Roasted Green Beans

I have recently become a big fan of roasting vegetables as a nice rustic side dish for heartier meals.  Today's recipe comes from my Thanksgiving dinner (a bit delayed in the posting, yes).  Rather than the "traditional" green bean casserole doused in soup, I wanted something with more of a bite and less heavy, since Thanksgiving meals are already so good at weighing us down without an added casserole masquerading as a healthy veggie side dish.

The setup is simple.  Veggies, olive oil, garlic, spices.  I roasted some root veggies for Christmas (sorry no pics) and followed the same system (carrots, sweet potatoes, parsnips, turnips, garlic, olive oil, sage).

For this preparation I took fresh green beans with both ends chopped off, fresh scallions cut to the same length as the green beans, a couple tablespoons of minced garlic, fresh sage (~30 whole leaves), dried thyme (~2 tsp), and dried rosemary (~2 tsp).  I drizzled with olive oil (probably about 2 - 3 tbsp) and mixed until everything was lightly covered.

Lay the beans out on an oven rack and bake in a 400 degree oven for an hour.  Every 10-20 minutes or so I went through and tossed the beans with tongs to move them around on the tray so there was even cooking.

And that's it!  Once done you have some nice caramelization on parts of the beans, a good balance between crisp and "soggy" bites, and a good foundation for any of the gravies or sauces you'll be serving with your entree rather than coming to the party with its own sauce.

Three Cheese Mac and Cheese

I discovered this recipe in food and wine magazine a few months ago and made a mental note that I needed to try it.  Well, this week I finally bought the ingredients, and several pots/pans/messy stoves later we had more three cheese mac than we knew what to do with.  aka an entire casserole dish of this stuff is currently sitting in the fridge at work.

The best part about this dish is the sauce.  It seems like a lot of sauce when you first make it, but it reduces when you bake the pasta.  Basically you cook some chopped garlic and onions in 3 cups of cream or half and half (we did 2 cups cream 1 cup milk).  Take some cream out to mix with flour then add the mixture back to thicken the suace.  Next comes the cheese.  Goat, white cheddar, and parmesan.  Sour cream, herbs, salt and pepper to season.  Then remove some of the sauce and mix with egg yolks and return that to the pan.  Then take some of your cooked pasta and sample it in the sauce if you can't wait for it to bake (that wasn't in the recipe).  45 minutes in the oven later and you've got dinner.

Well, I loved this sauce so much when it was on the stove that I was kind of sad to see it reduced so much in the oven, so next time I think i'll only bake the pasta for about 10 minutes, rather than 45, so the parmesan cheese on top can melt, but I don't lose the cheesy goodness coating the noodles.  I scanned the original recipe for all y'alls if you want to try it for yourselves.  Cooking the amount listed fills up a good 2 casserole dishes.  I'm thinking this will make an appearance at my next dinner party.