Roasted Green Beans

With all the delicious dishes I share here, many people simply assume that the meals in our house are filled with culinary adventures - every night being something new and different. Sorry to disappoint you, but that's just not the case.

We're just ordinary people. We enter the ruts and seem to eat the same things in an endless rotation. And like most families, we have difficult people in the clan.


 Although they are certainly becoming more adventurous, making them eat vegetables is a real challenge. When Heather and I got married, there were only a handful of things she ate. She didn't mind trying stuff, she just didn't like it very much.

She grew up in a traditional southern family where they cooked vegetables until they were tender and tender. And so am I. I'll never forget the first time I steamed still crunchy green beans. Woo, I thought these people screwed up!

 I learned early on that for her it was really more a matter of texture than anything else. Noticing that she liked the texture of roasted green beans in a restaurant once, I started to make her try new vegetables -

Since then, we have roasted just about every vegetable we can get our hands on. And she really likes it. So it was really about texture and preparation more than just the real vegetable.

 One of his favorites is grilled green beans. But they can get a little boring to have them at least once a week, so I change constantly seasonings and spices to mix things up. A few weeks ago, I threw greek seasoning Cavender on them with smoked paprika. After they came out of the oven, I squeezed fresh lemon juice on them and instantly our new way favorite to make green beans was born.

Everyone loved them. I even got a "Dad, these are really good" from Jack, which is quite a feat because he's in this weird preteen phase where he hates just about everything.