Aioli and Sriracha Mayo? Helloooo breath mints! In the best way of course.

Nothing makes zucchini more palatable—and kid-pleasing—than mixing it up with some hazelnut-ty Nutella goodness from A Spicy Perspective. Sommer’s Zucchini Nutella Swirl Muffins look especially drool-worthy, and since she’s done the testing for us, there’s no need to tweak this recipe. Trust the process or you’ll be making it 4 times over like Sommer did.

In 101 Cookbooks‘ savory version of traditional cheesecake, Heidi suggests using a box grater or microplane for best zuch texture (best to avoid the potential for zucchini mush) and if so inclined you could drain the ricotta for an even lighter and fluffier Zucchini Ricotta Cheesecake. If that were possible. Delicious!

I was intrigued by the roasted walnuts in this dish, a nut I hadn’t thought to pair with zucchini. Dishing the Divine keeps Zucchini with Walnuts a quick and light side dish thanks to an assortment of fresh herbs. But be sure to heed Paula’s sage advice and don’t let the zuchs get too browned when cooking or you’ll be eating a zucchini pureé.

Still in need some inspiration? Head over to Kalyn’s for her top 20 zucchini recipe list

Thanks for reading. If you liked this post, please subscribe to foodiecrush and follow me on twitter, Facebook and Pinterest

Easy Hamburger Vegetable Soup

Green Bean Casserole with Onion Rings

Homemade Green Bean Casserole Recipe

Easy Green Beans with Browned Butter Almondine

Easy Green Bean Recipe

Classic Three Bean Salad (That’s Really Four)

Dilly Bean Recipe and 10 Pickled Recipes to Love

Chicken Nicoise Pasta Salad

Friday Faves and Pancetta and Hazelnut Green Beans

Pancetta and Hazelnut Green Beans

Ingredients

Instructions

Green Beans and Shiitake Mushrooms Plus 5 Simple Thanksgiving Sides

Zucchini and Dill Pasta Salad

Zucchini and Dill Pasta Salad

Ingredients

Instructions

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green beans

Homemade Green Bean Casserole Recipe

Easy Green Bean Recipe

Pancetta and Hazelnut Green Beans

Ingredients

Instructions

Zucchini and Dill Pasta Salad

Ingredients

Instructions

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