Not Your Mom's Green Bean Casserole

This is the traditional green bean casserole with a modern day twist. Haricot vert (French green beans) topped with sauteed mushrooms, crisp bacon and homemade crunchy bacon croutons, will be a great new addition to your Thanksgiving table. A homemade bechamel sauce (white sauce) is combined with the green beans before you add the toppings. The most difficult part of this side dish, is keeping the "picky monster" (those two little fingers that pick just a little taste before the dish is brought to the table) away. You of course, as the chef, must taste everything before you assemble it. This is called quality control and is necessary to see if more seasoning is needed. I highly recommend you make Thanksgiving dinner with a glass of wine close by. No, it doesn't help the dish you're making, but it does help the chef!

This casserole, was created in 1955 by Campbell's, as an easy side dish for Thanksgiving and was to promote the sale of their cream of mushroom soup. It consisted of green beans in a casserole with cream of mushroom soup and french fried onions on top. Sixty two years later, I thought it was time to update this casserole and add my own style to it. This is the time when you can shine and you can make this with ingredients your family likes. If your family doesn't eat bacon, try using turkey bacon, chopped apples and sage. That would be a great combination to compliment your roasted turkey. In my family, we have to have the crispy pig, bring on the bacon! Let's face it, isn't everything better in bacon? I'm happy you agree because the croutons are fried in the bacon drippings. Hey, I never said this was a healthy recipe, it's Thanksgiving, the one day a year that calories don't count.

Let's get cooking, you'll need:

1 lb of bacon

1 clove of garlic - minced

1 tbsp olive oil

4 tbsp of butter

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/4 tsp parsley

1/4 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 cup flour

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup whole milk

1 cup browned, sliced mushrooms

1/2 loaf (maybe a little more) French Bread - cubed small

4 tbsp of butter (for white sauce)

dash of fresh nutmeg

Chop the bacon into small pieces and fry in a non stick pan. I like to start my bacon in the olive oil so it gets extra crispy from the jump start of the hot oil. Once browned, remove and drain on a paper towel. DON'T DRAIN THE PAN - the bacon drippings will be fat that you're going to fry your bread in. Add to the hot grease the butter (cardiologists love this recipe by the way). Carefully add the bread cubes. You need to stay with this pan and keep flipping the bread so it browns on all sides. Once browned remove from the pan and drain on a paper towel. Sprinkle over the hot croutons, a half of the spices. No salt is needed since there's bacon, but if desired, add salt. These are addicting! You can make these croutons for breakfast with a sunny side up egg, as the topping for French Onion Soup (thank you Michelle for that suggestion) or in a salad. I've been told that this is the perfect snacking food for when you're watching tv. For now, place your croutons aside, they are the last layer that is added to your casserole.

Allow your skillet to cool and rinse it. We're going to use the same pan to brown our mushrooms.

Make sure you don't crowd the mushrooms or they will never brown. Mushrooms like to have room between them when they are being browned if not, you will steam your mushrooms. We need beautiful browned mushrooms for this dish. You may have to cook them in batches. When browned set aside.

We're going to use the drippings from the mushrooms to make the white sauce. Add the butter to the pan. In the flour, add the remainder of your spices. I use a dash of fresh nutmeg when making a white sauce. This gives it that special little touch of spice that always wakes up your taste buds. Heat your heavy cream and milk, do not boil them. Add the flour to the pan and cook until you get a light paste-like substance. This is a roux which is flour and fat cooked together and used to thicken sauces. This is the same roux you would make if you were making mac and cheese. We are looking for a blonde roux that has just a little bit of color but not golden. The blonde color tells us that the flour taste has been cooked out and it's ready for your warm dairy. You need to whisk the dairy into your roux and keep it moving. This will thicken up fast on a medium heat. Do not walk away or you will have a lumpy cream sauce. Once thick, you're going to add your cooled green beans.

We mentioned cooled green beans, this is how you prepare them:

Bring water to a boil and add the green beans. Haricot vert are very tender beans and you don't need to trim the ends. I leave some on for presentation. Cook the beans for 5 minutes and transfer the beans to an ice bath. (a bowl of ice water) This will shock the beans and help them retain their beautiful green color and stop the carry over cooking. Look at you, cooking Haricot vert and shocking the bean! This is definitely something to mention at the Thanksgiving table just to impress your in-laws. If you have to explain what Haricot vert are, try to be gracious and do this without thinking, "ha, and you said I couldn't cook" look.

It's time to assemble the casserole. Spray a shallow glass baking dish with non-stick spray. This will make an easier clean up later on. Add the green bean mixture and layer the mushroom on top of them. Sprinkle the crispy bacon pieces on top of that and top off with the crunchy croutons. Bake in a the oven for 15 minutes just to heat everything thru completely and marry the flavors.

Everything can be make the day before Thanksgiving except the croutons. They need to be made fresh so they are crunchy. We have a big breakfast on Thanksgiving morning and have our feast a little later in the afternoon. I always cook extra bacon in the morning and save the drippings to make the croutons later on.

This recipe completes our week of Thanksgiving side dishes. Next week I'm going to share my favorite Thanksgiving recipes for dessert. Did I mention that dessert is my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal? There maybe a few extra recipes posted next week because I want to share all my favorite sweet treats with you.

Enjoy and give thanks.