Christmas Dinner

What a wonderful time for cooking and being in a warm kitchen with family and friends. The setting this Christmas was North Lake Tahoe in my mother-in-laws home with my husband and son. The sounds are the Disney Christmas parade in the background, kevin and michele(mom-in-law) playing outside in the snow. The scene my husband poring some honey turkey bourbon over the ham, I'm cutting up veggies for the leek and potatoe soup. Tyler put the cherries and pineapple on the ham and set it in the oven. I proceed to cook all afternoon making homeade green bean casserole with real fried onions and fresh mushrooms and green beans. Some mashed sweet potatoes with a maple syrup topping, and a very tart (to me) cranberry sauce. It was just the four of us this Christmas usually it's a whole crew and then some but I'm happy to cook for any amount of people.

Green Bean Casserole ala'Scratch

Fresh green beans cut into 1/2" pieces

Fresh chopped mushrooms(your favorite)

1 pint heavy cream

2 cups milk

2 tbs butter plus tbls for saute'

2 tbs flour

salt and pepper to taste

fried onions

extra virgin olive oil

Melt 1 tbls butter and 1 tbls olive oil in large saute' pan over medium heat, add chopped mushrooms and about 1 tsp of salt and pepper. Cook until softend about 20 minutes. Add the flour and stir, mixture gets kinda gummy. Cook for 1-2 minutes to get rid of flour flavor. Add milk and heavy cream stir to prevent clumps add some more salt and pepper to taste. Cook over medium heat until thickend. In the meantime cook green beans in boiling water for 3-5 minutes then trasnfer to an ice bath(water and ice in a bowl). When the mushroom mixture is thickend add to a bowl with green beans and stir to combine, add 1 cup of fried onions. put this mixture into a baking dish cook at 350* for 15 minutes add the rest of the onions to the top and cook until golden brown and bubbly.