2 Pounds of Green Beans

A few years ago, the highlight of my family's weekend was shopping at Costco. We would spend way too much time going up and down every aisle amazed at the goods available. We would try every sample numerous times whether we liked them or not. C'mon, it was free food! Afterwards we would sit at the food stand sharing hot dogs and pizza and marvel at all the people, wondering what they had in their carts.

Now, there is a Costco much closer to our home and instead of each shopping trip being an adventure it has become one of many errands I run while the kids are at school. If I don't have any kids with me, I can be in and out of there in less than 15 minutes.

Recently I bought a 2 pound bag of french green beans. At the local grocery store, I would have bought 1/2 a pound of green beans, but this is Costco and they don't sell anything in such small quantities. I originally planned on making the standard green bean casserole.

When I got home, I realized 1) I didn't have any fried onions in the house and 2) I didn't have the 40 minutes to let the thing bake.

Plan B - I found a fast recipe on line that looked yummy. With some tweaks it would be perfect. How convenient that the green beans come in a steam bag. After I microwaved them, I did the math. How was my little family of 5 going to eat 2 lbs of green beans?

Here is the recipe I used:

Orange Marmalade Glazed Green Beans

1 lb fresh green beans, cut into 3 inch pieces
3/4 cup orange marmalade
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Steam the green beans.
2. Either on the stove top or in the microwave, melt the orange marmalade and butter and salt together. Stir until smooth. Transfer green beans into a serving bowl; add orange marmalade mixture and toss to coat.

I thought it was yummy, dh thought it was yummy. The kids thought it was too sweet and chose to eat the leftover plain green beans with a sprinkle of sea salt. Proving once again that I really shouldn't bother looking up recipes and cooking. I should just steam veggies, give them a dash of salt and serve.

Having not learned my lesson...The next night, I chopped up the remainder of the 2 lb bag of green beans. I added left over steamed broccoli and made that green bean casserole I had originally planned on doing. However, instead of cream of mushroom soup, I used cream of chicken soup.

It didn't matter. My kids said they would rather of had the green beans and broccoli plain without all the other stuff.

The amazing part is that we ate the 2 lb bag of green beans in 3 meals (we had left over casserole for another night).

I don't think I would buy the bag again from Costco. Just too much of a good thing.