Day Eleven

Today I made this delicious broccoli casserole. It was to die for. My husband even said it was fabulous and he normally doesn’t say anything about my food.

I found this recipe in a 2006 Taste of Home® magazine. It was in the October/November 2006 issue to be exact and it is called Comforting Broccoli Casserole by Kimberly Laabs.

I was looking through the magazine and decided to make it for our Christmas Day lunch, but I needed to try it out first. However, I didn’t need to because everything I have ever made from Taste of Home® is enjoyable.

The recipe is as follows:

2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 can (10 ¾ oz.) condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded Swiss cheese
½ cup Mayonnaise
2 T. butter, melted
1 pkg. (16 oz.) frozen broccoli cuts, thawed
1 pkg. (10 oz.) frozen chopped broccoli, thawed
¼ cup dry bread crumbs

In a large bowl, combine the first seven ingredients; fold in broccoli. Transfer to greased 1 ½ qt. baking dish. Sprinkle with bread crumbs. Cover and bake at 400º for 30-35 minutes or until heated through.
Yield: 8 servings.

The only thing I changed is that I used fresh broccoli and pre-cooked them. I also think that I would take the foil off at least 10 minutes before the timer goes off to get the topping browned a little bit. I think it would look prettier.

Day Nine

Today I knew I had a lot to do, but I didn’t want to take that much time to do it. Of course I was late to lunch, but only by a few minutes. Today my siblings and I were getting together to discuss Christmas weekend at our parents and who was going to bring what. And this time I didn’t want to be over-ruled or ignored, and I wasn’t! It felt so good! I mean we all talked and ate, and a lot got done. We even brought notebooks to take notes, but only one sister is going to type it up and send it to everyone so that we know what we said we are bringing and if we forgot anything we could add to the list.

We have been doing this for the last couple of years because we all go to our parents’ house and it is not fair to have our mother do everything. All in all, there are about 50 of us that show up and sleep at our parents’ house. Of course some of us bring RV’s because there is no way we could all fit into a 1700 sq. ft. house. Christmas has always been at our parents’ house and it is very enjoyable for us as well as the grandchildren. There is no snow on the ground, but there is cold weather, sometimes rain and lots of riding motorcycles and quads on the ranch. But they are slowing down as they age and it is not fair to have them buy all the food and do everything, so that’s where we come in with helping with the food and cleaning up afterwards.

I think we have everything under control with who is bringing what. Hopefully we have just enough, except we usually have too much food. And we are always stuffed by the end of the weekend, but isn’t that what holidays are for?