Fast Weeknight Dinner with Roasted Green Beans

Dave thought the Asiago-Crusted Pork Chops on the cover of the Cooking Light special issue, Fresh Food Fast Weeknight Meals looked good, so that was last night’s dinner. They were fast, easy, and pretty tasty too. Plus, my son had fun with his dad, pounding the chops with a heavy pan. The thyme – so earthy and woodsy – and fresh lemon juice really made the dish work for me. Go to myrecipes.com for the details if you’d like to try it. The one thing I changed was: instead of panko, I used Italian seasoned bread crumbs, but that was only because I happened to have some bread crumbs in the cupboard that I wanted to use up. I’m sure the panko would be just as good, if not better.

Along with the pork chops, we had some wild rice and green beans with onions. I know wild rice isn’t especially fast, but I just put it on the stove as soon as I got home from work and didn’t even start on anything else until it was almost done.

The green beans were inspired by another Cooking Light recipe. I knew the caramelized onions would be a hit (my five-year old son loves them), but I didn’t really want the sesame flavors the recipe called for. I just didn’t think it would go well with pork chops. So, this is what we ended up with:

Roasted Green Beans with Onions  PRINTABLE RECIPE

1 Lb. fresh green beans – trimmed
1 to 1-1/2 cups slivered white onion
1 large garlic clove – minced
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
½ tsp salt
lemon wedges for serving

1. Preheat oven to 500°.

2. Combine all the ingredients, except the lemon wedges, in a large bowl and toss to coat. Then arrange the mixture in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet.

3. Bake for 10 minutes and toss. Bake for 3 more minutes or until the green beans are just tender.

4. Move the green bean-onion mixture to a serving dish and squeeze lemon juice (to taste) over the top.