A lighter Green Bean Casserole. This tasty recipe for a green bean casserole from scratch, never fails to please.
I can remember the very first time I tasted Green Bean Casserole. I was 10 years old. We were on our way to Nova Scotia from Manitoba and my parents had decided to go through the states to get there.
My mother's cousin Polly and her family lived (and still do) in Vermont. We spent some time visiting with them and enjoying their hospitality. Supper was served out in their garden at a picnic table and Green Bean Casserole was on the menu. It was love at first bite.
I have to say that no green bean casserole I have ever tasted since has come close to the memory of the taste of that one we enjoyed in the dusk of an early summer evening, sitting at that picnic table outside that old house on top of a Vermont hillside.
I am sure it was the company which made it even more delicious.
This is a lighter version of that. There are no cream soups involved. I make my own sauce.
There is plenty of caramelized fresh onion, which more than makes up for the lack of tinned french fried onions. There is plenty of crunch on top from crushed cracker crumbs . . .
I could sit and eat a whole plate of this and nothing else. It pleases me that much.
It went very well with the Gingersnap Glazed Ham I baked the other day.
It felt good to be eating something a little bit lighter than all of that indulgence of our Christmas feasting.
This is a dish I make every now and again, and everytime I do I ask myself why I don't make it more often.
Probably because it is a dish I reserve for special occasions, choosing in my every day life to eat my vegetables simply steamed . . . were it not so, I daren't think of the size I would be.
In any case its a new year and there is no better way to begin it than with a happy memory and a delicious side dish.
*A Lighter Green Bean Casserole*
Serves 4 - 6
1/2 tsp dried thyme leaves
12 round buttery crackers, crumbled
Bring a pot of lightly salted water to the boil. Blanche the
green beans in the boiling water for 3 minutes. Drain well and set
aside.
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium low heat. Add the chopped onion, reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring frequently, over low heat until the onions begin to caramelize. This will take about 10 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a shallow casserole dish.
Sprinkle the flour over the onions in the saucepan. Cook, stirring for
several minutes. Whisk in the warm chicken broth. Whisk constantly
until thickened. (It will be fairly thick.) Taste and adjust seasoning
with salt and black pepper. Stir in the thyme leaves. Add the green
beans and stir well to coat. Spread in the casserole dish. Crumble the
crackers over top.. Cover tightly with a buttered sheet of foil. (In truth I spritz it with a bit of low fat cooking spray.)
Bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes covered. Uncover and
bake for 15 to 20 minutes longer, until the beans are tender and the
sauce is bubbling and the top is golden brown. Remove and keep warm.
Serve warm as a delicious side dish.
Bon Appetit mes amis!! ! Bon Appetit!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
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As I was sitting here today trying to decide which recipe I wanted to end the year on, I have had a great time thinking over all of the wonderful things I have cooked over this past year. Of course I could do a rehash of my favourite recipes . . . or even a rehash of YOUR favourite recipes, but that is only showing you what I have already shown you and I didn't want to end the year in this way. Instead I wanted to end the year showing you something fantastically different. Hot Ice Cream Pudding was my choice.
I needed to use up the leftover turkey from Christmas today and so I created a skillet supper with it. I used turkey, but you could use any leftover cooked poultry actually. Its a one pan dish that is not only simple and quick to make but also quite delicious!
Growing up in Canada New Years always meant my mother would be cooking a Ham. We had turkey for Thanksgiving and Christmas and we had Ham for Easter and New Years. I don't know if there is a religious reason for this, or if it is just a family tradition, but it is something I still do. Ham for New Years.
My mother never did anything fancy with it. It would be boiled and then roasted. She usually had a bone in ham, but you never see those over here.
It would be served cold with mustard. We would have mashed potatoes and green beans with it and a special dessert. If we were really lucky it would be a Lemon Meringue Pie.
I don't ever remember her glazing it. Not ever. I do remember seeing photographs of glazed hams in the magazines . . . the fat glistening and cut into diamonds and crusted on the edges with a sweet sugary crust . . . each diamond studded with a clove or a cherry.
They looked so very pretty, and tantalizingly delicious.
This year I bought a boneless cooked ham. Over here uncooked ham is called Gammon and you have to boil it before you can eat it.
However once it is cooked and called a ham it is always edible right out of the pack. I like to heat it through though and glaze it. It just makes something quite simple that little bit more special.
