Thursday, December 12, 2013

Broccoli casserole for supper

I had a wonderful day. You know the kind when everything goes just right? And nothing bad happens? It was one of those.

I came home and cleaned up the kitchen so I could make brownies. Every year at school the staff brings their favorite nibbles for a staff Christmas buffet. It is in the Teacher's Lounge and we can go in and out all day as we have time and grab some cheese & crackers, a brownie, a chicken wing...grazing all day over whatever people have brought. It's fun. My contribution will be brownies.

I also made a broccoli casserole for dinner. I got luscious looking broccoli at the last week's Bountiful Baskets. There was a LOT of it though. Looking for a way to use a great quantity at once I looked up a recipe for broccoli casserole.

The casserole called for broccoli of course, a condensed soup, mayo, eggs, and a box of stuffing. Grated cheese would go on top.

As part of my frugal living, I've committed to no-shopping between weekly grocery shopping trips, and no making special dishes that I have to get one or two ingredients for. This saves time, energy and money. It makes me settle down and be satisfied with what I have. And...it also forces me to be creative.

I had most of the ingredients on hand for the broccoli casserole, except for boxed stuffing mix. However, I'd bought a wagon wheel of rolls from BB last time. Half were wheat and half were pumpkin. Bountiful Baskets breads don't have any preservatives in them so you have to eat them within 3 days or freeze it. Not able to eat them in time before going over, I froze them. Hmmm, what if I used the pumpkin rolls as the dry stuffing substitute? It was a way to use the rolls up and to fix the problem of the one missing ingredient.

I defrosted the rolls, chunked them, and put them in the microwave. When they were soft I put them into the blender and ground them. It worked fine. We'll see how the substitutions work out when I taste the casserole.

I received a lovely, lovely Christmas card from one of the readers at the other blog. She put in a nice note. I am always blown away when people do that. It is so thoughtful and it means so much! There was a herb teabag inside, which tickled me. I made a cup of tea and thanked the Lord for good people.

I have a warm, inviting, comfortable home, food to cook, a job, friends at the job, and brethren out there who love the Lord. It's all good.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How'd the casserole turn out with the pumpkin rolls?

-Carolyn

Elizabeth Prata said...

Carolyn, it was only the best casserole ever! The rolls were a fine substitute. I was worried I didn't know the correct amount to substitute for a 10 oz box of dry stuffing, but I eyeballed it and it turned out fine. I'd recommend using old bread like this instead of stuffing or bread crumbs any day. Thanks for asking!

Anonymous said...

Awesome! I love it when creative culinary substitutes work out. I see it as another wonderful way God provides.

I was thinking that the pumpkin roll flavor would be a nice touch in the casserole. So thrilled it worked out for you!

-Carolyn