Archive for November, 2011

We all have those favorite dishes that mean Thanksgiving to us.  It’s those dishes that Mom or Grandma always made.  This Broccoli Casserole was always part of our Thanksgiving Feast growing up.  While I always loved this broccoli dish, it was never the star of our Thanksgiving meal.  It always played a supporting role to the turkey, stuffing, potatoes and gravy.

When my husband and I began hosting Thanksgiving at our home, on a whim, I decided to include the broccoli dish on our menu.

The reasons for making Broccoli Casserole came more down to how easy it is and the fact that I could make it a day ahead (without baking it, of course).

But after serving this Broccoli Casserole for the first time, I realized how nicely it rounded out our Thanksgiving feast. With most of the dishes being either savory or sweet, this bright and tangy dish is a perfect addition.

Foodies beware.  This recipe contains Cream of Chicken soup, so you might want to turn away.

Humble though it is, not a year goes by when someone doesn’t say, “I hope you are making that broccoli dish again this year.”

Yes, yes I am.  Here’s how:

Start with 2 lbs. of firm fresh broccoli.  I just weigh it at the store when I’m buying it.  Chop it all into bite-sized pieces.

Do you have a basket steamer?  I couldn’t live without mine.  Most vegetables either get steamed or roasted at my house.  There are few vegetables that get boiled.

Steam the broccoli until it turns bright green and is just barely fork tender.  Don’t overcook!  I hate mushy broccoli!  Besides it will be cooking in the oven for 30 more minutes.

Once it’s cooked, pour the spears in to a 9″ x 13″ casserole dish and spread them out evenly.  Set aside for now.

Squeeze the juice of one whole lemon over the broccoli.  I usually have one hand under the lemon to catch all the seeds, but couldn’t take the picture with no hands ; ).

Now for the topping.  You’ll need one can of Cream of Chicken soup (this is SO a casserole), mayonnaise, Curry Powder (yeah!), salt (not shown) and breadcrumbs.

My use of Panko breadcrumbs was a controversy when I made this Broccoli for this post.  My family universally said they preferred the Italian Bread crumbs I usually use.

Panko is more crunchy and didn’t brown as nicely….  If you make this dish, I’d love to hear what you prefer.  Is it just what my family is used to?

Mix together the soup, mayo, Curry powder, and salt.

And spread it as evenly as possible over the top of the broccoli.  Don’t stir them together… just spread it out like frosting.

Top it all off with 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs and bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

I always toss the broccoli in with my stuffing as it bakes.

It doesn’t get any easier for a great addition to your Thanksgiving Feast.

One more bonus about this dish: it’s great to make (and not bake) a day ahead.  I love anything that can be prepped ahead for Thanksgiving Day.

Here’s the recipe:

Broccoli Casserole

2 lbs. fresh broccoli

Juice of 1 lemon

1 can Cream of Chicken soup

1/2 cup Mayonnaise

1/2 tsp. Curry Powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup bread crumbs

Chop broccoli into bite sized pieces and steam until just tender.  Spread out evenly in a 9″ x 13″ pan.   Squeeze lemon juice evenly over broccoli.  Combine soup, mayonnaise, curry powder and salt in a mixing bowl.  Spread over broccoli.  Sprinkle top with bread crumbs.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Last December I walked in the door after a looooong day of working with my mom to see my husband and kiddos sitting in a circle looking like the photo above.

I had been up and out the door at 5:00 am and it was now 6:30 pm.  I took one look at my family and laughed myself silly.  They were playing the game Hedbanz, a gift that had just been delivered that evening from a friend.

That’s not the first time I’ve laughed hard while playing Hedbanz.  Our family loves to play.  The object of the game is to stick a card in your headband without looking at it, then ask questions to help you guess what you are before the sand timer runs out.  The first person that guesses three cards wins the game.  The cards are objects, food or animals.  Playing with kids can get interesting when you are something like a hamburger and ask “Am I an animal?” and they all say yes… you can spend a lot of time not realizing that you were an animal.

Our family has a tradition that every year for Thanksgiving we get a new game.  I’m not a Black Friday shopper, so Thanksgiving weekend is usually spent in PJ’s, playing games, watching movies, sewing and making Christmas gifts.

Since I just picked up Scrabble, this year’s game, I thought I should share a few more games we love to play:

There’s Hedbanz of course.

We also received Bananagrams as a gift this past year and love it.  It’s a crossword game where each player is racing to use up all their tiles to win the game.  I love that even younger kids (beginning spellers) can play (though not competitively with an adult) and it really helps their spelling skills as well as strategy.  It comes in the small and handy banana bag you see, which means it’s a perfect game to take on vacation.  We spent some fun evenings playing it at our family’s Ranch vacation this past summer.

The other word game I LOVED playing at the Ranch was:

Quiddler is awesome.  We’ve had it for a few years, but our kids have been too young to enjoy it.  This past year they finally got the hang of it. It’s still enough of a challenge, that its not usually their first pick to play.

I, on the other hand, love to play Quiddler.  When the adults played it at the Ranch, the games were VERY competitive!  Thank goodness for dictionary apps, or a few of us might have gotten away with creating a some interesting new words.

The object is to use all the letter cards in your hand to create words.  Each card has a point value that gets added if it’s used in a word and subtracted if it doesn’t.  Each round you receive one more card and the game gets more interesting.

If you have older children, say 11 and up, or want a game to play with adults, I highly recommend Quiddler.

Last year for Thanksgiving, I was able to find Clue… the real old school Clue… as in Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlett kind of Clue.  That has been a family favorite all year.

If you’d like to read about a few of our other favorite games I wrote about them here and here.