This week's recipe for Elegant Green Beans puts a tasty twist on an everyday vegetable. In this dish, French-cut green beans are combined with fresh mushrooms and artichoke hearts, drenched in a sour cream sauce, topped with shredded Swiss cheese, and sprinkled with crushed cornflakes. This really dresses up green beans, but each serving contains 17 grams of fat.

For this recipe, we:

• Replaced the butter/margarine with a light butter-flavored margarine.

• Replaced the sour cream with drained, plain nonfat yogurt.

• Replaced the Swiss cheese with Jarlsberg Light, and slightly reduced the amount from 8 ounces to 7.

Results were excellent. Our rehab was not quite as creamy as the original, but with the cheesy topping, our testers thought the creaminess was adequate.

Reduced to 5 grams of fat per serving, these green beans will turn an ordinary meal into something special.

Tip of the Week: To drain yogurt, line a colander with a coffee filter or paper towel and place over bowl. Put yogurt in colander and place in refrigerator until it reaches desired consistency.

Elegant Green Beans

11/2 cups nonfat plain yogurt, drained to 1 cup

20 ounces frozen French-cut green beans

1 pound fresh mushrooms, quartered

1 can (14 ounces) artichoke hearts, drained, quartered

4 tablespoons light (5 grams fat per tablespoon) margarine

2 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon grated fresh onion

Dash sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

7 ounces grated Jarlsberg Light cheese

2 cups cornflakes, crushed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray 9-by-13-inch baking dish with vegetable oil spray. In large saucepan, cook green beans until tender-crisp; drain.

In medium skillet, melt 2 tablespoons margarine; saute mushrooms and artichokes. Add mushroom mixture to green beans. In same skillet, melt remaining 2 tablespoons margarine; whisk in flour. Remove from heat and add yogurt, onion, sugar, salt, and pepper; whisk until slightly thickened.

Add sauce to vegetables; spoon into prepared baking dish. Top with cheese and sprinkle with cornflakes. Bake 30 minutes. Makes 8 to 10 servings.

Before and after

Based on 1 serving ( 1/9 of recipe)

Elegant Green Beans		Adapted
Calories	274	179
Fat	17 g	5 g
Carbohydrate	20 g	21 g
Sodium	582 mg	620mg
Fiber	4 g	4 g
Cholesterol	47 mg	9 mg
Calories from fat
	55%	26%

Nutritionists recommend those on daily 2,000 calorie diet limit their fat consumption to 65 g or less, cholesterol to 300 mg or less and sodium to 2,400 mg or less per day.

Karen Weber, Pat Streicher and Ellen Illig are registered dieticians at Jewish Hospital's Cholesterol Center. To have your recipes rehabbed, send them to : Recipe Rehab, The Jewish Hospital Cholesterol Center, 3200 Burnet Ave., Cincinnati 45229.