Food on the Fifteenth: Green Beans with Garlic and Tea

Now that I've been adding tea sandwiches, I decided to up the ante a bit. I have been salivating over using tea to cook with for awhile, looking at recipes, pinning to my Pinterest board, etc., and have decided to, at least once a month, actually cook with tea. This should be interesting.

Continuing first with  my mug and tea collection, though:

Black and green tea with eggnog flavoring. It's still winter, right?

So, without further ado, let's talk cooking with tea. I have been reading a series of mysteries set in a tea shop in Charleston, by Laura Childs. Each book has recipes in the back, and I have duly noted them because there are several I want to try. That's how I chose the one for today.  This book is called Shades of Earl Grey, and it just now occurs to me I should have used earl grey in this recipe, but I didn't. :(

Anyway, the recipe is adapted from this book.

Green Beans with Garlic and Tea

1 lbs. fresh green beans, trimmed
2 or more cloves garlic, minced
Olive oil
2 teabags of chosen tea (I went with a plain black) brewed in 2 c. of water
Almond slivers

Place green beans into a large skillet and cover with water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until beans start to soften, about 5 minutes. Drain, and place in a serving dish. Saute the garlic in the olive oil until slightly softened, then pour in the brewed tea. Let simmer gently just a few minutes. Pour this over the green beans, then top with the almond slivers.

When the beans are gone and you have the tea sauce leftover, save it. Use it to cook rice. It gives a nice subtle flavor to the rice.