Almond Crunch Green Beans

I had some green beans that needed  to be used and after perusing a few cookbooks for ideas, I came across Almond Crunch Wax Beans in my 1969 edition of Betty Crocker's Cookbook.

Being the rebellious sort, I decided to substitute my green beans for the wax beans.  Yeah, that's right.  I run with scissors, too.  Well, I would if I ever ran.  But I do walk fairly fast with scissors now and then.  Fine, I saunter with scissors.  (Please don't tell my mother!)

I did make a few changes to the recipe.  I left the beans whole, because they were the small, thin French beans.  I only had sliced almonds and I chose to toast them in the butter because, well, anything toasted in butter is better than anything that is dry toasted.  I then used the lovely browned and almondy butter when I cooked the beans.  Mmmm, almondy browned butter!

I like to use this old baking pan because Farm Boy is convinced that all old enamelware pans are bed pans.

We really liked these.  The almonds were nice and crunchy and were a nice contrast with the beans.  They even tasted good as leftovers, but the almonds lost their crunch after being refrigerated and reheated.

Almond Crunch Wax (or Green) Beans (Printable Recipe)
from the 1969 edition of Betty Crocker's Cookbook

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons slivered almonds
1 pound fresh wax or green beans
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons butter
3/4 teaspoon salt
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Cut beans into 1" pieces or leave whole, if the beans are small.

In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat.  Add the almonds and cook until fragrant and beginning to brown.  Remove almonds with a slotted spoon and set aside, leaving the browned butter in the pan.

To the saucepan, add beans, water and salt and stir well.  Cover; cook 20 to 25 minutes* or until beans are tender.  When tender, drain the beans, season with a little salt and pepper, if needed, and top with the toasted almonds.

*My beans were really thin, so they cooked much faster, about 15 minutes total.