Maple Bacon Walnut Green Beans, and Candied Walnuts

Yes, vegetables are inherently good for you. But sometimes you feel like making them as bad for you as possible. Adding bacon, maple syrup, and candied nuts to them is a good way to accomplish that goal. Here's how:

Maple Bacon Walnut Green Beans

adapted from here

Ingredients
about a pound of green beans
3 T maple syrup
2 T olive oil
1 T red wine vinegar
1/2 t Dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 slices cooked bacon, chopped
1/4 cup chopped candied walnuts

Equipment
whisk; pot; colander; large bowl; stove

Instructions
Bring a pot of water to a boil. Boil the green beans for 3-5 minutes (they should still be crisp). While the beans boil, whisk the syrup, oil, vinegar, mustard, and garlic together. Drain the green beans immediately and put them in a large bowl with ice water. After three minutes, drain the green beans again. Pat them with a paper towel, then toss them in the dressing. Top with bacon and walnuts. Salt and pepper if preferred.

Yields
4 servings

Total time
15 minutes

Cleanup rating 3/10
If you do this correctly, you should only have one bowl that needs good cleaning. Other than that, you have the pot you boiled the green beans in, and the colander. (And a whisk.)

Flavor rating 8/10
How can you go wrong? It's salty and sweet, bacon-y and maple-y, and still a crisp green vegetable.

Difficulty rating 6/10
For a side dish, there's a bit of work that goes into this, but it pays off. Don't forget that there are steps not technically included here (like cooking the bacon, and if you're making the candied nuts yourself, you need to get that done before you start, too).

Adjustability: low
There aren't many things you could do differently here. I suppose you could use prosciutto instead of bacon if you're the fancy type. The original recipe used pecans, but I had walnuts, and sliced almonds would be good too.

Make it with...
As you can see in the photo, I made it with a potato-onion-sausage saute (also delicious) but this could go with anything you'd pair with green beans. Beef, chicken, pork, turkey, something vegetarian (although these are decidedly non-vegetarian, what with the bacon and all).

---

If you can't find candied nuts to your liking or at all, or you have some plain nuts on standby that you want to use up, this is how I made mine. They weren't perfect, and I would adjust the recipe or find a different one (or just make the nuts earlier and let them dry some more before making the green beans) but it works!

Candied Walnuts
adapted from here

Ingredients
2 cups of nuts (walnuts, in my case)
4 T butter
4 T brown sugar
sprinkle of cinnamon (optional)

Equipment
microwave; bowl; parchment or wax paper

Instructions
Melt the butter in a bowl. Add the nuts and toss to coat evenly. Add the sugar and cinnamon (optional) and stir until incorporated. Spread on paper and allow to cool.

Yields
2 cups of nuts (plenty more than enough for the green beans recipe)

Total time
5 minutes

Cleanup rating 2/10
Only one bowl (and disposable paper) but it's a sticky mess of a bowl.

Difficulty rating 2/10
Stupid easy, just don't burn your fingers on the bowl.

Flavor rating 6/10
They're pretty good, but if I were going to eat them by themselves, I'd change something... I just don't know what.

Adjustability: low
You could add other spices, but there isn't much to this recipe, so there isn't much you can change.

Make it with...
Obviously, with the green bean recipe above. But you could put these on salads or eat them as a snack.

Kale and Onion Saute

That's the chicken lazone from the last post, with garlic mashed potatoes, and the star of this post, kale and onion saute. The original recipe came from here, and you may notice some very clear visual differences between theirs and mine. I definitely want to make this again in the future and do a better job overall.

Kale and Onion Saute

Ingredients

head of kale, washed and dried

onion

vegetable oil

salt

Equipment

saute pan with a lid, stove

Instructions

Slice onions thinly and slice kale into thin strips. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in the pan and add onions, cooking until they start to caramelize. Add the kale and a few tablespoons of water and cover. Let it steam for 5-10 minutes until the kale is all wilty. Stir everything up to incorporate. Salt to taste.

Yields
The head of kale I used could easily serve 4

Total time
about 20 minutes

Cleanup rating 2/10
One oily pan and all the water you dripped all over the entire kitchen while trying to deal with your unwieldy kale is all you have to deal with here.

