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 I originally made it from a recipe I found in the Charleston Unitarian Church cookbook and it was called "company casserole."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.

The return of Mr. Bento...

I fell in love with Mr. Bento in 2007. I had unhealthy lunch habits and he inspired me to make healthier (and more attractive) decisions. I used Mr. Bento frequently and even joined Flickr groups for Bento lovers. After I left my job as managing editor for a magazine to work in politics (lunch was usually carrot salad and grilled chicken from the Chic-fil-A next to the campaign office, if I had time to eat) and later, worked from home, I got out of my Bento habit.


Tuscan white bean & tuna with cottage cheese, fruit, mixed greens.

Now that I have a regular schedule again (and have had one for almost four months), it was time to break out the Bento from storage (the cabinet above the fridge where no-one ever looks) and stop eating lunch like a 12-year-old. Yes, Lunchables are an affordable and easy way to control calorie intake, but turkey + cheese + crackers - any green vegetables EVER = an ass that doesn't fit into my skinny jeans. I have also gotten into the habit of shopping for produce at farmer's markets on the weekends and saving all of that healthy stuff for home eating just wasn't practical.


Spicy noodles, yogurt and fruit, granola, avocado.

So I'm cooking again. I made a Tuscan white bean tuna salad last weekend (and even soaked the beans overnight and cooked them myself). I made spicy whole wheat noodles yesterday. I have a list of Bento-friendly recipes to try. My goal is to Bento my lunch every day between now and the end of the year. Two days in, I already feel healthier. My ass expects to wear my skinny jeans around the end of next week. And I have lovely, lovely lunches that I'm not embarrassed to break out in front of coworkers. Proud of me!

Freezer section trickery...

Because I don't like to cook and can't be bothered with it, I buy a lot of "skillet meals" in the freezer section of the grocery store. Most of them take less than 20 minutes to cook and involve dumping the contents of a bag into a large skillet. Hence the name, "skillet meals."

If one is going to nourish oneself in this manner, one should also read the directions carefully. I recently bought an orange chicken skillet meal, scanned the directions on the bag, and threw it into the cart. When I decided to make it for dinner last night, I discovered that everything could be cooked in-skillet - except for the rice, which came in a pouch, which had to be microwaved. Boil it, you say? The pouch had a warning label that said "for microwave use only: DO NOT BOIL." I threw the rest of the stuff into the skillet while my initial aggravation turned into fury that I wasn't going to be able to add what was probably the best jasmine rice in the world. I had to eat the chicken and vegetables with orange sauce. No rice. BECAUSE I DO NOT OWN A MICROWAVE.

A little history: We were one of the first families in our neighborhood to own a microwave, one of those massive metal Radaranges that took up as much space as the floor model Curtis Mathes television set in the den. It was the late seventies, I had three sisters, two dogs, a cat, two guinea pigs, and a soon-to-be divorced mother who had trouble dragging herself out of bed, much less cooking a meal. From 1979 to the early nineties, our home-cooked meals consisted of anything you could nuke the shit out of. It doesn't surprise me that I had a better relationship with Twinkies than with the limp stalks and rubbery greens that served as "vegetables" during my formative years.

As an adult, I have never owned a microwave. I hate them. I hate food cooked in them. The smell of Lean Cuisine makes me want to hork until the rice pilaf and herb roasted chicken I ate in 1993 comes up. If I had a microwave, it would only be an expensive water-boiler. I don't think it's a big deal, but some people think not owning a microwave is the equivalent of not owning a TOILET. Or that it means I am a hippie luddite (which I am not). Or that I'm crazy (which I am not). I've even had people visiting my house comment, "no microwave? That's crazy!"

First, I do reheat leftovers. I just use the OVEN. Microwaves turn leftover pizza into cardboard with cheese. Second, there hasn't been one instance in the past 10 years where I thought owning one would make my life easier.

Now, if I said I didn’t own a microwave because the government implants devices in them to track our eating habits and beam the information to satellites in outer space, or that microwave radiation causes tumors that make you thirst for human blood, that would be crazy.

However, if I plan to continue to eat "skillet meals," I might have to spring for a small one. That I would unplug and store in the closet under the stairs while not in use, lest it emit radiation while sitting on my kitchen counter.