Trim, Healthy Mama Green Bean Casserole, Two Different Ways

Well, I am on a new journey, or actually just continuing my journey of learning about health and nutrition -- a quest I began at about 14 years of age. 

I am SO excited about this book, Trim Healthy Mama, by Serene Allison and Pearl Barrett - over 600 pages of solid information on health - from how to eat and why, how to feed a large family healthfully on a trim budget, how to stay slim in the process, several chapters on hormones, several more on exercise, plus hundreds of recipes and much, much more. I had never heard "insulin resistance" explained so well, and so many other things that sort of "connected the dots" for me of pieces I had of the puzzle, plus much that I had never heard before. I cannot recommend it highly enough!

As a side note, I had never lost the last few pounds of baby weight after my last child, baby #5.  I had been waiting on them to disappear for over a year, but they were still around. Part of me wanted to just adjust - after all, I was over 30 now and I wasn't really fat. Things just get rearranged as you get older, right? But the other part of me did not like the new size. A couple of times, I almost got rid of my skinny jeans that I still couldn't fit into, but a little nagging voice in the back of my head made me hang on to them. I'm glad I did!

Just about 3 weeks into the Trim, Healthy, Mama Plan, I was back into my old clothes! To be honest, we have not had a scale since coming to Brazil, so I don't know about actual weight, but who cares?  If my clothes fit, I'll take it! WAHOO for Trim, Healthy Mama! And the best part is that I *totally* feel like I could eat and live this way the rest of my life. No deprivation, eat hearty portions, don't have to exclude anything from your diet.  I could go on and on, but I better get back to the point of this post!

 I have been working on revamping our family meals to be based on non-starchy vegetables with animal protein for our main meal of the day. For Trim Healthy Mamas, these green bean casseroles would be "S" meals, for "satisfying".  And boy, are they satisfying!

Green Bean Casserole #1, with Cream and Cheese

The first variation on the green bean casserole theme is basically the green beans with seasonings, topped with browned ground beef and a few pieces of Brazilian-style sausage for extra flavor, topped with heavy cream and then mozzarella on top. This was a BIG hit at my house. 

This is how it looked:

 

 Served up: On the left with rice and beans for my husband and children, who need more fuel sources, and on the right for me, perfectly satisfying on its own.

The way I prepare the beans is to put a generous amount of butter or lard (if you can find it farm-fresh, otherwise pass!) into a cast iron pot that has a lid -- probably about 3 tbsp for this huge amount of beans. (Of course you can use a non-cast iron one too.) Once the butter gets good and hot, I throw in about half of a finely chopped onion and let them sizzle until translucent. Then, I throw in the beans, washed and snapped. I use fresh, mostly because that is all we can get in Brazil, but you could use frozen too. I give them a good stir to coat them all in the butter and then put the lid on. They sizzle and steam in there for 10-15 minutes, until tender, with me stirring every 3-4 minutes.  Once they are tender, I salt them to taste.  Also, sometimes, about halfway through the cooking time, I throw in a bunch of finely minced fresh garlic and stir around.  Notice I didn't put any water in?
That's how I do the beans.

Then to brown the ground beef. I do everything in BULK, to save time as a busy homeschooling mama. So, when I buy ground beef, I get around five pounds, and cook it ALL up with my fave seasonings, like onion, garlic, green pepper, celery, sea salt, pepper and whatever else suits my fancy, all in a huge pot. Then I drain it and store in meal-sized portions in the freezer until I need it. So, the day I made this casserole, all I had to do was get the pre-prepared beef out of the freezer and thaw.

Chopped the sausage, which is smoked and requires no further cooking. You could omit it or substitute for something different.

To assemble, I put the beans in a 9X13 cake pan, covered with the sausage and beef and then poured heavy cream over everything. Covered with mozzarella and baked 15 minutes or so, just for the flavors to blend and the cheese to melt. Yum. 

Green Bean Casserole, #2, with Red Sauce and Crust

This is the second way I made green bean casserole recently. This one came about because I was looking for a way to use up the by-product of my almond milk creating - the leftover ground-up almonds. I just could not throw them away, so I had to find a use for them!

I prepared the beans the same way as above, and then layered them in the baking dish with the same sort of sausage on top. Didn't have any ground beef this day, although it would have been good too!

Instead of heavy cream, I covered these ingredients with tomato sauce (make sure it's sugar free!), and then my "breading" mixture. This is how I made that:

I took my "leftover" ground up almonds (but you could use regular almond meal or almond flour. I know Trader Joe's has some that is tasty and not too pricey, or you could grind up almonds for this purpose, without making almond milk!) and mixed in an egg and some Parmesan.  Then seasoned with Italian seasoning, a pinch of cayenne, sea salt and garlic powder.  Spread this mixture over the top of the tomato sauce, and baked it all about 35 minutes or so, until it was a bit toasty on top and the tomato sauce was bubbly. :)

The fam ate this over rice; I had it all on its own.