They're coming...almost here
They're those holiday dishes you know return year after year. It's that dish that's at every holiday dinner, and you hate it. But grandma (or other relative) loves it, so it will be there. For me, it's that cranberry stuff in the can. Don't care if it has lumps in it or not, don't like it. Yet, at every family hiliday dinner, the solid mass of red giggly stuff will "sloip" out onto a plate, be sliced, and ceremoniously placed on the table. Mom loves it. Therefore, it's ensconced.
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29 Comments:
The only thing worse than that is everyone's sick ass take on a green bean casserole. The green beans have been boiled within an inch of their life and mixed with way-too-salty Campbell's Condensed soup and topped with those things that don't resemble onions in any way. My mom also adds shredded "Mexican cheese blend" out of a bag.
I'm going to go throw up now.
PumpkinBear at 10:03PM on 10/20/08
You've got the sloip sound effect right on the money. I, too, am a canned cranberry glop victim. My family will not accept substitutions. Two years ago, I made a wonderful cranberry compote and was the only one who touched it. I "heard about it" for a year. Last year, fearing a cranberry encore, they brought their own can just in case. I had already puchased one, and it has been in my cupboard ever since. Guess what's getting opened this year??? BTW - can year-old cranberry glop go bad? I don't want to poison anyone (well, maybe one person).
Josdean at 10:16PM on 10/20/08
well JOS, since it wasnt "food" in the first place, I doubt you can do any damage with it.
my arch nemesis at the T-day table is my fathers insistance on having broccolli covered in Velvetta that has been......wait for it.....DYED RED!? wtf? its the most disgusting looking(and im guessing here because there is no way i would ever get within fork distance of the stuff)and tasting stuff i have ever been force to look at while dining!
oh yeah, and anyone who decides to bring a pie that is "made" with a commercial premade crust......dont expect an invite next year!:-(
concreteoatmeal at 10:28PM on 10/20/08
My sister-in-law's "cheesy potatoes". They're not cheesy... they're clumpy. I believe she just takes frozen hashbrowns (the cubed kind) and mixes it with a container of cottage cheese and a bag of "yellow" cheese-- no salt, pepper, spices or anything!!
smile at 10:38PM on 10/20/08
I have successfully rid my immediate family of the canned glop -- as long as I'm there to make the good cranberry sauce. My father is stuck on mashed potatoes, though, while everybody else adores my roasted fingerlings. I keep trying to make other kinds of mashers -- mashed butternut squash with mace last year -- but he still complains. I won't be with my family this year, but next year I just know I'll be stuck making two kinds of potatoes.
thepictsie at 11:27PM on 10/20/08
Margarine in a squeeze bottle. I divorced that family. Praise the Lord and pass the buttered mashed potatoes!
PerkyMac at 11:40PM on 10/20/08
My uncle's wife used to (ahem) conveniently draw the main holiday dinner for our three-day family reunion at Christmastime, which was also the meal she felt singularly qualified to control. Yes, I did mean to say control. It never varied one iota. HoneyBaked Ham, green bean casserole, scalloped potatoes (from a box, I think), and a few other forgettable dishes.
Anyway. As a child, I really was not fond of even the best quality ham. The fact that those HoneyBaked things are so awful just made this meal so much worse for me. But the really bad thing was her execution of the already unpleasant green bean casserole (which was her pride and joy). Not only did she use canned french cut green beans (easily the soggiest form of green bean on earth), but she would cook them another hour or so, just to turn 'em to mush. Then, she'd double up on the cream of mushroom soup so that the green beans were actually hard to see. Finally, she was somehow capable of turning the fried onions soggy, too. VILE. I never could figure out how she was so convinced that we all just loved this stuff when there was always so much food leftover... every. single. year.
Shudder. So glad I'm no longer subjected to that slop.
LoCo at 11:44PM on 10/20/08
I like green beans. Really I do. But green beans are about the only veg my FIL will eat, so consequently, I end up eating a lot of green beans. MIL always serves frozen beans that she somehow tortures before serving. There are usually facon bits in there, Ugh. Fake bacon. Blech. Each time I eat her green beans, it adds another nail into the green bean coffin. I think of green beans, and I think of HER green beans.
When they come here, I make fresh green beans. Plain, buttered, no fake bacon. Yes, they're good, but having green beans with every flippin' meal we have with them is beginning to wear on me. I'd love to serve broccoli or aspargus or peas or rutabagas or any of the other many vegetables that exist. But we're pretty much stuck with the triumverate of meat, potatoes, green beans. I really don't understand why they haven't gone mad from food boredom yet.
