Green Beans. My history with green beans goes back much farther than most vegetables because my great grandmother always served fresh green beans at her Sunday lunches and I very rarely ate them, simply out of the "I-will-not-eat-any-vegetable"-protest I carried on well into my teens. Of course, I would be forced to eat them every once and awhile, and my great grandmother in all of her Kentucky glory would usually smother them in some kind of cream-like concoction (which almost always began with the word "Campbell's") and turn them into a green bean casserole. Not being one for vegetable casseroles these days, I turned to green beans one day when I literally had nothing else in my freezer but felt I needed some kind of "green" to go along with my pot roast and potatoes. Growing up with fresh green beans, I feel slightly guilty now cooking only with frozen green beans but what I like so much about the frozen ones is how the ice around them turns into just the right amount of water which prevents them from over-cooking and drying out. Aside from that, there's not a lot of interesting information to add other than - don't forget the brown sugar in this recipe. I don't quite understand it, but for whatever reason, brown sugar with green beans fried on the stove top tastes absolutely wonderful. I like the combination of sweet and spicy so I mix it up by adding red chili pepper flakes or sriracha sauce (use sparingly as this sauce is quite hot). What's great about this recipe is that you can be very experimental with it and it cooks really fast. I have never measured any of my ingredients. I always grab a couple handfuls of green beans, and from there I eyeball everything else. I know that I go in for 2 half handfuls of brown sugar, which I sprinkle around because it always cooks down, and as for everything else, it really is just a "dash of this" and a "dash of that." The whole thing should take no more than 5-7 minutes.

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