Mom's Green Beans (almost)

I love having friends who plant gardens. Even though I have a garden of my own, there's always someone else who planted something that I didn't and needs to give some of it away. It's like having a community garden but letting someone else do the work while you reap the benefits. Of course, I always respond in kind when I get produce from someone else. It's only fair.

My friend Audrey has a bumper crop of green beans and she invited me out Thursday night to pick some. I didn't plant any beans this year, so I gladly headed out to her place. Armed with a plastic ice cream bucket, I kicked off my shoes and headed into the rows. It wasn't long before I had a nice half bucket full, which Audrey promptly added to. She also gave me cucumbers (mine have been on a growth strike for the last week or so), some crunchy, plump carrots, a couple of zucchini (mine have been overrun by ugly little bugs) and some jalapeno peppers. After the vegetable picking Audrey and I shared a couple of Black Cherry Frescas (my new favorite soda), listened to the sound of the geese and the crickets and watched her cats frolic in the grass.
Growing up, my mother had a great recipe for fresh green beans that involved a pressure cooker and salt pork. I would stand there, transfixed, watching that little dial on the pressure cooker jiggle and couldn't wait to taste my mom's salty, crunchy green beans.
I don't have a pressure cooker (after seeing my mom's explode one time while cooking a Yankee pot roast I vowed to never own one) but I do have a slow cooker so I did a little searching for a green bean recipe close to my mom's that I could cook in the Crock Pot. I came across this recipe on a site called "Yummly" and it's pretty darned close to what I remember smelling on Sunday afternoons as a kid. And there's no exploding pressure cooker.

Slow Cooker Green Beans
Ingredients
1 pounds of fresh green beans, ends trimmed
6 slices of bacon
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper

Place bacon slices on the bottom of the slow cooker. Add green beans, onion, garlic, olive oil and salt and pepper. Cook on low for 6 hours.

NOTE: At the end of six hours, the bacon was cooked but a little rubbery.I'm not a fan of limp bacon, so  I scooped it out and crisped it in a frying pan and then added it back into the green beans. I also added a couple of tablespoons of the bacon grease to the green beans and I think it punched up the flavor just a bit.