Oh yeah, and don't get me started on the sweet margarine. Double ugh. MIL mixes margarine with corn syrup because she she "doesn't like hard butter." You make sense of that. It's what she told me.
Lately, I've been bringing my own butter to her house when I bring rolls. And I ALWAYS bring rolls. To get around the awkwardness of bringing butter, I mold it or cut it into seasonally appropriate shapes.
Last time she pulled "real" butter out for us as a special treat, it tasted like it had been absorbing fridge odors since Nixon was in office. When dinner was over, she wrapped it back in the paper wrapper and dropped it in the freezer. I don't know if I am more afraid of that butter making a reappearance, or if it's the corn-syruped margarine that will no doubt five me nighmares.
dbcurrie at 1:27AM on 10/21/08
Tomato aspec. Think little pieces of carrots, celery, olives, broccoli, and raw onions put into a tomato juice gelatin mold, then left out on the table too long until it's a little liquidy. Only one of my uncles likes it, I have no idea why we have to have it EVERY SINGLE YEAR, or at least why we don't make him a little individual one. The smell alone is enough to make me gag. Pale orange does not equal tomato in my book.
Also, creamed peas. I'm shuddering just thinking of them. When I was little I always thought they looked like someone had already eaten them....there was always more cream sauce than peas, and they often developed a skin.
embolini9 at 9:05AM on 10/21/08
AAARG! Tomato aspic! My Grammie used to make that (right along side her green jello mold salad...what's WITH congealed salads???) But seriously, doesn't tomato aspic remind everyone of a petri dish??? BLECH.
juliebugsmama at 10:16AM on 10/21/08
My stepmother's pastitio (sp?) or Greek lasagna. Bechemel sauce over ziti, topped with several kinds of cheese. No veggies, but an inner lining of bacon and ground lamb. The consistency of a brick, served with roast potatoes and turkey. Ugh. And the 'vegetable' is spinach pie.
HeartofGlass at 10:18AM on 10/21/08
I actually liked the canned cranberry stuff...I also like homemade cranberry sauce, but as long as there are cranberries on Thanksgiving, I'm a happy camper. Is that wrong?
Hillary
Chew On That
Chew on That at 2:41PM on 10/21/08
I agree, Hillary. Plus, nothing is better on a hot leftover sandwich than the canned cranberry jelly.
nightowl at 3:38PM on 10/21/08
@juliebugsmama - It totally does! It's like a middle school science experiment gone very, very wrong.
embolini9 at 4:48PM on 10/21/08
canned..... I can't shake it. Pretty sure I don't want to... there are some things that bring back too many memories... I have a picture when I was 3 sleeping face down in cranberry sauce at the Thanksgiving table... face down today in homemade cranberry sauce could drown someone. I look at it as a safety precaution.
Pavlov at 7:18PM on 10/21/08
Awwww... I like the cranberry jelly too. For years the family tradition has been to slice it up and cut it into shapes with cookie cutters. I guess I just like the cookie-cutter part.
My ex's family, however.... Mrs. Cubbison's stuffing mix, candied yams from a can, mashed potatoes from a box, gravy from a can... you get the picture. It pretty much all sucked.
buffy at 9:13PM on 10/21/08
@buffy ~ before I sign a pre-nup, I'm gonna make sure the family doesn't serve crap like that, and that I'll get a couple bazillion dollars if I decide to dump him for Coliccio.
PerkyMac at 9:19PM on 10/21/08
@buffy--D'oh! you just reminded me of any given holiday dinner at my MIL's house. Stove top stuffing, powdered potatoes, and packaged gravy. All veg is canned, microwaved for 2 minutes, and put on the table. With a can of the cranberry stuff.
beth1 at 9:23PM on 10/21/08
I Confess to loving CANNED cranberry gloop. I have no clue why i like it but (ok this is gross) i mix it on my plate with turkey and potatoes. you guys will still like me right?
love2cook at 1:53PM on 10/22/08
My future MIL, knowing that I love green beans (fresh), decided a few years ago that I have been deprived all my life and made me a green bean casserole. *gag* It was the most horrible thing I've ever had. Soggy canned beans, cream of something glop and those stupid canned onion things. I had to pretend I liked it and now she brings it every year for tgiving AND Christmas. *cries* Don't even get me started on how she served me the neighbor's leftover bday cake for my bday. My piece said "dad" on it. Or when she serves us the microwaved brussels sprouts (and I love sprouts) from a box with that orange "cheese" sauce...
