Thanksgiving Casseroles: WWJD?
October 6th, 2007
Tonight Husband and I are attending our big family Thanksgiving dinner in White Rock. I have been assigned the duty of bringing the cauliflower, broccoli and cheese casserole for thirty people, which I am quite nervous about. This is no minor duty. Considered king of the side dishes (possibly second to stuffing, but only possibly), if I mess it up, I might as well get a new family. I have been researching the properties of cheeses and milk fats and the varieties of mornay sauces (bechamel with cheese) and have found a recipe I think will work. It mixes sharp cheddar for flavour with monterey jack for creaminess, in the traditional milk and flour and butter white sauce. Add a little cayenne and dry mustard for bite, and a buttered bread crumb topping, and you have one bitchin casserole.
All that is left is to sort out the cooking. With two turkeys and a ham, there will not be room in the oven for my casseroles at the party house, so I have to bring them hot. Or mostly hot. I could probably grab fifteen or twenty minutes of oven after the birds come out and while they are resting. I think I’ll cook my casseroles through, then swaddle the dishes in towels for the drive to White Rock, and apply crumb topping for the final blast once we arrive. I just hope the fats don’t separate. You know how creamy sauces can break.
In furtherance of this plan, I went shopping this morning. I arrived at Safeway to find the wreckage of the pre-Thanksgiving shopping blitz: haggard, anxious looking shoppers wandering around the produce section and squabbling over only a few remaining cauliflowers, a handful of broccoli bunches, and about four lonely little Brussels sprouts in a big, empty tray. I sized up the scene, and then distracted my competition by screaming, “Look! Thawed turkeys!” while pointing towards the meat department – and while they sprinted for the goods, I scooped up the cauliflower and broccoli and scuttled off in search of cheese. Let it never be said that I am too good for deception.