Green Bean and Mushroom Saute

I apologize for not getting this posted yesterday. I took the boys up to spend the night at Grandma and Grandpa's house with me while Daddy is off camping with the boy scouts. In the chaos of packing over night bags and visiting with my mom and sisters (and making freezer jam!) the day slipped away from me. But here is a post for you I meant to do yesterday. If I have time, I do another post today as well.

For Father's Day, I gave my husband the ultimate gift of love; I sacrificed to the extreme and added mushrooms to the menu. I don't care for anything in the fungi category, and since only one of us likes them, it doesn't make sense to buy a whole package of fresh mushrooms, as we'll only put a few in the recipe and the rest will go bad before I ever think of using them. But when I saw that THRIVE sold FD mushrooms, I thought I would splurge and buy some for him.

In a way, I didn't pay for them. I had 10 different veggies I was going to order #10 cans of anyways. Then I saw the Vegetable Sample Pack of #10 Cans. (http://www.shelfreliance.com/veggie-sample-pack-10.html) It retails for $218.09, but if you place your order through me,  you can get the Q Club/Party price of $187.99.  The pack comes with the 10 veggies I was going to order anyway, plus 6 others, for the same price I would have paid for those 10 cans. It was an awesome deal, and it's like I really got the mushrooms for free. But if my husband asks, I bought the mushrooms just for him. :-) (If you want just a #10 can of FD Mushroom Pieces, they sell individually for $18.49.)

So here's how I cooked with the mushrooms for the first time. In a small pot, boil 1 cup water. Once boiling, add 1 1/2 cups THRIVE FD Green Beans and 1/2 cup THRIVE FD Mushroom pieces. Stir well, cover with lid, remove from heat and let sit for 3-5 minutes. Once rehydrated, put pot back on heat (leave any excess water in pot - it will cook off shortly). Add 1-2 Tbsp butter or margarine, 1 tsp of minced garlic, and salt to taste.  Saute over low heat, stirring off and on until all butter as melted, veggies are tender, and bottom of green beans start to brown slightly. Serve as a side dish (they complimented our Rosemary Pork chops nicely) and enjoy!

This recipe serves 2, was super quick, and tasted great. I did pick around as many mushrooms as I could when dishing mine up, leaving as many as I could for him, but still, there were some in mine and I didn't really notice when I ate it. So that is a big compliment from me. No rubbery texture making me gag.  As for my hubby, he loved the mushrooms, and to top it all off, he assumed I had used canned green beans. That is a big compliment from him, because even though I think they looked and tasted NOTHING like gross canned green beans (these were actually still GREEN after all), my husband really enjoyed them. And he only really enjoys canned green beans. He prefers them over fresh, frozen, etc. I don't understand it, but that's his taste preference. He was surprised when I told him they weren't the canned, but the Freeze Dried instead.

I forgot to get his official rating, but I would assume based on his comments that this ranks as a 9 every day and a 9 or 10 on the emergency scale. We both really enjoyed it, and I hope you do too. Here's the recipe, condensed.

GREEN BEAN AND MUSHROOM SAUTE

1 cup boiling water

1 1/2 cup THRIVE Green Beans

1/2 cup THRIVE Mushroom Pieces

1 tsp minced garlic

2 Tbsp Butter or Margarine

Salt to taste

Add veggies to boiling water. Remove from heat, cover with lid and let stand 3-5 minutes. Remove lid, return to heat, add butter, garlic and salt. Saute until veggies are tender and green beans are slightly browning on bottom.