Remember the first post I wrote about my new years resolutions? Well I am finally starting one of them, that is to cook a recipe from my “Stop and Smell the Rosemary Cookbook” at least once a week. I did attempt a recipe last week, but it was a fail.

I got this cookbook for Christmas, and there are a ton of yummy sounding recipes in here. I made this a new years resolution of mine because I have the tendency of never opening up my cookbooks and only getting recipes from different blogs online… there’s nothing wrong with that, but I just know there is a lot of good stuff in the cookbooks I have acquired.

As for the herb garden green beans, I really enjoyed them a lot. Sam and I just made it with some toast for a small lunch, but it would be a perfect side dish to a main meal. It was really delicious!

Without further ado, here are the ingredients…

So first I prepped all of my ingredients. I chopped my onion.

I chopped my celery,  minced fresh parsley and chiffonaded my basil.

My cookbook defines a chiffonade, “chiffonade: roll basil leaves up tightly and thinly slice crosswise. The resulting strips are called chiffonade.”

Finally, I chopped my rosemary and snapped the ends off of my green beans.

Oh, and by the way, those man hands you see in the picture above are not mine… Samuel helped me snap the green beans.

Alright, next I blanched my green beans. When you blanch something you boil it for 1 to 2 minutes, then you put the vegetables immediately into an ice bath. Then you drain it and chill it until you are ready to use them. You do this so that the vegetables don’t continue to cook which would make them lose their nice bright color.

Next I melted the butter and cooked the onion and celery.

Then I added the garlic, basil, rosemary, salt, pepper, and parsley, and cooked them for 3 more minutes.

Finally… I added the green beans until they were cooked.

Mmm baby. These were amazing. Oh and Sam and I made another discovery… the basil, rosemary, butter, celery, onion, garlic, and parsley mixture made for a good bread topping too. When we were done eating the green beans we kept dipping our bread in the pan to pick up the remains. I might make that mixture for a bread topping… like a sort of twist on brushetta, an herb garden brushetta maybe?

Herb Garden Green Beans
Page 190 in the “Stop and Smell the Rosemary” cookbook.

Ingredients:

✔ 4 tablespoons unsalted butter (i only had salted, so that’s what I used)
✔ 1/3 cup minced onion
✔ 1/4 cup minced celery
✔ 1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
✔ 1/4 cup fresh basil chiffonade
✔ 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
✔ 2 cloves minced garlic
✔ 1 teaspoon salt
✔ 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
✔ 1 pound green beans, snapped and blanched

Directions:

Melt butter in a large skillet. Add onion and celery. Saute until soft. Add parsley, basil, rosemary, garlic, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring constantly, 3 minutes. Gently stir in beans. Cook uncovered until beans are thoroughly heated.

Chiffonade: roll basil leaves up tightly and thinly slice crosswise.

Blanch: blanch vegetables by placing them in boiling water 1 to 2 minutes. Plunge into ice water, drain, and chill.