Flavor rating abstained
I refuse to rate this recipe until I try it again, because I flubbed. I was making chicken lazone at the same time, and I wanted them to be finished at the same time, so I didn't wait for the onions to caramelize. I also used pretty big pieces of onion. I think dicing it would work best (for both cooking and eating).

Difficulty rating 3/10
It sounds stupid to rate this so easy when I managed to screw it up, but my issue was with timing this alongside another recipe, not this recipe itself. This is actually quite an easy recipe; I just need a do-over.

Adjustability: medium
The original recipe suggested sprinkling the finished product with apple cider vinegar and red pepper flakes, but I decided against both. It still wasn't bad. I quite like cooked kale, and I love onions, so even though I did it wrong, it turned out okay. Which goes to show you that you can season this basically however you want. Add other veggies to either stage: peppers with the onions, or spinach with the kale.

Make it with...
Anything you'd pair a green-and-leafy with, really. Birk thinks kale tastes a lot like broccoli (I don't disagree, but I don't think I would have made the connection without him pointing it out) so if you'd have broccoli with something, this would probably do well in its place.

Cost
Oh, fresh produce. I love you so much. You're so inexpensive (if you aren't organic, and I don't typically buy organic) and so delicious. You're the best.
Anyway, kale is $1.29/lb at my Farm Fresh. I don't recall how much I bought, but it felt like about half a pound if memory serves, so I'm going with $0.65 for how much kale I used. Onions belong in my kitchenventory, but they were on sale for $0.74 so I barely spent a dollar on this recipe (considering that vegetable oil and salt belong in my kitchenventory).

Egg Sandwich and Toasted Edamame

It's time for a two-fer!

Egg Sandwich

Ingredients

bread (we used the same everything French bread from last night's grilled cheeses)

eggs (about two per sandwich)

salt and pepper

cheese (I had white cheddar)

butter

Equipment

skillet, pan, stove

Instructions

Mix up eggs in a bowl with salt and pepper like you're making scrambled eggs (because you totally are). Butter a skillet and start the bread toasting. Cut your cheese into tiny cubes. Butter a pan and heat it up. Add the eggs. When they just start to cook, add the cheese. Keep stirring it and chopping it with the spoon until you have scrambled eggs. Keep an eye on your toast (flip it over when one side is toasted). Once everything's done, make sandwiches.

Yields

I made three sandwiches out of four eggs.

Total time

About 15 minutes

Cleanup rating 2/5

All you have to deal with is a buttery skillet, an eggy pan, and a raw eggy bowl.

Flavor rating 8/10

Yum! Simple but delicious. Hard to go wrong with butter, bread, eggs, and cheese.

Difficulty rating 2/10

Super easy. Unless you're terrible at cracking eggs. Then it's like a 3. Or like 5 if you're really, really bad at it.

Adjustability: high

It's a sandwich... add whatever you want! Use different cheeses, mix in vegetables or meats, add stuff like lettuce or tomato or whatever you want. That's what I love about sandwiches.

Make it with...

I made it with the recipe below, toasted edamame. But again... it's a sandwich. Chips, pretzels, veggies, whatever floats your boat.

Cost

Half a dozen eggs: about $2

Everything French bread from Walmart: $1

Butter from kitchenventory

Brick of white cheddar cheese from Target: about $3

Cost for all ingredients: $6

Toasted Edamame

Ingredients

bag of frozen edamame

vegetable oil

a few Tbsp Parmesan cheese

about 1 tsp minced garlic

salt and pepper

Equipment

baking sheet, oven

Instructions

Rinse/thaw your edamame. Toss it in vegetable oil. Add minced garlic and toss again. Spread it on the baking sheet and sprinkle with Parmesan, salt, and pepper. Bake at 350F for about 10 minutes.

Yields

a bag's worth of edamame

Total time

about 15 minutes

Cleanup rating 1/5

You have an oily bowl (or colander if you're like me and get tired of being told there's too much oil in your vegetables, so you added oil while the vegetables were still in the colander) and, if you line your baking sheet with foil, a piece of foil to throw away.

Flavor rating 7/10

I think this is an excellent vegetable side dish, personally. Our edamame had been sitting in the freezer for about a year, so it was a tiny bit tough, but it was still tasty.

Difficulty rating 1/10

The hardest part was opening the jar of minced garlic.

Adjustability: medium

You could use other spices or herbs or something, but that's about it.

Make it with...

