Thanksgiving 2010 Part 3: Orange Green Beans

Green beans are a staple at every holiday meal. We've gone through our fair share of variations: canned green beans with cream of mushroom soup, with and without those delicious crispy fried onions, fresh green beans with simple garlic, oil and S&P, to roasted green beans. One year, I made green beans with orange rinds and while it was good, it didn't absorb the orange flavoring as much as I would have like. This year, I tried to cut the rinds smaller and crushed them a little more to really get that orange flavor and I think it worked. 

While I'm a fan of canned food and veggies (my pantry is consistently stocked with canned corn and numerous canned tomatoes), I think this dish is best made with fresh green beans and during the holidays, these are bountiful and reasonably priced.  - 1.29 a lb, yes please!

Orange Green Beans

1-2 lbs of fresh green beans, clipped and washed

2 tbsp butter

1 small handful of chopped bacon

3 cloves of garlic, sliced thin

Rind from one small to medium orange, sliced into strips

Juice and orange segments from that same orange

1/3 cup of broth and white wine (whatever portion you would like)

S&P

1. Make sure your green beans are cleaned and washed.  

2. Get all the bacon, garlic (in the pic below, only the rinds and everything on the right is for this dish.  Trust me, not using all that bacon!) and orange rind ready before you turn on the heat.

3. Add butter to a pan big enough to eventually hold the green beans and liquid. Add in the bacon and let it cook to ooze out that bacon goodness. Then add in the garlic, orange rinds and let those flavors mix togehter.  Yum! 

4. Add in the green beans, orange segments and juice. Give it a good mix. Add in a dash of S&P (a little less on the salt since you do have bacon).

5. Turn the heat down to medium low and pour in the 1/3 cup of liquid. Cover and let this steam/cook for about 3 minutes. Then take the cover off and let it cook for another 3 minutes. Do a quick taste test and add more S&P as necessary.  If you had garlic powder, I'm sure a dash of that would be delicious too!

6.  It's nice if you let it sit a little bit so the flavors are really absorbed into the green beans.  I made this an hour before dinner started, took about 10 minutes start to finish and let it sit the remaining time. Enjoy!

Dill Shrimp Salad

Yes, I admit it. I enjoy mayo and I probably enjoy it more than the average person. Yeps, no shame in that! This is probably why I gawked at friends who said they love visiting London but hated the food - they put mayo in every sandwich possible. Who can resist! Even better......who can resist it in a salad? Tuna salad, chicken salad, egg salad, you name it - I'm all ears. So when I saw this recipe for a Dill Shrimp Salad - I pretty much knew that was going to be my dinner the next day.
Okay, I know too much mayo can be overwhelming and can hit a point of the "ugh, that was too much mayo," but when used right, it can bring a creamy, fresh take to a food that needs a little boost in extra flavor, such as shrimp. So, what's so different with this salad? Fresh orange juice and zest. I never even thought about combining orange juice/zest with mayo. It leaves this wonderful sweet zang that adds a little kick to the salad. Not only does it make the dressing that much creamier, the shrimp tastes like its been marinated in juice for a few hours. Delicious!

Directions said to roast the shrimp in the oven for 8 minutes. Next time, I think I'll cook it for around 6 minutes and actually let it marinate in the salt, pepper and olive oil for about 20 minutes before roasting. I put the finished salad on top of a bed of arugula and baby spinach salad and lightly tossed with a little olive oil. *Please pardon 'yellowness' in the images, due to a not so great camera.

Dill Shrimp Salad
Recipe from Ina Garten

1 lb fresh shrimp
1/2 cup mayo
2 tablespoon of chopped dill
1 orange
2 tablespoon white wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Peel, devein and rinse the shrimp. Pat dry and place on baking sheet. Season with salt, pepper and olive oil - make sure to mix to thoroughly cover shrimp. Bake 400 for 8 minutes. (I recommend marinating the shrimp in the olive oil mixture for about 20 minutes before baking.)

Zest one orange and squeeze juice from half of orange. Mix in mayo (I only used 1/4 cup instead of the 1/2 cup), dill and white wine vinegar. Mix and add salt/pepper to taste.

Once shrimp is slightly cooled, add a spoonful of mayo mixture to shrimp to test. Add more as appropriate. Serve on top of fresh arugula and baby spinach salad - enjoy!