Fresh Green Beans with Sesame Seeds & Roasted Red Peppers

It's garden season, so we'll be blogging a lot of recipes for fresh veggies soon.  Last night we picked our first green beans of the summer.  Here they are, along with some of our endless supply of Cherry Tomatoes!

Green beans, fresh from the garden.

Ingredients

1 lb. fresh green beans, stems removed & snapped into about 1 ½ “ pieces

24 fresh cherry tomatoes, seeded and juiced

1 tbl. sesame seeds

2 strips bacon, cut ito 1” pieces

2 ½  tbl. butter

1 small onion, coarsely chopped

ground black pepper (to taste)

sea salt (to taste)

1 large clove of garlic, smashed & minced

2 tbl. roasted red peppers, coarsely chopped

1 tsp. olive oil

6-8 mushrooms, thinly sliced

3 tsp. olive oil

Parmesan cheese

Directions

·         In a small skillet, melt 1 ½ tbl. of the butter and 2 tsp. of the olive oil over medium heat

·         Add the garlic, mushrooms, onion, red peppers, sprinkle with the salt & pepper to taste, and cook about 8 minutes, until mushrooms give off their liquid.  Set aside.

·         In a separate skillet, melt the other 1 tbl. of butter over medium heat

·         When butter is melted, add the sesame seeds and cook until lightly browned (5 minutes), stirring occasionally

·         In a large saucepan cook the bacon until just softened but not brown, then remove from heat

·         Steam the green beans until crisp-tender (al dente)

·         To the bacon pan, add the mushroom, garlic, pepper mixture

·         Add the steamed green beans to the saucepan and mix in well

·         Add the toasted sesame seeds and tomatoes, and mix well again

·         Cook over medium heat about 15 minutes

·         Place the green bean mixture into a baking dish and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese

·         Broil about 5 minutes, until the cheese starts to melt