We call it "veggie casserole..."

...but there's nothing healthy about it. About 10 years ago (maybe more...) I started making "veggie casserole" for Thanksgiving. It was a hit and became my annual contribution, along with sweet potatoes and spinach dip in a bread bowl. Since I've already missed one Thanksgiving with family and will miss the second with them this week, I've gotten requests for my casserole recipe from my nieces, Lauren and Keri. I originally made it from a recipe I found in the Charleston Unitarian Church cookbook and it was called "company casserole." It morphed into "that vegetable stuff with crackers on top" to "Ritz cracker casserole" to simply "veggie casserole." And I can't remember ever having more than a spoonful left over.


In case you're looking for another yummy side dish that you can make last minute, here is the recipe verbatim as I sent it via email to my nieces:

(you can double this recipe - I usually did so I could make a big one)

1 can french style green beans, drained
1 can shoe peg corn, drained
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 cup sliced mushrooms
salt & pepper
1 sleeve Ritz crackers, crushed
1 stick butter, melted

Mix all ingredients except crackers, a little bit of the grated cheese, and butter. Pour into casserole dish. Top with crushed crackers, the rest of the grated cheese, and melted butter. Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

I always chopped the celery and onion pretty fine so there weren't any big pieces. And when I doubled the recipe (which means 2 of everything on the list), I still only used ONE stick of butter on top because the butter is really just so the crackers would brown. The year I used 2 sticks of butter the casserole was really soggy and kind of not good. You can also leave out the sliced mushrooms if you don't like them and sub cream of celery soup for cream of mushroom, but I think most people liked the mushrooms. Don't used canned mushrooms - you can buy the fresh already sliced if you want, but the canned mushrooms taste like crap.

I love you, I miss you, I wish I could be there with you. My heart will be.