thanksgiving - part 2

thanksgiving dinner
Originally uploaded by lornababy

check out that steam!

as we all know, the majority of the pbetouffee family had thanksgiving a few weeks back - without me. not one to go without my turkey and fixin's on turkey day, i had mother moon and my pa over for a little meal on thursday afternoon. we also had my bunky's dad over and took in a family-less quebecois for the day, as well. of course, there was the standard turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy and, our family standby, broccoli casserole. new additions this year were braised brussels sprouts with pancetta and bertha's corn pudding from miss sylvie's soul fusion kitchen. the corn pudding was great, i think we're going to put that one in regular holiday rotation. mooncrazy brought the pumpkin pie and a good time was had by all. hope everyone's thanksgiving was just as great!

here's the family broccoli casserole recipe. it is so not low fat, but who cares!

10 oz package frozen chopped broccoli
10 oz can cream of mushroom soup
2 oz sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup bread crumbs
butter for top

defrost broccoli, drain well. stir together soup and cheese,
gradually add milk, mayo and egg. stir until well blended. pour over
broccoli in casserole. sprinkle with bread crumbs and dot with butter.

bake 350 until heated and bubbly, about 45 minutes.

Addendum from Moon,
In an earlier post, Doodles talked about our early Thanksgiving dinner. Although we missed lil bird and her husband not being with us, we did have a fine dinner, complete with all the trimmings. There is a dish the West Coast portion of the family would not think of leaving out of our holiday feast, Broccoli Casserole. Doodles prepared it when we were visiting them in Connecticut in the early 80s. My family loved it. Lil bird was much lil-er at the time and broccoli was her favorite so this recipe was taken home to California. Our father, who was a great cook, ate it at our house and it then appeared at each Thanksgiving dinner there after.

Jump to our recent Thanksgiving in the desert. All three of us, Mary, Doodles and myself prepared our meal and when it came to the casserole we were quite shocked when Doodles didn't recognize her recipe. What?! Although we'd spent many a Christmas holiday together, we'd not done Thanksgiving so our small tradition was unknown to the East Coast contingency of the family. We had a good laugh. I can't tell the amount of times I'd served this recipe and gave my sister credit.

This Thanksgiving, at lil bird wonderful dinner, we ate broccoli casserole as she explained the tradition to new guests at their table. The tradition continues.