Green Bean Casserole
The above phrase can strike terror or warm, fuzzy, family memories. I always liked the basic, read off the back-of-the-soup can recipe. My grandmother would make this casserole and bring it to our home on Thanksgiving. Her son was the master turkey chef- if you kept the faith in the Atkins Diet as long as my father has, you’d be able to whip out a 20 pound turkey, too.
I felt like changing up the usual recipe but did it in a super-smart way: ten days ahead of time, experimenting on my favorite subject… the men in my household.
This is an All-Trader Joe’s version of the Green Bean Casserole, recipe available on the back of the canister of TJ’s Crispy Fried Onions.
Of course I didn’t follow their recipe.
I kind of wanted to stick to the ease of the original, so I used the frozen bag of haricots verts green beans, the carton of portobello mushroom soup, grated Swiss cheese, fried onion pieces, and mixed them all together, and baked it at 375 for about 20 minutes.
Meh.
The Husband liked it a lot, The Boy had to be threatened to eat it, and although I liked it- it was as easy to throw together as the original recipe concocted back in the 1950’s for the Campbell’s Soup company, but I do like the original best.
I’ve learned to carve the turkey from my father, and between my mother and me messing with the classic Green Bean Casserole recipe over the years, I’ve also learned to stick to the original green bean recipe. I’m sure glad I tried this well in advance, it might go over about as well and some of my mom’s concoctions she’s tried to sneak in as a replacement. Actually… I’m the only one who hasn’t liked some of her attempts. Everyone else loves them. But everyone also has great memories of Grandma’s recipe.
branching out... on a limb 