I have to disagree with you on the green beans and cranberries, but I’m right there with you on the sweet potatoes and yams. I hate 'em. No matter how many marshmellows you smother them with (hate them too) or how much bourbon you pour in, they still taste like slimey crap.
I have a great receipe for cranberries that includes walnuts. Okay, that makes it crunchy, but it’s a good crunchy. It also has orange marmelade. It’s wonderful!
I hate the canned cranberries. They’re slimey. Like yams and sweet potatoes. Eeww!
SCL - don’t feel bad. I LOVE GBC!! (I ain’t into the sweet potatoes or cranberry sauce - only because I don’t like them - my family has them every single Thanksgiving!) These are our comfort foods - when my mommy came and visited me and my brother a couple weeks ago, we had gbc, flanksteak (the kind that marinates in french dressing for 24-48 hours and then is grilled) and a box of Betty Crocker AuGratin potatoes. EEK - the processed icky premade crap!!!one11!!11 No, it’s COMFORT FOOD. Plain old stuff that we grew up on and is familiar. If I want gourmet, I’ll go to Charlie Trotter’s. If I want family, it’s GBC. Now scoot over and hand me a plate!
Hey, what do I know from green bean casserole. I don’t even like turkey, or that loaf of opaque red jello they call a sauce. I don’t like sweet potatoes even without the sticky melted marsmellos. Mashed potatoes and maybe the gravy, and pie. For me, the rest of Thanksgiving food is bland, tasteless, boring, and tedious.
My dad used to make “old burned onions” during the frantic last few hours of cooking by everyone. He would sit peeling onions, and let everyone take the big ones for whatever they were making. Then he put the smaller ones in a large frypan with margarine, bullion cubes, lots of pepper, some salt, and “turn it on high, and leave the room. come back every twenty minutes or so and turn it back on, until all the onions are gone.” They never made it to the table.
Preach it, sister! I once tried drinking cranberry juice to clear up a urinary tract infection. I, the ultimate wimp about going to the doctor, decided that going to the doctor and getting Cipro (with all the unpleasantness that implies) was preferable to the cranberry juice. Icky, indeed. And the Cipro wasn’t pleasant- I thought back to that when people were stockpiling it during the anthrax scare in 2001, and thought that anyone who takes Cipro without being absolutely sure they need it is crazy. But cranberry anything is still WORSE.
Are you me? I could have sworn you plucked these comments right out of my head!
Nice fresh green beans, lightly stir-fried in a garlic and black bean sauce == nummy!
This thing called a ‘green bean casserole’ that I normally see? A can of green beans (yuck), glopped into a dish, with a can of cream of mushroom (yuck) glopped on top, and some onion-thingies (yuck) tossed on top? YUCK! It’s about as appealing to me as the typical <insert some random edible item(s)> in aspic dishes from the 50s and 60s are. Which is to say, no appeal what so ever.
Along with the marshmallows, I don’t get people who have to put so much stuff on/in sweet potato casserole. If all you can taste is cinnamon/marshmallow/whatever instead of sweet potato, what’s the point? If I wanted to eat cinnamon/marshmallow/whatever, I would have eaten a cinnamon roll/marshmallow/whatever instead! Give me a nice honest sweet potato casserole where the flavors are supporting and complimenting each other, not battling it out for dominance in my mouth!
Sorry for not checking back sooner. Things suddenly got hectic.
FTR the part I hate most is the canned cream of mushroom soup. That stuff just tastes awful to me. Zsofia is right. Devil’s jizz. Annie’s recipe sounds pretty good because the creamy sauce didn’t come from a can. Butter and whipping cream, yeah baby!
I found out a couple of years ago that I can no longer eat Campbell’s soup. Even their top of the line stuff tastes like tin can and preservatives to me. How hard is it to make soup anyway? Maybe I’ll make soup for dinner and see.
I was watching Tyler Florence on the food network the other day doing his Thanksgiving show and he made a joke about how his mom can carve cranberries in the shape of a can.
I completely agree about the soup - I couldn’t tell you when the last time was that I ate a canned soup. The real thing is so easy to make, even if you’re sick, and the canned stuff is so gross! I once read an article on how they have to make the soups so anything survives the canning/pasteurization process - urgh, make a real soup instead, it’s not hard. I don’t know if the new ones in the aseptic boxes are any better - stock done that way is definately superior to the canned kind, FYI.
I don’t get all the “sweet potatoes are slimey” comments. My family does sweet potatoes like baked potatoes and we eat them with a little butter. They are nice and fluffy and plenty sweet all on their own. If you’ve been offered slimey sweet potatoes then they weren’t cooked right or they were slathered with syrup gag. I once tried a little of a sweet potato casserole that someone brought to work, it had sweet potatoes, maple syrup and marshmallows… (where’s the vomiting smiley?) if I didn’t already know that sweet potatoes could be good all on their own I probably never would have attempted to eat one again after tasting that mess. My teeth still hurt thinking about it. Green Bean Casserole is nowhere near the abomination unto food that is Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallows and Maple Syrup.
OK, I’m easily mollified. If it’s any consolation, I’ve successfully managed to sidestep any Thansgiving invites this year and won’t be having green bean casserole. I’m thinking a slice of veggie loaf, a potato latke, roasted brussel sprouts, and a really decadent dessert to finish it all off…
I can jump on that bandwagon velvetjones. I hate the stuff.
And I never understood why people put celary on veggie trays. It is always left over, no one seems to like it. Cop a clue and put more carrots or something on.
But it just isn’t the holidays without a Durkee green bean casserole!
As far as jellied cranberry sauce in a can: my father’s not a good cook but occasionally he would be stuck making dinner for him and us kids. He would invariably serve cranberry sauce, giving each of us exactly 1/4 of the can and himself 1/2. I imagine he was tickled by the ease and exactness of serving sizes.
I liked to cut mine into wedges like a pie. I love that stuff.
As far as marshmallows on sweet potatoes; it’s like ambrosia. The fruit is already sweet, but why not throw in some marshmallows as well?
I detest GBC the way it’s supposed to be made. But, substitute cream of fungus soup with cream of broccoli or cream of chedder soup and I love it. I don’t use canned beans. Canned veggies are gross.
I love sweet potatoes. Mashed with a bit of butter and nutmeg or cut into big chunks and added to a beed stew - yum.
I love marshmallows. I’m eating some right now actually.
But the thought of marshmallows on sweet potatoes makes me gag. I’ve had TG dinner with probably 10 different families. I’ve never seen one of them serve this abomination. Is this a regional thing?
I love cranberries. What kind of Masshole would I be if I didn’t?
Juice, chocolate covered, raw, canned sauce, homemade sauce - it doesn’t matter, I’ll eat them all.
But, cranberry sauce shouldn’t be lumpy and it shouldn’t have anything orange in it.
We just had our Thanksgiving potluck and all three people who brought sweet potato casserole put marshmallows on top. I’m in Texas, so maybe it is a regional thing. My family doesn’t usually use the marshmallows, but we make them differently every year.
That would explain it. My mother grew up in Texas, and mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows was always served at Thanksgiving. Luckily, that didn’t kill my taste for them.
I just wanted to jump in here and note that Jones Soda once sold a “Holiday Pack” that included a “Green Bean Casserole” flavor. That flavor was, according to X-Entertainment, “gross enough to warrant throwing up eight times with flailing arms.”
I’m 42 and never seen GBC in my life. Been to many Thanksgiving Gatherings, pot-lucks and more. I first heard about it a couple years ago and was sure the person was kidding- a casserole made out of green beens? Yeah, right.
Hey, I like green bean casserole but you couldn’t get me to drink a gbc flavored casserole on a dare. There’s just some things that you know are going to be wrong without tasting them; like green bean casserole flavored soda and turnip ice cream.
If it’s any consolation, I’ve successfully managed to sidestep any Thansgiving invites this year and won’t be having green bean casserole. I’m thinking a slice of veggie loaf, a potato latke, roasted brussel sprouts, and a really decadent dessert to finish it all off…