This glaze was absolutely brilliant. Nice and spiced with ginger, both from the gingerale and from the ginger jam, a tiny bit spicy from the Dijon mustard and tabasco, sweet also from the ginger jam and some brown sugar and a smidgen tart from the addition of apple cider vinegar.
Those ingredients get heated together until the ginger jam melts and then all whisked together. I cut diamonds in the ham so that some of the mixture would go down into the ham.
I rolled it in it all over and then I baked it in a moderate oven, basting it every ten to fifteen minutes with the glaze.
Now here is where it gets really special. I crushed gingersnaps for even more ginger flavours and sprinkled them over the top of the ham and basted it again.
Baked for a short time longer it forms a nice gingery crust. I probably basted it two more times before it was done.
The end result was a lovely flavoured ham with a gingery crust and the juices in the roasting dish thickened up from some of the crumbs to make a sauce that was just gorgeous spooned over the warm ham.
All in all this was a real winner! We loved it. Oh, I do love it when an experiment or an idea turns out to be every bit as delicious as I had envisioned it to be! I hope you will give it a go!
*Gingersnap Glazed Ham*
Serves 4 to 6 with leftovers
This
is delicious. Simple to make. The oven does all the work. The
leftovers are delicious sliced and served cold with cheese and pickle.
60ml apple cider vinegar (1/4 cup)
1/2 (454g)jar of ginger preserves (about 1/2 cup)
I really do hope you will try this out. I can promise you, you won't be sorry. If you cannot find the ginger jam, use some orange marmalade with a tsp of ginger powder added. It will be every bit as good. Happy New Year!!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
This is a deliciously simple cheese cake that I have been making for years that your family will really love. Its as simple as blitzing a few ingredients together and pouring them into a pie dish. Seriously.
You cannot get much easier or tastier than this delicious dessert!
It magically bakes into a delicious dessert that is a LOT less trouble than making a regular cheese cake. I think the original recipe came from a box of baking mix but I make my own baking mix these days and just use that.
You can find that recipe here. It, too, is very easy to make. I always have a plastic container of it in my cupboard. It comes in handy for all sorts.
Once you blend everything and pour it into the pie dish, you simply bake it and then presto chango you end up with a delicious cheesecake that went together in a flash and tastes fabulous!
I love desserts like this. Quick, easy and delicious.
I like to make a sour cream topping for it. This not only tastes nice, but helps to hide the inevitable crack which appears in the centre of the cheesecake. (The sign of a great cheesecake I might add!)
You can also hide it by adding a fruit topping. Cherry Pie filling comes to mind. Very nostalgically retro.
I like to serve it with a simple fruit topping which I create by mixing together some fresh fruit and jam and heating it gently together until the fruit softens. This day I used blueberries, but fresh raspberries or strawberries and jam also work very well.
About 1 cup of fruit with several spoonfuls of jam and a tiny bit of water does the trick. Altogether this is quite, quite delicious! And a real doddle to make!
*Magic Cheesecake*
Serves 6 
Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a 9 inch pie tin really well. Set aside.
Place the milk, vanilla eggs, sugar and baking mix into a blender. Beat on high speed for about 15 seconds. Cut up the cream cheese and drop it in. Blend for about 2 minutes longer on a high speed. Pour into the prepared pie dish.
Place the milk, vanilla eggs, sugar and baking mix into a blender. Beat on high speed for about 15 seconds. Cut up the cream cheese and drop it in. Blend for about 2 minutes longer on a high speed. Pour into the prepared pie dish.
Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until the centre is set. Cool completely.
Mix together the topping ingredients until smooth. Spread on the centre of the cheesecake. Chill to set. Serve cut into wedges with pie filling or your favourite fruit topping.
Mix together the topping ingredients until smooth. Spread on the centre of the cheesecake. Chill to set. Serve cut into wedges with pie filling or your favourite fruit topping.
Easy and delicious can't be beat!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
I confess to being a huge fan of chicken wings. Back home at the local Chinese buffet the chicken wings were always my favourite dish on the menu, and I think everyone else's as well because between them and the sweet and sour chicken balls it was always hard to get any because the dish would empty almost as soon as it was filled!
This delicious casserole is the perfect way to use up some of the leftovers from your Christas dinner, using up some of the turkey (of course) stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, etc. It's delicious and there is also cheese in the mix. Oh but it is some good!
