Monday, November 10, 2008

Operation Gobble Gobble: The Casserole

Homemade Green Bean Casserole

Trial run of the homemade green bean casserole tonight a la Alton Brown. The most surprising thing of the night…our grocery store actually carries Panko Bread Crumbs (AB would be proud).

Not so surprising, the recipe actually took double the time listed (1.5 hours from start of chopping to shoveling into our mouths, instead of 45 minutes). Another excellent example of why I do these trial runs.

So far I have learned my frozen turkey will either need to be in the fridge an entire week, or I will need it in the fridge for 4 days and out on the counter over night; all fans on the bottom floor of our home must be on full force while roasting; green bean casserole will take longer than expected; and I must not forget to turn the onions while prepping the rest of the casserole.

Really that's about the only thing that really went wrong with this batch…my onion got a bit blackened. I was pleasantly surprised that though they did not appear to take the panko well, they still had some crunch, and it was wonderful not to have a processed, greasy mess of a dish.

Though I will miss that traditional green bean casserole with its cream of mushroom soup, french fried onions and perhaps most off all the canned green beans (I know, I'm weird, but I LOVE those canned beans - Mike had to talk me out of substituting them into this dish on Thanksgiving). It's for the better.

And another wonderful thing about preparing this dish, it finally forced me to buy a cast iron skillet. I headed to ACE Hardware yesterday and picked up the only one they had. And I'm proud to say I haven't rusted it up yet, I scrubbed it with hot water and salt after it had cooled down. Towel dried and set on a low heat burner, gotta start on the right foot, right?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow :o) well done Sarah! Your casserole is BEAUTIFUL... it looks like onion rings & green beans. I would certainly go for that.

Anonymous said...

that looks so GOOD! can't wait to taste it! (also need the recipe...hee hee)

Sarah said...

Recipe is under the link.