Southern-Style Green Beans

Name: Southern-Style Green Beans
Cook time: 60 min
Total time: 60 min
Ingredients: 2 cans green beans; 1 to 2 T bacon drippings; 1 tablespoon sugar; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1/4 teaspoon pepper

A vegetables & sides favorite from the Martell family cookbook, shared by Marie Martell Isbell.

Prep Not listedCook 1 hrTotal 1 hrYield not listed

Method

Make something worth remembering.

Method

Place green beans and the other ingredients into a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer for 30 to 45 minutes. Add a little water if needed so that the beans stay covered. You can do this with fresh or frozen butter beans, black eyed peas, lady peas, crowder peas, butter peas, etc. If cooking fresh or frozen beans or peas, rinse them well, more than cover them with water, and simmer for about 1 hour.
If you want to be a true Southern cook, you will need to keep a little covered bowl in the refrigerator that you pour bacon grease into whenever you fry bacon. Then you always have bacon drippings on hand for seasoning vegetables and making milk gravy.

Family note

What makes this ours

When I was first married, Tony's grandmother, Dud, and his mother let me watch them cook and take notes. I never thought the sugar they added was important, so I went for years not adding the sugar and nothing I cooked tasted just right. I finally began adding the sugar and it made all the difference in the world.

MMRecipe contributed byMarie Martell Isbell