Tony spoke the famous words tonight, “There’s no way I can mess this up.” First, the menu for today had green beans on it. Then my son’s camp van got stuck in traffic on the beltway returning from a field trip, so I had to wait at the camp for the bus.
Meanwhile, Tony thought he’d get dinner going and did a search online for a healthy green bean recipe. My original plan was to use a recipe that the fitness center at work posted in their monthly newsletter, but this evening that printout was nowhere to be found.
His search turned up an Emeril recipe on Food Network that only required salt and pepper, hence the confident attitude. I came in from work and noticed the oven was set to convection. My daughter had read the reviews on the Emeril recipe and a couple of people commented that the 15-minute cook time wasn’t long enough. To make up for the 10-15 minute time difference, they decided to set the oven to convection.
When everyone was ready around the table, I opened the oven and pulled out the cookie sheet of perfectly roasted … snap peas. I had left a bowl of snap peas from my mother-in-law’s garden on the counter for people to snack on, and Tony confused them with beans and used them in the Emeril recipe.
No harm done, in fact I liked these better than the sautéed snap peas that I made a few weeks ago. So here is a simple recipe that you can use with either snap peas or beans, and I’ve added in the additional roasting time sans using a convection setting.
Roasted Green Beans or Snap Peas
1 1/2 pounds green beans, or however much you have of… whatever you want to roast J
1-2 T extra-virgin olive oil depending on the amount of vegetables
1 t kosher salt (or sea salt)
1/2 t freshly ground black pepper
Preheat the oven to 425. Trim the ends of the beans and put in a large bowl.
Toss with the oil, salt, pepper and spread out evenly on a parchment lined baking sheet. Roast, stirring once halfway through, until lightly caramelized and crisp tender, 25-30 minutes.
