Bacon Green Beans & Grilled Chicken with Creamy Mushroom Sauce

The recipe alone is a mouthful but let me just tell you this was AMAZING!!! It is a bit time consuming but worth every moment spent preparing it! Now, normally when I make fresh green beans I make them the way my sister taught me, in a pan with shallot and garlic and it's divine!!! However, I think it's like a law somewhere that bacon only makes things better so I got creative here. And it was a fantastic call, trust me, the way the bacon just crisped up with the onion and perfectly coated those green beans -heaven!!! As for the chicken with mushroom sauce - I cant really explain this one other than I found myself compelled to purchase these mushrooms at the commissary this week and have been dreaming about this creamy mushroom sauce for days now. Basically this is super low-carb and yet packed full of flavor! (Dont worry, I also baked peanut butter oatmeal cookies so that there were carbs somewhere in my home haha! That recipe will be the next post, promise!) Ok now that you're salivating over this amazing dish...let's cook!

Recipe:

Green Beans

1 lb fresh green beans
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup onion, diced
4 strips of bacon, cut into 1/2" pieces
dash of garlic salt


Creamy Mushroom Sauce
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup onion, diced
10 mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
1/4 cup of milk
3/4 cup of sour cream
dash of salt and pepper to taste


Chicken
2 breasts of chicken
salt and pepper
2 tbsp olive oil

Directions:

Start with the green beans! Cut the stems off the top and bottom of the green beans and rinse under cool water. Bring a pot of salted water to a gentle boil and toss in the green beans. Cook for about 8 minutes or so - you don't want them mushy, just a little less stiff. Drain the green beans and set them aside in a bowl of cold water to stop them from cooking any longer. In a medium frying pan melt the butter and add the onions and bacon. Cook the onion and bacon for about 10 minutes - basically until the onions are translucent and the bacon is about halfway cooked. Toss the green beans into the pan and cover them with the bacon and onion mixture. Stir the mixture every few minutes or so to keep the green beans coated, they're ready when they're cooked to your liking texture wise!

When the green beans have been removed from the salted pot of water you can start the chicken. Lightly salt and pepper the chicken and toss it in a pan with the olive oil. Turn the chicken every few minutes so that the outside becomes golden brown. Depending on the thickness of the breast it may take anywhere from 10-20 minutes to cook the chicken, so just keep turning and keep an eye on it. I totally cheat and stab it with a knife when I think it's ready - heck it's going to be smothered in a creamy mushroom sauce nobody will ever know that you stabbed the chicken to test it's "doneness".

The creamy mushroom sauce is a super easy. In another frying pan melt the butter. Add the onions and mushrooms and cook until the onions have almost lost their crunch and the mushrooms become golden brown. Scoop the cooked onions and mushrooms and set them aside in a bowl for a moment. Go back to the pan and add another teaspoon of butter and the flour - basically you're making a rue. Once the mixture is golden, probably about 3 minutes at most, add the milk and stir until the lumps are totally gone. Toss in the sour cream and continue to stir until it's really creamy. (If your sauce becomes too creamy feel free to add a splash or two of milk to loosen the consistency.) Toss the onions and mushrooms back into the pan and lightly salt and pepper to your liking. It is divine, I swear!!!

Pictures:

If you prepare everything before you start, all you have to do is toss as you read along :)

Turn the chicken breasts every 4 minutes or so to keep browning them without overcooking!

Bacon, onions, green beans = heaven!

And VOILA!!! Devour...