Anything! It's a side dish. Goes with any meat, any non-meat, any sandwich, whatever.

Cost

Bag of edamame: about $2

Parmesan cheese from the kitchenventory

Minced garlic from the kitchenventory

Cost for all ingredients: $2

Cost for this recipe: $2

Beer Mushrooms

You know what's awesome? Beer. You know what else is awesome? Mushrooms. But guess what wasn't double-awesome? These beer mushrooms. They were okay.

Beer + mushrooms = beer mushrooms

That's them, on the right, with beer brats and potatoes.

Ingredients

8 oz mushrooms

2 Tbsp butter

1/2 cup beer

salt and pepper

Equipment

skillet, stove

Instructions

Melt butter in a skillet. Add mushrooms. Add beer. Cook for about 30 minutes, letting the mushrooms absorb all the beer. Salt and pepper to taste.

Yields

3-4 servings

Total Time
about 30 minutes

Cleanup rating 2/5
The thing about making something with a lot of butter and leaving it in the pan while you eat dinner is that it gets that fatty stuff all over the pan. I think it's kind of gross, but it's easy to clean up.

Difficulty rating 2/10
Patience factors into difficulty, which is the only reason this isn't a 1/10.

Flavor rating 3/10
Meh. I like mushrooms. I like beer. (At least, I like the beer I used for this.) I didn't really like this.

Adjustability: low
Use a different beer (the original recipe recommended a stout, maybe that was part of my problem) or use different mushrooms, maybe add some other herbs/seasonings, but that's about all you can do.

Make it with...
I made this to go along with French onion soup, sauteed beer brats with garlic, and potatoes (they were sliced this time to make them cook a little faster). You could make them with just about anything... chicken, pork, beef, vegetarian meals, whatever.

Game of Thrones Dinner: Honeyed Chicken and Spiced Squash

I know, I disappeared from this blog for a while... Sorry! But I haven't been cooking as much because I've been doing... everything else.

Last Saturday, Beth and Chris and I entered a cosplay contest at Tidewater Comicon... and we won best group! In celebration of our cosplay (Melisandre, Margaery, and Oberyn) I wanted to make an easy dinner for everyone from the Inn at the Crossroads. I wanted to make olive bread but the timing didn't work out very well, so this is what we wound up with:

I made a pressed-for-time (some might call it "lazy") version of Honeyed Chicken. I cheated and used pre-made rotisserie chickens, but I made the sauce. I also made Spiced Squash with it (I used the modern recipe, but used butternut squash that was growing in the yard so I wouldn't have to buy acorn squash). And to pull it all together, I threw together a green salad out of what the in-laws had growing outside: a couple different types of lettuce, spinach, tomato, and some red onion Birk chopped up while I was out picking everything else.

Sauce for Honeyed Chicken

from Inn at the Crossroads

Ingredients

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/3 cup honey

dash of mint (I had to use dried)

handful of raisins

1 Tbsp butter

Equipment

saucepan, spoon, measuring cup, stove

Instructions

Combine everything in a pan and cook until the raisins start to plump. Pour it over the chicken when it's done. (Yes, it's that simple!)

Yields

I actually doubled the recipe since, as you can see in the photo, I had two chickens. (I was channeling the Hound, I guess.) But the recipe makes plenty for one full chicken.

Total time

For the sauce, maybe 10 minutes total. I was reheating the chickens so that took about 30 minutes.

Cleanup rating 2/5

I expected something with this much honey to be a huge mess, but it wasn't bad. I recommend cleaning out your pan pretty quickly though, because it does that thing where the fat floats on the top if you don't use all the sauce, and I think that's kinda gross. And rinse out your measuring cup with really hot water right after you measure the honey, and that'll be less of an issue later.

Difficulty rating 2/10

It's a really simple recipe. Even if you had to roast a chicken from scratch, I wouldn't put this over a 5/10. The timing is easy, the cooking is easy... you do need to be able to keep an eye on it, but I had Birk around for that.

Flavor rating 6/10

I thought it was a little heavy on the apple cider vinegar, but everyone else said it was good. I think it went really well with the already-seasoned rotisserie chicken, so the flavor plays well with others. And I'm pretty sure some of the vinegariness went away as the sauce cooled.

Adjustability: low

Other than adding herbs, I don't know how I could change this, but I also don't know why I would. It's basic and yummy.

