Sesame Green Beans and Blackberry Cobbler

Okay, so you got me started on sesame green beans. You described them to me on the phone once, and I thought, "That sounds good." Buuuut, after we hung up, I couldn't remember exactly how you told me you do them. So I went online and looked up recipes. I found several different methods, but many of them called for sesame oil. "Sesame oil?" I said to my self, "I don't need any fancy-ass sesame oil." And it's true. I didn't. I made them without the sesame oil for a while, and they were great.

Then. One day I went to buy soy sauce, and there on the shelf was a little bottle of sesame oil. It was only a couple of bucks, so I decided to see if it really improved the recipe or not.

I highly suggest sesame oil.




SESAME GREEN BEANS (I know you already know how to do this, but HUMOR ME)

1 - 1 1/2 lb. fresh green beans, washed and trimmed
1-2 tbs. sesame seeds, toasted
1-2 tbs. olive oil
1-2 tsp. sesame oil
Salt, pepper and soy sauce to taste (I use low sodium soy sauce, hence the extra salt. If you use regular soy sauce you probably don't need more salt, but whatever floats your boat.)

Preheat the oven to 425, and heat up a skillet on the stovetop for toasting the seeds.

Wash and trim the beans, and toss them with olive oil on a foil-lined baking sheet (I guess it doesn't have to be foil-lined, I just always line mine) until they're nice and coated. Spread them out in an even layer. Roast them in the oven about 25 minutes, or until the tips start to brown a little bit.

Meanwhile, toast the sesame seeds in a small skillet. You are right - they POP when they get hot! It's kind of fun. Just stir them around until they are a pretty brown color and smell nice and nutty.

When the beans are done, just toss them with the sesame oil, sesame seeds, and seasoning. That's it!

I use tongs to transfer them to a serving bowl. I put about 1/3 of the beans in the bowl, then splash on a little soy sauce, salt and pepper, then a light drizzle of sesame oil and 1/3 of the toasted seeds. Then I take the tongs and kind of toss them around in the bowl to coat everything. I repeat this for the next 2 layers, and when all the beans and seeds have been added in, I toss everything one more time for good measure.

I can eat these things like candy. They are more addictive to me than sweet potato fries. In fact, I have made these and sweet potato fries together for supper before and just...completely ignored the main course. These are the best. Sesame oil.

Moving on.

That mulberry cobbler we (okay, you) made at Mom's a while back was really good, but it did not get the need for Grandma's house blackberry cobbler out of my system. I've had her recipe in my book for years. Like, a decade, actually. And I'd never made it before. Blackberries used to be out of my budget, but I recently found that I can buy them cheap-ish in the freezer section. GREAT VALUE BRAND. Yep. So I bought a couple bags and went for it.


GRANDMA-STYLE BLACKBERRY COBBLER

1 stick butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
2 cups (or so) blackberries

That's it. I used frozen blackberries, so I dumped them in a baking dish and warmed them up in the oven to thaw them before I put the topping on.

While they were thawing, I softened the butter a little in the microwave (like 15 seconds) and dumped it in a big bowl. Then I squished in the flour and sugar. It makes a gooey, sticky, crumbly, lumpy dough-type...situation. Very messy. Anyway, you crumble this over the blackberries and bake it at 350 for...let's say 35 minutes. I baked mine longer, because I kept waiting for the topping to get brown or crunchy or something. It didn't.

I don't know why it didn't, or if it's even supposed to? It's been THAT long since I've had Grandma's cobbler. I don't even remember what it's like.

Anyway, I was disappointed. I thought I screwed it up somehow, or I didn't have a complete recipe. Something didn't seem right to me. But I scooped some into a bowl and ate it warm out of the oven with a little dollop of vanilla ice cream anyway.

I did not screw it up! It tasted exactly as good as I remembered! It's the juicy kind of cobbler, maybe not your thing. But the juicy berry goodness, the crunch of the seeds, and the gooey almost-too-sweet dough holding it all together...awesome. Yes. Yay. This is the cobbler I'm sticking with.

I may try a few things in the future with it. I might try cutting the sugar down to 3/4 cup (it was very sweet) or maybe going 1/2 white sugar, 1/2 brown sugar. We'll see. I think I can do some kind of magic to it, I'm just not sure what yet.