Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, Love, and Green Bean Casserole

By | |
Comments Off on Thanksgiving, Love, and Green Bean Casserole

About 30 years ago, I got married. Now, it’s been a while since I’ve been a Newlywed. But some memories will never fade.

Like how much I love green bean casserole. I have since a friend of mine made some for me in college. I’m half-Asian. I grew up with fried rice and noodles. And very few casseroles. I would occasionally encounter one at my Aunt Jessie’s. My dad’s side of the family are from Kansas and are salt of the Earth people. But our trips to visit family back in the day were expensive. And therefore, few and far between. As a result, I never had green bean casserole until I left to go off to college.

An obsession was born. I liked it classic and I liked to mess around with the recipe even back then. Adding in chicken or changing the mushroom broth up. All of that. It wouldn’t be until the latest decade of my life before I would have another green bean casserole revelation. Making home made mushroom stock. And homemade cream of mushroom soup. Using fresh green beans and just fresh ingredients all the way around. This adult version taste nothing like the classic and a thousand times better.

Because of my love for green bean casserole, I made it ALL THE TIME. And my husband ate it. After a year into my green bean casserole obsession, my husband FINALLY told me he hated green bean casserole. That he threw it out when I wasn’t looking. But he never said anything because he didn’t want to hurt my feelings. And he thought he could ride out my obsession, but the sheer amount of green bean casserole I was making was making that possibility impossible. So he came clean.

And that’s when I knew he loved me beyond reason. Well, I knew even before that but this cinched it, for sure.

I don’t make green bean casserole so much anymore. Just once a year. At Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving 2013

By | | ,
Comments Off on Happy Thanksgiving 2013

Happy Turkey day y’all. Gobble, gobble. lol I actually like Thanksgiving as far as holidays go. I like that it’s about food and family and getting together. In my family, at dinner, we go around the table and tell about the one thing we are the most grateful for that occurred in the last year. Not all the things that make us give thanks or a few of them. Just one. It makes us focus and keeps the momentum going so everyone gets a chance before the dinner is over. It’s awesome.

So many of our holidays have turned into three ring circuses. I like hanging out with friends and family, watching football and generally just being with the people who love us and we love back. Then if you’re lucky, you made plans to go gorilla shopping the next morning, complete with infiltration plans and an exit strategy, with those very same people. Cause for Black Friday shopping, you NEED a posse. People who will have your back and not leave a man behind. But they also have to have sharp eyes to look for bargains as well as coordinate color combinations. So really, you want a variety of family members to go with you to cover your back. Yes, it has gotten that grime out there. Little blue haired old ladies will cut a bitch to get to the blouse on sale. Seriously.

I also vary my menu a little every year. Yes, I do turkey and ham. And most of the sides are perennial favorites. But this year instead of a chocolate pecan pie, we are having a dark chocolate mousse. I’ve decided to forgo candied yams in favor of the simpler baked sweet potatoes. And so on. Here’s my Thanksgiving menu:

brined, dry rubbed turkey
ham
mashed potatoes with roasted garlic and herbs
sweet potatoes
green bean casserole
broccoli and cauliflower in a cheddar cheese sauce
stuffing with chestnuts, gruyere and bacon bits
turkey gravy
pumpkin pie
chocolate mousse
cranberry sauce

This menu is for 4 people. I add more sides and maybe an appetizer sampler if I have guests arriving. But for the small, nuclear family thing? The above menu has been honed from years of tweaking to find the perfect balance for my family. Yours may vary.

Now the best part of Thanksgiving isn’t the main menu, although that is pretty great. Nope, the best part is the left-overs. I like messing around with different recipes to use the turkey as much as possible. I even use the turkey carcass as a soup base. But that’ll come later. And if you serve turkey for Christmas, then some of the leftover recipes will stand you in good stead.