Make it with...

Obviously, chicken. I don't see any reason you couldn't make it with turkey instead. I wouldn't use it with other meats, or with anything other than poultry.

Spiced Squash

from Inn at the Crossroads

Ingredients
a squash (I used butternut)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice (I skipped this because we didn't have any)

Equipment
sauce pan, stove, baking sheet, oven

Instructions
Cut up the squash into approximately 1" pieces. Preheat the oven to 375F. Heat the maple syrup in a pan with the spices for about 3 minutes, stirring constantly (do not let it boil). Remove it from the heat. Arrange your squash pieces on a baking sheet (I highly recommend lining it with foil first). Pour the sauce over the squash, coating the pieces as evenly as possible. Bake until tender, about 20 minutes. If you managed to reserve any sauce, heat it in the last few minutes and pour it over the squash when you take it out of the oven.

Yields
Two fairly big butternut squashes fed me and five friends, and the sauce was just the right amount.

Total time
This only took about half an hour, with Birk cutting up the squash while I worked on the sauce for the chicken.

Cleanup rating 2/5
Not bad, but you are heating maple syrup in a pan. I'd recommend using all the sauce on the squash to begin with, and cleaning the pan immediately, while the squash is in the oven. And if you follow my advice about lining the baking sheet with foil, it'll make it 10x better.

Difficulty rating 3/10
I learned that butternut squash is pretty tough to cut; it's kind of like a sweet potato. Beyond that, this is a very simple recipe... it's like a sweet version of my potatoes!

Flavor rating 7/10
I don't eat a lot of squash, but maybe I should start. This was really good. It's excellent for fall weather! I think I might mount an effort to get squash everywhere instead of pumpkin. (Nothing against pumpkin, I'm just not a big fan of it in everything... just pie, really.)

Adjustability: low
There are only so many spices that would go well on a squash, and there are only so many types of squash, and that's all you could really change, because that's all you're using.

Make it with...
Of course, I made it with the honeyed chicken, which was an amazing combination. But I think you could make it with anything that you consider a fall or winter meal. It's a side dish that plays well with others. And it's an excellent and easy vegan dish if you have guests with dietary considerations at the holidays. (It's also gluten-free unless you have a really weird maple syrup.)

Skillet Corn

I forgot to take a photo of this one. So I'm borrowing the photo from here, which is where I got the recipe from.

From here

Before I made this, I didn't really know what creamed corn was. It just brought to mind a tin can of gelatinous goo with corn in it. (Turns out, I wasn't far off on that count.) But I described to a coworker this corn that I made over the weekend, and she said it sounded like creamed corn. So I guess creamed corn is actually pretty good. At any rate, the original recipe poster called this skillet corn, which sounds way more delicious than "creamed corn."

Skillet Corn

Ingredients

3 cups corn

1/2 tsp salt

pepper to taste

1 Tbsp sugar (I'm fairly certain I accidentally left this out)

1/2 cup water

1 Tbsp flour

1/4 cup milk

Equipment

skillet with lid, stove

Instructions

Put corn, salt and pepper, sugar, butter, and water in 10" skillet. Cover; simmer 15 minutes (stir occasionally). Combine flour with milk. Stir into corn. Cook another 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Yields

about 3 cups of corn

Total time

20 minutes (negligible prep time, 15 minutes to simmer and 5 minutes to finish it off)

Cleanup rating 2/5

All you have to clean is a pan, spoon, and whatever bowl you put the corn in. And the measuring cup. Nothing sticky or anything; very simple.

Difficulty rating 3/10

Just make sure you stir constantly after you add the milk; I'm always very wary after adding milk to a hot pan because I know it can do weird, disgusting things. The rest is incredibly easy.

Flavor rating 5/10

Yum. It might have been better if I had remembered the sugar, but it was still good. It went perfectly with burgers and hot dogs on a beautiful-weather Father's Day.

Adjustability: low

I don't know what else you could do to it.

Make it with...

Well, like I said, it went great with cookout food. But it would also work with... pretty much anything. Chicken, beef, pork, whatever.

Winey Chicken and Roasted Carrots

It's a two-fer! (There's also garlic mashed potatoes and peas but there isn't much to say about them... follow box directions for the potatoes, and microwave the peas with some butter. Ta-da...)

