I'm such a 'slacker'.

So I'm not a slacker. Its been joked I'm the "busiest unemployed, employed man" most people know. But I sometimes bemoan the fact that days only have 24 hours, I could really used a dozen or so more hours in a given day. I know, I'm a masochist most days, but lets face it, that is part of my charm and a good 29% of the reason my mother wants to strangle me. The other 71% involves my propinquity to pull elaborate pranks resulting in prying someone's fingers from around my throat. The other 81% of the time its my overwhelming wanderlust which takes me around the world.

Yes, that is 181%, I have my degrees in liberal arts, not math! Loosen up, it's a joke! Shesh, everyone is a critic. And no, that isn't a kind of lizard either, but if you get that joke you just might be a bigger dork than me. Just barely. I'm going to stop now before I hurt myself.

Anyways, I have spent the last two days feasting on left over soup and bread as I've cranked out a editing job on a Ph.D thesis for a high school classmate of mine, which means that I've stared at 60+ pages of documentation in less than a week on top of my normal work. The thesis is good, but being the editorial smuck that I am, I have been going over the thesis with a fine toothed comb forged of my twisted brain matter. Hmmm...brains.....

Bad Zombie! Back in your book! (This has also meant that my normal work on my next book, The Zombie's Diary, has been pushed to a back burner for a week as I get this rush job done.)

Well back to the purpose of this blog: food. Glorious food. This morning I pulled out a classic from my grandmother's cookbook again (that and I found bacon on sale at my local supermarket....bacon....drool), and made green beans.

Yes! Green beans! What? Don't like green beans? Tough, these are good!

Granny's Green Beans

Tools:

Pot with a lid or a slow cooker.

Knife

Cutting Board

Whatever tool you use to get into canned food (Not a hammer!)

Ingredients:

2 cans of green beans (drained: because I don't want to drink the crap that they use to can the beans!)

1 can of white potatoes or one large tater cut up into cubes (drain these too! you might need to cut the canned taters in half if they are bigger than bite size)

1 medium onion, chopped

1 tbsp chopped garlic

1/4th pound of bacon, diced into inch size pieces (what? I said these are good, what do you think makes them good? pixie dust?)

High quality tap water (once you travel to a country with low quality tap water, you will REALLY appreciate the water we have in the States.)

A dash of red pepper flakes (not much, just to give a little bite to the beans and make people wonder why they don't eat more green beans!)

A winning lotto ticket that you will mail you favorite food blogger (you can't say I didn't try)

After cutting everything up, take the bacon and place it into the bottom of the slowcooker or pot on medium heat (this will be on high for the slow cooker). Toss the bacon into the cooking dish, cover, and cooked the bacon through, releasing all the fat (the magical pixie dust that makes food tasty) and crisps up the bacon. This will happen a lot faster on the stove than in the crock pot, so pay attention (some of the crappier models of crock pots will take up to an hour to do this right, but that is alright).

Take the onions and add it directly to the pot, stirring it in with the bacon. Follow this up with the garlic, red pepper flakes, potatoes, and green beans. Once they are all mixed together, pour in enough water to cover them and then about an inch more. Turn the heat down to low on the stove and leave it alone.

This is one of those dishes that just gets better the longer you cook it. On the stove top you will need a minimum of an hour too cook this properly, the crock pot will need 4 hours, but as long as you are willing to check on the mixture every 30 minutes and add hot water when the water levels begin to lower, you can cook this all day long.

Seriously, cook it all day long! Do it! You won't hurt anything in that pot with a long, slow cooking! It will turn into veggie crack, you'll be mainlining this into your arm as you try to ask the man for "one more hit of taters, just one more". Then you will discover you will do things that you never thought you would just for some veggies. Naughty and wrong things. (You have a sick mind, do you realize that? I was just thinking about spending time home with the family....but nooooo, you took it to an entirely wrong place. Shame on you!)

Well tonight's meal option will include sitting with my slow cooker on the floor in front of me in the study, watching my favorite christmas movie: Die Hard. Until then!

Bien Camino.