Green Beans

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday.  Hard to compete with Christmas, but that's spread out over so many days that Thanksgiving probably gets the best concentration of cheer on a single day.  For the past four years, I've made the entire meal except for dessert.  This year I'm single, so no point in making the whole meal just for me.  My brother hosted me and two of my sisters' families.  This muse is all about the food.

My brother smoked a turkey and so was also responsible for the dressing and gravy.  All were delicious.  His wife's family has a traditional dish of a lemon jello-type dish made with cottage cheese.  It was fantastic.  Oldest sister brought yams and made a cobbler with peaches, blackberries, and raspberries for dessert.  Middle sister made cheesy biscuits that were sweet and yummy.

I was responsible for mashed potatoes, a vegetable (I was going to do Brussels Sprouts--don't judge), and a banana cream pie.  I left the sprouts at home (oops!) so I had to improvise on the veg.  Middle sis was planning to do something with green beans, but let me commandeer them and try something new with them.  Here's the result:

Here's the recipe, if you can call this musing a recipe:

Vanilla and Pomegranate Green Beans with Bacon
Green Beans, like two hands full (that's what you can hold in two hands, twice)
Pomegranate Seeds
Half pound of good, thick bacon
Pomegranate Juice (not a blend)
A little sugar
Half-stick of soft butter
Vanilla bean
Salt and pepper

Reduce about 1 to 1.5 cups of pomegranate juice with about 1/4 cup sugar in a sauce pan until less then half in volume and thick.  This will take a half hour at least.

Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and stir them into the butter.  Maybe make extra of this to put on rolls.  It's delicious.

Cut the bacon into 1/2-inch pieces and cook those until crispy.  Keep about half the grease in the pan.

Blanch the green beans in boiling water for about three minutes.  Drain and put in ice water to stop them cooking.  Put the pomegranate seeds in a big bowl.

Once the beans are cool, drain them on paper towels so you don't get as much popping when you sautee them.  When mostly dry, put into the bacon grease over medium high heat, season with salt and pepper, and stir until heated.  Add the crispy bacon and stir that for a minute or so.  Then dump this into the bowl on top of the seeds.  Put in the vanilla butter and toss or stir so the butter melts and coats the beans and seeds.  (Almonds might be good in here, too, but older sister has trouble with nuts.)

Pour this out onto a platter or serving bowl, and then drizzle it with the 1/2 cup or so of pomegranate syrup that you've reduced.  Take a picture and put that on your blog and on facebook.

Mashed Potatoes and Parsnips
This is a secret I maybe shouldn't give away, but it's not original to me, so whatever.  This is a great dish and always impresses because no one has ever had mashed potatoes that taste like this.  And since parsnips are just white, they add a unique flavor without changing the color or consistency of the mashed potatoes.

Make mashed potatoes like you always would, but before adding potatoes to the boiling water, boil parsnips (about half as much by weight as potatoes, cut about the same size) for a few minutes first.  (The parsnips need to be quite tender for their core to mash well.)  When all are tender, drain them and mash them as you normally would.  But, you can't use a beater or the parsnip cores won't mash and will float around looking ugly.  Use a potato masher.  I use butter and half-and-half with salt and pepper as my mash additions, but if you normally use garlic, cheese, sour cream, or whatever, the parsnips will really make them shine and bring a unique flavor.  This dish is great with gravy or without.

Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers.