Oh, so you’re both southern and midwestern, then! 
How do you figure that, or am I being wooshed?
I would suggest that you try to recreate it. Start with adding bacon to the basic recipe, and then add other ingredients if that doesn’t do it. After the bacon, try panfrying some chopped onions and celery in the bacon grease, and add them to the dish, and so forth. And when you hit upon a winning recipe, write it down and give copies to everyone who likes it.
Never heard of it until just a few days ago on the SDMB. Or maybe I’ve heard of it before, but I didn’t realize it was some kind of Thanksgiving food item. I’ve certainly never eaten it.
Neither have I ever had sweet potatoes with marshmallows, which sounds, frankly, disgusting.
FWIW, my family is from California and we never had any kind of casserole growing up. I wasn’t even sure of what one was (I had heard them mentioned in books) for years - for some reason I imagined them to be like burritos. I’m pretty sure my mom’s reaction to the idea of making a casserole out of canned green beans and cream of mushroom soup would be this face: :eek:
(Unless maybe you could get the canned green beans and soup at Whole Foods or the farmer’s market or something.)
Just last weekend my husband and I were shaking our heads in mystification at a commercial that implied we’d be deviants if we didn’t serve the green bean thing at Thanksgiving. Neither of us - and we’re both old farts - have ever attended a T’giving dinner where this was served.
I sure do like the idea of fried onion rings though!
And being Minnesotan, we never call them casseroles. They’re hot dishes (with hot sounding like haat). When the church put together a cook book there were copious hot dishes, but only a few casseroles - from non-members who didn’t live here.
Talked to Mom today about my making the sweet potato dish. “You knooowww, it wasn’t so good last year. Maybe you should just buy the canned sweet potatoes. It’s good enough” :smack: Now that, to me, is gross.
Precisely what she said.
I love sweets. But yes, I find sweet potatoes with marshmallows to be disgusting. Marshmallows belong in hot chocolate, or roasted over a campfire. They don’t belong in sweet potatoes.
Do you mean to tell me that it’s optional? Maybe at some gatherings, but not the ones I’ve attended. I’m not always the one who makes it, but it’s my assignment this year. I’ll probably just take the easy way, and use the recipe on the French’s can. It is the gold standard, after all.
Lasagna? In any form, it’s a casserole!
Me - I discovered that what I really like about the GBC is the French’s fried onions, as long as they weren’t too soggy. Nowadays, I just buy a can of that stuff around holiday time and nosh out of it occasionally. It takes me back, and when I can’t see family on the holidays, it takes me back a little and helps me feel homey.
I haven’t yet made sweet potato with marshmallow. But I have enough this year to make a second smaller dish, and I have some kind of fluff that I can put on top and flambe with a propane torch. It’s a confection, and I agree it doesn’t belong on the dinner table.
I have a can of French’s, but I always make the GBC by sauteeing the mushrooms in oil and adding flour, chicken broth and then cream, ala Alton Brown. To make up for not frying the onion rings, I’ll throw some pearl onions in with the beans. Maybe top it with some bread or cracker crumbs, kind of like the Cooks Illustrated.
Then a white chocolate cheesecake with a chocolate ganache topping. Hope that turns out okay.
A million calories.
Yeah, I guess it is, isn’t it? Anyway, we didn’t have lasagna very often, although I do like it a lot. In fact, I like casseroles quite a bit now. Unlike my parents, I’ve spent a lot of time in cold weather places and they’re good comfort food in the winter.
I’ve had it, it’s crap cooked by a lazy and cheap person. Bring a bottle of Charles Shaw wine (2 buck chuck) instead, it is at least passable.
There’s a little variation on the website that really improves it - add a tablespoon or so of soy sauce. I also throw in a can of sliced water chestnuts - everybody likes those.
Geeze dude, lighten up. If someone makes it, it’s not because they’re cheap and lazy, it’s because they, or someone they’re making if for, likes it. Just because it’s inexpensive and quick doesn’t mean it’s beneath you.
Nothing wrong with bringing wine, but to suggest it and then say that someone who actually bakes something is lazy seems a bit contradictory.
Nah, green beans are best when steamed (just to a crunchy state) along with fresh slices of ginger, soy sauce and bits of bacon.
I can’t argue with this. However, I once attempted to make something very similar to this dish for the family Thanksgiving dinner. The problem with fresh green beans made in this fashion is that you really have to eat them when they’re hot. This is not a dish that lends itself well to being brought as a potluck offering. Even made on the spot, it’s a tough one when you’ve got several other dishes that all have to be finished around the same time. After a couple of failed attempts at this, I just gave up. Fresh, lightly steamed and seasoned green beans are tasty and delicious, but do not have a place at the family Thanksgiving table. At least not at mine.
On the other hand, green beans in a small slowcooker with onions and bits of bacon and/or ham are very good for a dish that needs to be kept at warm serving temperature. Even those fake bacon bits are all right, if you have a vegetarian guest or two.
OTOH, when I can eat them while they’re hot, I love green beans that are steamed with dill.
My family apparently bucks the trend. No green bean casserole, though we’ve done green beans with slivered almonds from time to time. Usually, we’ll skip the cooked greenery or do brussels sprouts. No cranberry sauce/relish/jelly at all. No marshmallows on the sweet potatoes ever. EVER, yea, unto the hundredth generation we shalt smite thine marshmallows. I’ve never even tried it in my life, but when I asked about it one year, I was most certainly put in my place about the heresy of the marshmallow/sweet potato combination.
Also, we do some funny things. We always do shrimp cocktail and/or stuffed mushrooms before the meal as an appetizer. We’ve done this ever since I was a kid… no idea why we started. I did a salad one year too awhile back, and now I’m not permitted to stop by popular demand. It’s just mixed greens, craisins, sliced pears or apples for the pear-haters, toasted walnuts or pecans (candied the first year, but swapped out), gorgonzola cheese, and raspberry viniagrette. This is served artfully on individual plates, with the appetizer. Also, we open a bottle of champagne with the appetizer as well.
Christmas ends up to be a bit British (my father was British but is long gone, but the traditions remained). Christmas crackers, Yorkshire pudding, and so on.
We’re weird I guess, but it’s all tradition to me.
Important update! My mom announced that she bought some green beans this morning for Thanksgiving, so we could have - and at this point I was sure the sentence would end with “green bean casserole” and was getting intrigued - green bean almondine!
Never mind.