I went to an ugly Christmas sweater party with friends recently and our ugly sweater game was ON POINT.
The usual and definitely necessary “funny faces” photo.
I didn’t own an ugly Christmas sweater so I tasked my brother to find me one on a thrift store shopping trip. He came home with a gem of a sweater. I couldn’t have found an uglier one if I tried.
I’d like to note I showed this picture to my grandma and she went, “Oh, what a cute sweater!” It just shows, one person’s ugly sweater is another person’s, well, not ugly sweater. The one thing I will say about this beauty is that it was nice and warm. I think I’m so accustomed to wearing the light knits and cardigans that are popular these days that I forgot what it’s like to wear a proper sweater. It was warm…and sometimes a little sweaty.
Anyhoo, I made these green beans for the dinner. We all chose what we wanted to bring, and while I usually am the queen of desserts I wanted to try something different. Of course, I still ended up using browned butter. Because, it really does make everything taste better. Green beans are paired here with browned butter and toasted almond slivers. It’s a nice change from your run of the mill vegetable side! I seem to remember this being a How Sweet Eats recipe, but when I tried to google it nothing came up. So, at the least it is How Sweet Eats inspired!
Green Beans with Browned Butter and Almonds
Ingredients:
2 lbs green beans
6 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup slivered almonds
salt
Directions
In a large soup pot, bring water to a boil. Salt the water generously. Add the green beans and cook for 5-7 minutes, until tender. Drain and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking.
In a saucepan, melt the butter. Cook until the butter has browned, watching for an amber coloring and nutty smell. Watch the butter – as it turns pretty quickly from browned to burned. In a separate dry saucepan toast the almonds until lightly browned, around 5 minutes.
Mix together the green beans and browned butter. Sprinkle with toasted almonds.