I love me some Trader Joe’s.  I don’t always love the quality of their produce but it’s hard to pass up a 2 lb pack of pre-trimmed haricot verts.  Tonight, I wanted to eat some buttered green beans but I didn’t want to boil water.  Could I be any lazier?  Don’t answer that.

Plus, Mark Bittman and Harold McGee advocate microwaving veggies over steaming because nuking veggies delivers better color, texture, and vitamin retention — provided you watch it carefully.  So in the name of science (and not laziness), I nuked my green beans to test their hypothesis.

Here’s what I assembled:

• 1 lb of green beans, trimmed (I divided the TJ’s bag in half and vacuum sealed the other half for later consumption)
• 1/8-1/4 cup of water
• 2 tablespoons of Kerrygold unsalted butter
• Salt and Pepper
• lemon juice and/or vinegar (optional)
• handful of toasted slivered almonds (optional)

I put the greens beans and water in my Corningware and stuck it in the microwave.  I nuked it for 2 minutes on high, stirred things around, and then another 2 minutes and stirred things around.  After that, I zapped the beans in 1 minute intervals to get the beans to the proper doneness (total of ~8 minutes) and drained the excess liquid. 

I threw in 2 tablespoons of butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. As a variation, you can add a squeeze of lemon or a splash of vinegar and/or some toasted slivered almonds.

Not bad considering the green beans weren’t pristine and I didn’t have to boil water or wash a pot.  Okay, I’ll admit it.  I’m exceptionally lazy.