Custom Cookbook and Green Bean Casserole

After Jill and I married in 1987, my mom made us a custom cookbook of my favorite recipes. She typed most if not all of them. Those pages are yellowing now. Over the years, Jill has added some in her own handwriting.

I've been trying to cook more lately and realized that I've forgotten about this cookbook, locating recipes online and saving them in my private storage. Preparing to cook Easter dinner tomorrow, I located this recipe for green bean casserole. It's one of Jill's all-time favorites. So I'm going to give it a go.

And I had the idea of saving these recipes here on the blog so anyone or everyone could enjoy them, especially those who would appreciate seeing my mom's handiwork.

Green Bean Casserole

Ingredients:

2 cans green beans

1 stick margarine

2 onions, chopped

1/3 lb. sharp cheddar cheese, grated

1 tube Ritz crackers

1 can cream of mushroom soup

Instructions:

Saute onion in margarine until tender. Drain. Save margarin. Cook beans until water is almost gone. Crumble crackers and mix in reserved margarine. (Save a few to sprinkle on top of casserole.) Mix onions, beans, soup, crackers and part of the cheese. Put in a casserole dish and top with remainder of cheese and crackers. Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes.

Credit:

"What's Cooking at Cook" Cookbook, Ruston, La.

My aunt Joanne Taylor must have shared the recipe with my mom. She was a member of Cook Baptist Church. 

UPDATE:

We prepared this for Easter 2018 and it was delicious. We probably cooked the onions just a little too long and they didn't give off much margarine when we drained them. It left the dish oily. But it tasted oh so good.

How we do Easter

We've been making Easter eggs. They'll decorate them all, then boil more eggs. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The Easter Bunny Tracker has been the focal point for this bunch. They are so excited.

We did pause for a talk about the real meaning of Easter, which is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

What does the Easter Bunny and Easter Eggs have to do with the Resurrection? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I am fully aware that some Christians don't celebrate Easter. And I am fully aware that kids get way more excited about candy, gifts and hunting for eggs than they do about the resurrection or about Christ himself. The same is true of adults sometimes.

You can google the origination of the bunny, the eggs and all that. It matters more to me what we do with the holiday today in our own lives than how it began or what it meant or means to others. We do the bunny and the eggs. We also do Jesus and the Cross, the Burial and the Resurrection.

That's just how we do it.

Not looking for anyone's approval, agreement or anything like that. You're free to celebrate in your own way. You're free to not celebrate at all.

Not celebrating at all. What does that look like?

Unless your kids live in a closed culture, they may resent being forced to abstain from the fun they see others enjoying. But that's hard to define, isn't it? What's harmless and healthy fun versus what's harmful and unhealthy. We could even use the S word here - sin. We don't justify sin by the fact that others are doing it.

Just be careful where you draw the line.

Happy Easter.

He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Matthew 28:6 NIV