I'm still gagging at the thought of the margarine mixed with corn syrup. WTF?
scarletini at 2:16PM on 10/22/08
The rest of my family ADORES green bean casserole, the frozen-beans-boiled-to-death, canned onion thingys kind. I haven't been able to eat it, ever, despite my love for perfectly roasted green beans with garlic and red pepper. A couple of years ago my mom told me that I would HAVE to try her new version- she had made Paula Deen's green bean casserole! Oh thank heavens! It was even more awful, if possible. The rest of the family loved it. I love these people, but have no idea how I'm related to them...
Mnemosyne at 10:18AM on 10/23/08
My daughter's MIL takes "charge" of every holiday meal and we are all expected to attend. She shows up to my daughter's house with Target baskets (that's right. Target baskets! I don't believe they SELL Target baskets) with her baked sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. The sweet potatoes are like soup and then she pours imitation maple syrup all over them. *gag* Then there is the green bean casserole. Sorry, I can't even go there.
I always bring the meat part of the meal. Last year, I brought a perfectly grill roasted prime rib, medium rare to rare in the middle for me. The MIL took an end cut and put it in the microwave to make sure it was "done".
I think I am coming down with the flu and won't be able to make it this year. ;-D
izatryt at 10:45AM on 10/23/08
For those of you who prefer fresh green beans to canned, here's a fantastic recipe. It's the only way my family will eat green beans now!
Garlic Green Beans
2 pounds fresh green beans, trimmed
1 cup boiling water
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter or margarine
4 garlic cloves, pressed
1/4 teaspoon lemon pepper
Place first 3 ingredients in a Dutch oven; cover and cook over medium heat 30 minutes. Drain.
Melt butter in Dutch oven; add garlic and lemon pepper, and sauté mixture over medium heat 1 to 2 minutes. Add green beans, and sauté 5 minutes.
Makes 8 servings
coffeecrzychik at 11:28AM on 10/23/08
My mother's side of the family doesn't do a green bean casserole, they do it instead with canned asparagus, which seriously, is so deeply revolting I don't understand how people eat it.
Regarding cranberry jelly v. compote. I love both. Each has their own function. Compote on hot dishes, ice cream and pancakes. Jelly on leftover sandwiches. Or mixed with stuffing (don't judge me!). Mmmmmm!
chisai at 1:07PM on 10/23/08
@chisai ~ I wholeheartedly agree with using the canned cranberry sauce for sandwiches of turkey, stuffing & cranberry sauce. You are mixing the stuffing and sauce on the sandwich, so why not on your plate? Sounds good to me!!! Of course, I've never been one of those people who spaz when things on their plate touch, heaven forbid. They are many, however, so I never fix plates. Everything is servedhomestyle. If I've learned anything on SE (and I've learned tons), it's that we all have our quirks, but we're still lovable. ;-)
PerkyMac at 1:18PM on 10/23/08
Oh God...*gag*...canned *retch* asparagus. Ughughughugh. My cousin eats it cold rght out of the can. I'm gonna be sick.
scarletini at 1:58PM on 10/23/08
I always thought I didn't like asparagus, till I had it non-canned and then cooked properly. I don't love it now, but I like it, and will eat it.
nightowl at 2:07PM on 10/23/08
I could eat asparagus for breakfast, lunch and dinner - raw, steamed, grilled, roasted, in soups and stews........ But give me some from a can, then order the autopsy. Blech.
PerkyMac at 2:13PM on 10/23/08
Oh gawd spare me! A friend knew I loved asparagus - so when he saw a can of white asparagus he bought it and presented it to me with such reverence - I was afraid I'd hurl on his shoes and spoil the moment for him. Donated that to a canned food drive (along with the canned peas he bought)!
Oh, who's the nutcase that discovered that revolting combo of sweet potatoes out of a can with a 2 lb box of brown sugar and a bag of mini-marshmallows???? Him I'd like to brain with a pan of green bean slop.
And, speaking of cranberries - I cannot stand the stuff that always shows up with the orange juice and rind. That flavor combination just sends me to hurl - now lime zest, lime juice, and tequila make a great cranberry compote! We alternate years, bourbon cranberries or tequila lime - everyone loves 'em!
Then there's the instant mashed potatoes - WTF - how hard is it to make real mashed potatoes. Thank heavens DH and I don't have to put up with that crap!
Fanciesmom at 7:45PM on 10/23/08