Cooking at Thanksgiving is a more elaborate effort than everyday cooking. We all know that. Broiling a piece of chicken and ripping apart a head of lettuce is infinitely easier than the multi-dish extravaganza that many of us piece together on this annual holiday. This year, we were invited to spend our Thanksgiving meal with neighbors, who shouldered the heavy burden of turkey and dressing. We were allowed to bring side dishes.
I have a top secret recipe for cranberry sauce that is secret because to reveal the ingredients and method would once and for all reveal what a lazy cook I am. You won’t find that recipe here and, yes, that was one of the dishes that we brought with us to the feast.
We decided to bring two dishes. The other dish couldn’t be mashed potatoes or asparagus or bread or dessert, which were all being provided by others. I dug deep into my shallow brain and decided to make a green vegetable, and decided on a green bean casserole (something I’ve never made before). A brief internet scour turned up a recipe from Campbell’s Kitchen. You know, Campbell’s (Condensed Soups) Kitchen.
I looked it over, and the recipe definitely needed some revising, so as not to taste bland, or like a soggy green bean stew. The addition of two ingredients guaranteed to clog the arteries (bacon and cheese), and a reapportioning of the size of other ingredients and an adjustment of temperature and cooking time and, voila…a tasty wintertime harvest dish for a table full of hungry revellers. At my house, we like our food with a little kick, so adjust the pepper and soy sauce down (or not) according to your own taste.
(photo: wikibooks.com)
Imagine a less messy casserole than the one above and you will know what ours looked like.
(The unappetizingly named) Spitball Army Green Bean Casserole:
Ingredients:
– 2 cans (10¾ oz. each) Campbell’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup (regular or 98% Fat Free)
– 1 cup milk
– 2 tsp. soy sauce
– ¼ to ½ tsp. ground black pepper
– 3 14½ oz. cans of cooked cut green beans
– 5 thick bacon strips, cooked until crispy, cooled and chopped fine
– 1 to 1½ cups grated cheddar cheese
– 2 2/3 cups French Fried Onions
Cooking Instructions:
1. Stir soup, milk, soy sauce, pepper, beans, bacon, cheese and 1 1/3 cups onions in a 3-quart casserole. (We cooked ours in a FiestaWare covered casserole dish, which is deeper than the average casserole dish.)
2. Bake uncovered at 375° for 40 minutes or until hot. Stir.
3. Top with remaining onions, covering entire surface of casserole. Bake for about 10 more minutes, until casserole begins to bubble up through the onion layer.
This savory dish ended up being a terrific balance with my super-secret cranberry dish, which most definitely veers to the tangy-tart-sweet side of the taste spectrum.
Yep, I’ve gone back to shcool to learn how to spel!
But, really…My nephew Nicholas’ 8th grade class in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, is fundraising this weekend by gift-wrapping at their local Barnes & Noble store. Part of the deal is that their group can then receive a 10% to 20% cut on all purchases made using their group’s voucher number (#436873). The REALLY cool thing is that this voucher number can be entered at any Barnes & Noble register in any store nationwide through Sunday, and Nick’s class will benefit. So, if you happen to be out and about shopping this weekend, and need a little extra incentive to buy someone a book or CD at YOUR local B&N store, here’s that additional nudge. Again, it’s through this Sunday (tomorrow), and the voucher number to give to the check-out clerk is 436873.
I thank you, and I’m sure that Nick’s 8th grade class thanks you, too!
Fred O.
What if someone set the California State Constitution to music? Read this and sing:
PROPOSITION 8 This initiative measure is submitted to the people in accordance with the provisions of Article II, Section 8, of the California Constitution.
This initiative measure expressly amends the California Constitution by adding a section thereto; therefore, new provisions proposed to be added are printed in italic type to indicate that they are new.
SECTION 1. Title
This measure shall be known and may be cited as the “California Marriage Protection Act.”
SECTION 2. Section 7.5 is added to Article I of the California Constitution, to read:
SEC. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford was arrested this morning on federal charges and is being held at the federal courthouse, the FBI and other federal officials confirm.
A special grand jury for several months has been investigating county bond deals and Langford’s financial dealings. Langford was Jefferson County Commission president 2002-06.
The entire article, bereft of gory details at this time and likely to be updated hourly for the foreseeable future, can be found here.
On the very first post at this blog site, on 28 November 2007, I teased.
I had just gone through the annual ritual of making my Mom’s Peanut Butter Kiss cookies, because she wasn’t around to make them herself. As they were on my mind, and I needed to post something to begin the weblog, I posted someone else’s recipe and titled the post, “The secret recipe uses yellow cake mix.”
Over the ensuing twelve months, that post has been seen enough times through Google searches and the like that it is the #9 most-viewed page on this labyrinthine website. That’s out of about 440 posts. And every single person who has seen it has moved on without having that secret yellow cake mix cookie recipe to put to use.
As a “mea culpa,” I humbly post the secret recipe right here, right now. It is delicious. And there’s no bothersome sifting involved.
Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies
Ingredients:
1 box yellow cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
¾ cup peanut butter
1 package Hershey’s chocolate Kisses
Preheat oven to 350°
Mix together cake mix, eggs and oil until mixture reaches brownie consistency. Mix peanut butter into dough. Drop balls of dough onto a lightly greased pan. Place an unwrapped kiss in the center of each ball.
Bake 10 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Remove and cool. And, of course, eat.
