However, life can change, and now I am converted. Beans are peachy keen! Most of them anyway - limas are still iffy...
Anyway, after learning to appreciate the kale chip, I now have moved on to appreciating roasted green beans more so. They have more "being," they don't create kale chip dust, and eating them is more like eating something than like eating green air.
The process I use for roasting green beans is much the same as I use for making kale chips. Here's a quick peek.
1) Beans:
Just pick up a pound or so of fresh green beans from where ever you buy your produce. If you garden consider growing your own.
Rinse beans and snip off each end. Yes, you can do this in front of the TV.
2) Pan: As with kale chips, beans will toast faster if done on a wire pizza pan. The open structure helps heat surround vegetable and is less work to clean. Not that washing a regular pizza pan is hard labor, but wiping down one of these is less. Ours were found at garage sales or thrift shops. If you don't have the wire type any pizza pan or cooking sheet will do. Spray a light coating of oil on pan, or form parchment paper to surface. You know the drill.
Place beans in single layer on pan. A few less beans than shown here might be better for quicker roasting. I have two pans and the beans had to squeeze on to these two pans (time was a factor), so....
Oh, pre-heat oven to..... I've tried several different temperatures. Today's try was at 290 degrees F. I make kate chips at 260. And once oven was set as high as 350? No, I can't remember. Yes, feel free to experiment. Lower and slower is better than higher and on fire (haha).
3) Roasting:
After placing beans on pan use vegetable oil spray to coat beans. Spraying one side of bean does the trick. Then just sprinkle table salt to taste. I find that finer crystals stick onto a bean's surface than the courser grains of Kosher salt. You may want to try chili powder, garlic powder, etc. i haven't done so - yet.
I do roast two pans at a time - checking first after 20 minutes, and then every 15, 10, 5, and so on. Beans roast differently because of size and moisture content. I like a final texture that's quite dry, but slightly chewy beans are good, too. Yes, I have burned some to a grey stick crisp. If you like your marshmallows charred, well, black bean sticks might be for you! Generally, though the results should look like this:
Even after the beans reach this point I often turn the oven off and leave the beans in to get even crispier.
Result:
Place the crunchy little critters in an air-tight container (or not). These babies are ready for easy healthy snacking.
It's amazing how quickly one can chomp through a former one-pound pile of green beans once they have been roasted. Pace yourself. Enjoy.
Now it's time to go treat myself to a big bag of potato chips - ha, just kidding. Maybe tomorrow. For now we have a lovely bowl full of crunchy salty roasted green beans - woo hoo!!
Blog time is over. It's time to paint some bears.
Fare-thee-well,
Sue
www.suerowe.com
Facebook Page: Sue-Rowe-Studios
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