ginger green beans

Who needs ginger beef when you can have ginger green beans! Yeah, I know, not quite the same, unless you're a vegetarian. But hear me out.

The thing with green beans is that I never know how to make them differently. I usually just eat them steamed. This picture is from late summer (still cleaning out the photo archives!), when we had a great BIG crop of green beans. I think this is my third green bean recipe on this blog. That's a lot of beans (just imagine how many batches I ate and didn't post!).

I had this recipe for ginger beef and I LOVED the sauce so I thought it would go well with green beans. And it does. Since my hubby doesn't really like things "plain" (he loves his sauces) this seemed like a great way to get him to eat his greens and have sauce left over to mop up with bread or rice. I refused to fry battered-up green beans (like you do with ginger beef) cuz that just sorta kills the purpose of eating healthy green beans, if ya know what I mean.
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ginger green beansserves 4

1/2 kg (~1 pound) fresh green beans, ends snipped (oops, I forgot to snip them in the above picture!)

1/4 cup ginger, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped or minced
3 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp wine, red or white (I have used apple juice too)
2 Tbsp white vinegar
1/2 cup sugar

Either blanch or stir fry green beans until softened. Set aside.

In a pan with 1 tbsp oil, stir in ginger and garlic over high heat. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Add Beans. Mix well. Serve.

This recipe was handed down to me from my sister who got it from her mother-in-law. I don't know if she is the original source or if she got it from somewhere else. All I have is a pretty printout :) sorry.