Merry Christmas
From
The English Kitchen
Many thanks for your loyalty over
the past year, your lovely comments,
and
your faith in my culinary abilities.
Thanks also for sticking with me throughout
the good, the bad and the ugly!
May your holiday be filled with lots of love,
family, great friends, good food, good health
and
more blessings than
your cup can hold.
Catch you on the flip side!
I love Eggs Benedict. Its such a simple dish and yet at the same time it feels so special . . toasted english muffin topped with some bacon, an egg and hollandaise sauce.
Yum! Normally it calls for a perfectly poached egg, but this version I am showing you today is simpler than that. It uses softly scrambled eggs, and it is delicious!
This is the perfect holiday morning breakfast!
Toasting English muffins beneath a grill . . . simple. Check.
Grilling some back bacon . . . simple. Check.
Topping the bacon on the muffin . . . delicious softly scrambled eggs.
So simple to do, and so very tasty. It's easy to do the whole lot all at once. Check.
A final gilding of Hollandaise sauce . . . not so simple to do, unless of course you buy it ready made. I had some lovely ready made pouches from Christian Potier and they worked very well.
But if you want to make an easy hollandaise from scratch, blender hollandaise is the way to go. There is a great recipe on Simply Recipes. This is the one I use. Its easy to follow and always turns out. Check.
If you like Eggs Benedict as much as I like Eggs Benedict you will be in Eggs Benedict heaven with this. Your family will love this and you will love the ease of creating it.
It makes the perfect Christmas morning holiday breakfast. Or any special occasion breakfast for that matter!
Elegant, delicious, and yet . . . so very simple.
*Scrambled Eggs Benedict*
Serves 4
Now where is my fork . . . . mmmm . . . . Bon Appetit!
Note: If you can't find a jar of good Hollandaise sauce there is a really fabulous recipe to make your own quick and easy Hollandaise sauce here that I highly recommend!
The house is all spic and span for Christmas. I have all of the food in that I am going to need for our dinner. All my gifts are out and all that remains to do now is a few bits and bobs and last minute things. Whew!
I can relax, knowing that all is in hand. With that in mind I took advantage of there not being any pressure on and baked a few goodies that I had seen on Pinterest or the web and had wanted to try for the holidays.
Tasty goodies like these Italian Christmas Biscotti which I saw weeks ago on a blog called The Merchant Baker.
I first saw them on Pinterest and they immediately caught my eye because of their name. Biscotti. But Biscotti are crisp dunking Italian biscuits are they not? I love Biscotti!
These are not those type of Biscotti. I was intrigued and pinned them into my Italian Treats board with the idea in mind to make them one day. Today was that day. (As I am writing this on Thursday.)
These are very similar to a sugar cookie, but there is no rolling or cutting. Well . . . I say that, but you do have to roll the dough into ropes and cut it into lengths before twisting it into that lovely looking shape you see here.
(If you check out the Merchant Bakers page she gives an excellent tutorial on how to do just that and there are videos.)
Another thing which impressed me was that they looked incredibly easy to make. And I was not wrong.
These are an easy cookie and they end up looking so pretty when they are done. You just make the dough, shape and bake.
Once cooled you then dip them in a very simple vanilla icing glaze and sprinkle with coloured sprinkles.
Easy peasy, lemon squeasy. And they are so pretty, don't you think?
Another plus . . . the recipe was very easy to cut in thirds. Since there are only two of us and we can only eat so much, I wanted to cook only a third of the recipe.
I got approximately 16 delicious cookies. Little sweet pillows of Italian perfection. The perfect cookie to bake at the last minute for the holidays!
*Italian Christmas Biscotti*
Makes 4 to 5 dozen 
To make one third of the recipe or only 16 cookies you will need:
1/4 cup butter (65g)
3 TBS icing sugar
4 TBS granulated sugar
1 large free range egg
1 cup plain flour (140g)
1/4 tsp baking powder
few drops vanilla
For the glaze:
3/4 cup icing sugar (98g)
1/2 TBS water
drop of vanilla
This is a really, really nice cookie. I can see all sorts of possiblities here. I think another time I make them I might add a touch of lemon zest to the dough and some lemon juice to the glaze instead of water. Then they would be lemon drizzle biscotti. Yum! Bon Appetit!
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