Winey Chicken

Ingredients
Chicken (I used tenderloins, about 10 of them... 1 package)
Red wine, about a cup
Minced garlic
Olive oil, 1 Tbsp
Paprika
Brown sugar (about 1/2 cup)
Salt

Equipment
Skillet (with a lid), stove

Instructions
Put the oil in your skillet and put it on medium heat. Add garlic and let it cook until it's tender and starting to turn golden. Add the chicken in one layer and cook it ten minutes on each side (until it's almost entirely cooked; no pink on the outside). Sprinkle the brown sugar and paprika on the chicken, and pour in the wine. Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes. (If you want even color, turn the chicken about halfway through. You can see in the photo that I didn't do this.)

Yields
About 3 servings, for us. Scalable to a degree.

Total time
About 45 minutes.

Cleanup rating 3/5
You get a gunky pan but if you wash it quickly, it's not a problem. (I didn't wash it quickly.)

Difficulty rating 5/10
You really have to pay attention to this one at all the stages, and it takes a long while. It's helpful to have a few other things going (like I did) but then you have to orchestrate everything.

Flavor rating 5/10
Good... not great. I feel like I can fix it somehow. Maybe more sugar and paprika? Maybe I needed to flip the chicken? I'm not sure. But it was good.

Roasted Carrots

Ingredients
Baby carrots
Vegetable oil
Seasonings, including kosher salt (I used shallot-pepper seasoning)

Equipment
pan, oven, foil

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400F and line the pan with foil. Toss your carrots in the oil, coating them evenly. Lay them in a single layer on your foil-lined pan and sprinkle with kosher salt and the seasoning of your choice. Bake for 40 minutes.

Yields
How many carrots did you use? Scalable.

Total time
45 minutes

Cleanup rating 1/5
Wait for foil to cool; throw away foil. Easy-peasy!

Difficulty rating 2/10
Other than testing to make sure the carrots are done, there isn't much to this. You can do it.

Flavor rating 7/10
I love roasted veggies, especially potatoes and carrots. YUM. Just... just yum.

Mushrooms, Part Two

Remember how I got my mushrooms drunk last night? Well, tonight I made them breakfast.

Mushroomelette

Ingredients
Eggs (I used 3)
Mushrooms (I used 3 button mushrooms)
Butter (about 1 Tbsp)
Cheese, shredded (I used Jack)
Seasonings (I used shallot-pepper)*

Equipment
Stove, pan, cheese grater

Instructions
Dice your mushrooms. (Just like last night, they don't have to be perfect, just evenly-sized.) Put your butter in a pan over medium heat. Once it's melted, add the mushrooms and stir them around to get them all buttery. Leave them alone for the most part (stir around occasionally) and go grate your cheese if you haven't already, and beat your eggs in a bowl. Once the mushrooms are tender, add the eggs and stir around until they look approximately like this:

Add the cheese and keep stirring around until the cheese is melted and the eggs are done.

*You can season at several different points: while the mushrooms are sauteeing, while the eggs aren't yet done, after you add the cheese, all three... whatever.

Yields
This was enough for two, because I used three eggs. This one, like last night's, is easily scalable.

Total time
Darn my lack of accountability on this front. I would guess about 15 minutes again, because I baked biscuits at the same time and they took a little over 15 minutes.

Cleanup rating 2/5
Eggs are pretty easy to clean up because they don't really stick to the pan. There are still a handful of dishes that need to be cleaned up, though (cutting board, knife, pan, bowl from the eggs, spoon).

Difficulty rating 3/10
You do have to pay attention when making this, but it's not terribly hard.

Flavor rating 5/10
Pretty good. Not great. I could have used more seasoning probably, but generally pretty good.

My Mushrooms Are Drunker Than I Am

(Well, I'm not at all drunk, so that's not really a fair comparison.)

I've never cooked mushrooms before. In fact, only in the past year or so have I even started eating mushrooms. Melting Pot stuffed mushroom caps, then Bonefish Grill's chicken marsala, then Madame Georgescu made the best little mushroom caps with some kind of Italian cheese in them, and Noodles & Company has great mushrooms in their Japanese pan noodles. So it turns out I quite like them. Tonight, I cooked them. And got them drunk.

This is one of those times where I used logic and experience and my own tastes to figure out how to make dinner, so the recipe is less-than-conventionally written.

