Canadian Thanksgiving

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving, which means yesterday was a day filled with family, food, and great times.  The holidays can be a tough time to make the stars align with everyone's schedule, so what better way to get the clan together than with half the family's Canadian heritage.  It was a wonderful and super delicious day!

Many of the things we have are the same as what everyone's enjoys: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, and stuffing.  One note I want to say about stuffing that seems to be coming up more often: in the bird or not?  Shouldn't even be a question in my book - IN THE BIRD!  These days everyone is worried about samonilla, raw cookie dough, and stuffing in the bird.  I have to say I grew up eating stuffing in the bird (and the occasional raw cookie dough!) and I'm still here!  Just tastes so much better with all that extra flavor the turkey brings.

Our ham was a Sam's Club special and absolutely delicious. Christina made her secret recipe, Corn Cornbread Casserole (pictured on right).  Corn, cornbread and creamed corn combined together ... How could that be a bad thing?

The Assembly Line:



Last, but definitely not least, Jeran and I had to put our mark on the dinner with our signature dishes: Aunt Mary's Green Bean Casserole (GBC, on left) and Grandmomma's Sweet Potato Casserole (SPC, on right).  This much goodness should be illegal!  Recipe's to follow, but a couple secrets right away!  For GBC you should never use milk!  Don't follow the recipe on the can (even though you should use Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup) and jazz it up to make it your own.  Water chesnuts are a secret of mine to give it a little extra crunch and french style green beans are required.  Don't forget to add the Worchester into the mix as well as crumbled bacon and parmesean cheese on top - WOW!  When it comes to Jeran's SPC, it almost felt like it should have been part of the dessert round!  We used white sweet potatoes which were a unique touch and the blend of white sugar (in the body) and brown sugar in the topping was out of this world.  The pecans, blended with butter, brown sugar and vanilla made the crust topping the perfect top to a wonderful casserole!

Here are our recipes;  from Mikes family collection,

Green Bean Casserole Aunt Mary

1 package French style frozen green beans (cook 5 mins. only)

1 tin water chestnuts – cut them up a bit and don’t use all the tin)

1 tin Campbell’s Cream of mushroom soup

1 tin French Fried onion rings (Durkee brand)

Grease casserole dish; mix all above in casserole dish. Bake at 300 degrees for ½ hour. Optional Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. Also put 3 slices of crisp bacon that you crumble on top.

Optional: Worchester sauce or soy sauce.

I want to thank my friend Josh for the sweet potato casserole recipe. I was at a Halloween party at their home a couple years back and when I tasted this I knew it would become a holiday staple in my kitchen.

This is what Josh emailed me when I asked for the recipe;

I wanted to pass along my Grandmomma's Sweet Potato Casserole.

4 Cups of Mashed Sweet Potatoes (gotta' cook the fresh ones - please don't used canned - Grandmomma wouldn't have it).

1 Cup of Sugar

2 Teaspoons of Vanilla

2 Eggs

1/2 cup Melted Butter

- Mix until smooth and put in the bottom of your casserole dish

Topping -

1 Cup Brown Sugar

1/3 Cup Flour

1/3 Cup Melted Butter

1 Cup of Chopped Pecans

(I also mixed a few shakes of cinnamon and nutmeg into the crumble topping)

Mix the topping ingredients and 'crumble' over your potatoes.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees (or until the topping is browned).