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green bean casserole. Now, having grown up in these great United States, I could hardly have reached adulthood without being aware that many people consider this an indispensable part of a holiday meal, but it never appeared on the table ...
I'm the proud mother of four sons (three human, one feline) and one lovely canine daughter. I'm also a graduate student in English with a compulsion for cooking vegan food. I love my family, my partner, my friends, all things Elizabethan, and feeding people while doing my small part to make the world a better place. Everyone's happy! And full!
I'm baaaaack! Having successfully completed my first semester of PhD School (as we like to call it), I'm now on break for a few weeks, which allows me to feel totally justified in rattling some pots and pans. This is A Good Thing, since A. I love to cook and have really missed it, and B. Christmas dinner happens at our house. So, like this multi-tasking lady about to baste what appears to be a levitating Tofurky, I donned my pearls, cocktail dress, and festive holiday apron to reassert Absolute Sovereignty over the domestic space. (Except that my festive apron reads, "Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour, and like enough to consent." It's also a full rather than half-apron, because I am a slob.)
This year's menu included maple glazed carrots, roasted potatoes, mushroom gravy, Field Roast in puff pastry, and - something new! - green bean casserole. Now, having grown up in these great United States, I could hardly have reached adulthood without being aware that many people consider this an indispensable part of a holiday meal, but it never appeared on the table when I was growing up. (Ditto for those canned sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top.) In fact, until yesterday, I'd never even tasted green bean casserole because, with all due respect to the makers of Campbell's Soup, French's Fried Onion Rings, and whatever other packaged foodstuffs comprise this seasonal delicacy, it sounds kind of gross.
So obviously I had to make it, right? But what I had in mind was a sort of bionic green bean casserole. I wanted to make it better than it was: better, healthier, less...canned. I hunted around online a bit, and finally settled on two recipes as general models: one from Martha Stewart and one from someplace I've already forgotten, which doesn't really matter since I'm constitutionally incapable of following a recipe to the letter anyway. Basically I got some ideas for proportions, cooking times and temps, etc., and then made it taste the way I wanted. And guess what? The way I wanted turned out to be excellent! So excellent, in fact, that what started as a quixotic, semi-ironic twist on an American "classic" will very likely be making future appearances on my own British/Greek/Canadian holiday table. And not a can opener in sight. God bless America, and God bless us, every one! (NB that the sweet potatoes with the marshmallows will in all likelihood remain unexplored territory, because I mean damn.)