So…. a year ago I asked for side dish recipes. Many of you obliged. I was going to cook them all and declare a winner.
I made LDL’s broccoli salad. RayRay devoured it. Loved it. Begs me to make it.
As for the other recipes…. I have bought ingredients for them numerous times. I am ashamed of the number of cauliflower heads and eggplants I have thrown away. Not because I’m averse to eating these veggies (I love me some eggplant!), but because they never made it from raw ingredient to cooked, finished product.
The Cauliflower Mafia has ordered a hit on me. I’ve let too many of their brethren rot in my crisper. (Why do they call it a crisper? Nothing in there is crispy. It’s all mushy and in various stages of icky…. at least in my fridge….)
Anyway… I am still committed to trying these recipes! For real! It will be the longest-running blog contest ever. Sigh.
In other news, I made my uber-fabulous Black Eyed Pea Shoepeg Corn Casserole (which was officially renamed LDL’s Pea/Corn Casserole in this old post) for our Modern Quilt Guild’s end o’ year potluck.
STOP IT. I saw you scoff at the phrase “quilt guild!” I did. We are NOT a bunch of calm, quiet old ladies sitting around discussing crops and recipes while sewing quaint quilts. We’re quite rowdy, you know…. but I am not sharing any stories lest the other members start sharing stories about me….
Anyway, a repeat of that recipe was requested. So…. here you go:
BEP Casserole (a.k.a. LDL’s Pea/Corn casserole, a.k.a. Black-eyed Pea Shoepeg Corn Casserole, a.k.a. The Dish)
1 can black eyed peas, drained
1 can shoepeg corn, drained
1 can 98% fat-free cream of chicken soup, not drained (just seeing if you’re paying attention…)
4 oz shredded cheese
1 can diced green chilies, drained
1 sleeve ritz or club crackers
Spray your casserole dish with Pam. Dump in the first 5 ingredients. Mix. Add a sprinkle of salt & pepper. Crush the crackers & dump on top. Spray liberally with Pam. Bake at 350 until bubbly. (That’s about 30 minutes.)
Sounds crazy… tastes fabulous. And, if you make it this way, it’s actually fairly healthy. Well, healthier than deep-fried oreos, that’s for sure.
The mab Blab 
GeekLady
Speaking of side dishes, this year I discovered how to make my two year old go absolutely bonkers for green beans.
I trim the ends and blanch them in salted water for just a minute or two, then plunge them into an ice bath to stop the cooking. Then I drain and dry them. They’re now fresh, crisp, and bright bright green. Everything a green bean should be.
And then I serve them cold with Salt Lick BBQ sauce.
Salt Lick’s is a mustard based sauce, so it’s more like a salad dressing than what you usually consider a BBQ sauce. It’s a tad pricy, but a little bit goes a long way.
LDL
Yay! By the way, my word-of-the-day calendar’s word of the day on Monday was “crapulous.” Don’t take this the wrong way, but it made me think of you — as in, “That sounds like a word mab would make up.” But it’s legit! 🙂