Thanksgiving Green Bean Food Storage Sneak (slight fail)

Last week we did a Thanksgiving recap post. This year for Thanksgiving, Julie was at Jodi’s house, but Jodi was at her in-laws so she wasn’t there. Yes we’re TRYING to confuse you. Today’s post is brought to you by Julie (who married Jodi’s brother)

My assignment was a green bean casserole and rolls. Easy enough. I decided I would just make the recipe according to instructions and not try any healthy, food storage alterations. I didn’t want to offend any of my in-laws. Well I made the recipe, according to instructions, but then I got worried there wouldn’t be enough so I made a second batch the way I wanted to… It wouldn’t have been a fail, if I hadn’t broken the number 1 rule to sneaking food storage. Read on…

TRADITIONAL RECIPE

So here’s the original recipe from Campbells Kitchen

Ingredients:
1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell’s® Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup (Regular, 98% Fat Free or Healthy Request®)
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon soy sauce
Dash ground black pepper
4 cups cooked cut green beans
1 1/3 cups French’s® French Fried Onions

Instructions:

Stir the soup, milk, soy sauce, black pepper, beans and 2/3 cup onions in a 1 1/2-quart casserole.
Bake at 350°F. for 25 minutes or until the bean mixture is hot and bubbling. Stir the bean mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining onions.
Bake for 5 minutes or until the onions are golden brown.

FOOD STORAGE VERSION

So for the regular followers of this blog, you probably know I like to make any cream of “anything” soup using bean flour. I like to thicken soups like the Creamy Potato Soup with bean flour, and my ALL TIME favorite food storage recipe, Enchilada Pie uses white bean flour ground in my Wondermill to make the cream of chicken soup. The full instructions on making cream of chicken with bean flour can be found at the bottom of this post.

So here are the alterations I made:

I replaced the can of cream of mushroom with a recipe of the bean flour cream soup
I skipped the milk completely, because our family doesn’t drink milk
I used freeze dried green beans instead of canned (alright I did that in both recipes, but never told anyone that one!). I just soaked them for a couple minutes first in water, then drained them.

RESULTS

So, here is what I did TOTALLY wrong. I placed both pans of casserole on the table and said “Ok, I admit it, I made one of them totally healthy, and with food storage, so you don’t have to eat it”. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?. That’s breaking the number 1 rule of sneaking Food Storage into your families diet. The only one who gave both a try, was Jodi’s mom, Grandma Lori. She said she wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t said anything but side by side she thought the texture wasn’t the same. I actually blame that on omitting the milk though. So all and all it was a success and a fail. My kids ate up the health food storage one without noticing though. So there you have it.

P.S. Freeze dried green beans are among my FAVORITE freeze dried foods. They are so much yummier than MUSHY canned beans! They are available at our Consultant Website so you might want to give them a try.