Drunk Mushrooms

Ingredients
Mushrooms (I used three or four mid-sized button mushrooms)
Butter (I used about a Tbsp)
Garlic (I used somewhere between 1 and 2 tsp of the pre-minced stuff)
Wine (I used the cheap tiny carton of Pinot Noir from Target, probably 1/4 cup?)

Equipment
Pan, stove, stirring spoon

Instructions
Chop up your mushrooms. Don't worry if you have no idea how to cut mushrooms; I didn't. Just try to make even-sized pieces and you'll be fine.

Put your butter in your pan on medium heat. When the butter is melting, add the garlic and stir everything around to make things even.

When the butter is all melted, add the mushrooms. Stir them around to make them buttery.

Leave it alone for a while (I was cooking another recipe so I didn't mess with them much) and inhale the delicious odor emanating from your pan. I mean, yum, right?

Once the mushrooms are getting tenderer (poke them with a fork... I probably waited about 5-7 minutes?) add the wine.

Wait for about half of it to evaporate (stir occasionally) and then put your mushrooms on whatever you want (I used garlic mashed potatoes). Devour.

Yields
Well, that's up to you, isn't it? I'm categorizing this one as "scalable" since it's easier to make more or less. I made it for one person; you could easily make it for eight.

Total time
This one's tough, as I made about four different things in the kitchen tonight and didn't really watch the clock as much as I watched the food. I would estimate fifteen minutes.

Cleanup rating 2/5
The only reason this isn't a 1 is because you have to clean a pan. Also, you're working with red wine, so if you spill any, that will be difficult to clean, and there are little bits of mushroom and garlic that can get all over the place if you're reckless.

Difficulty rating 6/10
Cutting button mushrooms? Not super easy. They're round and have a weird texture and getting even pieces was a little difficult. Then again, this is the first time I've ever cut mushrooms. Also, you can get them pre-sliced if you're so inclined. You have to kind of know what you're doing here, though. Mushrooms feel almost tender when they're raw, so you have to pay attention to get your timing right. And don't burn the garlic. And don't add too much wine. And don't crowd the mushrooms. (Seriously, let them breathe in the pan. If you have too many mushrooms, use a bigger pan.)

Flavor rating 8/10
I think I can improve on this. I didn't really know how they'd turn out, so I was hesitant to season them, so maybe I'll experiment with some of that. But if you can manage to make these, you can probably guess at some kind of seasoning you might like with them. I've seen similar recipes mention rosemary, so that might be a good jumping-off point. But I loved these as they were, with my mashed potatoes and peas. Delicious.

Sauteed Green Beans

Whereas the baked potato that went with these is something I've made a billion times, this was a new one for me. I've been wanting to make sauteed green beans for months, ever since I started being really disappointed in the ones from Outback Steakhouse.

I adapted a few recipes from around the internet to suit my purposes.

Sauteed Green Beans

Ingredients:
fresh green beans (I settled for a bag from Target, but just not frozen)
1 clove of garlic, minced
2T olive oil
salt, pepper, seasoning of your choice

Equipment:
pot
colander
pan
stove

Instructions:
Boil a pot of water. Wash your green beans and break off the ends. When your water is boiling, add your green beans and boil them for about 4 minutes. Drain them and rinse them in cold water. (I had one that discolored and got a little mushy so I threw that one out. You want them to be pretty and green like in the picture above.) Heat the oil in the pan for about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and let it stand for about a minute. Add the green beans (well drained!) and stir them around to coat them in the oil and garlic. Sprinkle with your seasonings (I used Penzey's shallot-pepper and some salt) and stir around again. Cook for about 3-5 minutes, stirring to keep them coated and keep them from burning. When the garlic starts to turn golden-brown, they're done.

Yields:
2 servings if you make as much as I did in the photo

Total time:
about 15 minutes

Cleanup rating: 2/5
One pan to clean, a pot and a colander to rinse.

Difficulty rating: 2/10
Really easy, but you have to keep an eye on it. I could have done better on the timing portion (these were done long before the potatoes were done, but I wanted to leave myself enough time to make a new vegetable if these didn't turn out well).

Flavor rating: 8/10
Yum! I could probably improve a little bit, and I didn't use fresh green beans (hey, they're out of season... I think) but they were still really good.

And here they are with the baked potato and cheese sauce: