A traditional Thanksgiving staple is the classic green bean casserole. A Thanksgiving dinner table would be incomplete with out it and luckily it is probably the easiest thing to make. This year, I spent the holiday in Chicago with my boyfriend and his family. My boyfriend’s sister can cook but she isn’t extraordinarily kitchen savvy so I gave her a lot of credit when she wanted to make Campbell’s Green Bean Casserole all by herself. She pulled the recipe out of a People Magazine issue that had an advertisement for the classic dish on an advertisement. I watched her make and bake the entire dish! You can either use the frozen green beans or you can use the fresh ones. I watched as my boyfriend’s sister washed and chopped up some fresh green beans — she ran into some difficulty when reading the recipe because the recipe called for 4 cups cooked green beans. How on earth do you measure 4 cups of cooked green beans? So, she guessed — luckily she did a good job. After steaming the fresh beans she mixed in a separate bowl the milk, soy sauce, cream of mushroom soup, and two thirds cup onions. She then poured the mix over the green beans, tossed it all up and added some more of the crunch onions to the top, she then put it in the oven. It came out gorgeous!

I managed to have a few bites of this before dinner and I was so proud of her! It came out so tasty! And the flavors were much better with the use of fresh green beans instead of the easy to use frozen green beans. The texture was crunchy, but of course cooked enough. When she reheated the dish later, she added some extra onions on the top so they would be nice and crunchy.

I don’t know why we don’t make Green Bean Casseroles more often, year-round. It’s such an easy dish to put together and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like it. Here’s the recipe from the Campbell’s website:

Ingredients:
• 1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell’s® Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup (Regular, 98% Fat Free or Healthy Request®)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• Dash ground black pepper
• 4 cups cooked cut green beans
• 1 1/3 cups French’s® French Fried Onions

Directions:
• stir the soup, milk, soy sauce, black pepper, beans and 2/3 cup onions in a 1 1/2-quart casserole.
• Bake at 350°F. for 25 minutes or until the bean mixture is hot and bubbling. Stir the bean mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining onions.
• Bake for 5 minutes or until the onions are golden brown.