Hi! I am Betty. Welcome to Betty’s Kitchen! Today, we’re doing Green Bean casserole. Actually, what I am trying to do is start to give you a few things that you might want to put on your Thanksgiving table. This is a traditional item that a lot of families use. It’s been around since 1955 when it was developed in the Campbell’s Soups Test Kitchen. Now, I have some changes but there are updates that were made by Campbell Soup. I thought they were good ideas and make it a little more relevant for today.

So, we’re going to mix up a mixture here where we have some Campbell Soup. This is one can of mushroom soup that I need. This is a 10.75 oz. can of condensed cream of mushroom soup. So, I am going to put that in to a large mixing bowl. I didn’t think to get something to scrape that out. Wait just a second, I’ll have it. We do want to get the complete can because there’s a lot that just hangs there at the bottom if you just shake that. So, one can condensed cream of mushroom soup. If you don’t like mushroom soup, you could make that probably cream of chicken or a cream of celery but in this, we have cream soup.

Then, we need some milk, ½ cup. I am using skim milk. So, we’ll add in ½ cup to this mixture. We need just a dash of ground black pepper. I am just going to use this shaker top and put a dash in. You know, I didn’t have to measure this, just so you can see that it does have some pepper in it.

Next comes our green beans and what I have are two cans of cut green beans. The recipe calls for four cups of cooked green beans. Now, you could use frozen. You can get two 9 oz. packages and cook those. You could use fresh beans from your garden or from the produce section in a grocery store but you would need to have four cups of them cooked. This is the easiest way, just buy cut green beans or some other kitchen sliced or whatever. They will come canned like this and they will be perfect for this casserole. So, I am going to drain off the juice that is packed in. That’s a lot right there but if you put that in, this is going to be a really runny casserole. We don’t want that to happen. So, this is going in and our second can, just get rid of that. You don’t really need that. That’s mainly water and maybe some salt residue in there from the beans. You can buy beans that have no salt if you are on a diet like that but this is coming together. We have our two cans there and we’ll get rid of that water. We don’t need it.

Now, this is in a traditional recipe; we have some crispy fried onions. These are like onion rings that are in little bits. I’ll show you. They’re like this. What you have is a can that is about 1 1/3 cups, so you want to use about half of it, about 2/3 of a cup. Put it in here and you’ll save the other half. So, I am just going to look. It wasn’t that full. So, I am just trying to remember and saving that for our topping. That looks good, so I’ll save that.

Now, here is a new addition that wasn’t in the original recipe. This is one quarter cup of—you can see I’ve been working on this for other purposes but this is a red bell pepper and it gives some lovely color because when you have those green beans to have the contrast of the red bell pepper, it just makes a lovely dish. It adds a little bit to the flavor as well and I think you’ll probably prefer it to the original recipe.

Now, one more thing before I do too much stirring and this is an addition. I have three quarters of a cup of Sharp Cheddar Cheese and this is shredded, fairly fine. You can use grated or chunk or chopped or whatever. I just get it into pieces and for this, three quarters of a cup. I am using ½ cup in this mixture. So, I am saving back quite a quarter, let’s say a little bit more there for the topping. We need a quarter cup saved. So, here we’re saving these for the topping. I might as well put them together and we’ll kind of mix them up and when we are ready to top them, I’ll have those nicely blended but we’ll be doing our cooking of this casserole before we really need that topping.

This is what we’re going to cook; we’re going to cook a casserole that has all these lovely flavors and lovely colors. You might even think of it in terms of the holiday season because of that green and red color. I think you’ll really like the flavor of it. For a lot of people who kind of shy away from vegetables, having all these cheese and the pimiento flavor and the binding of the soup with them, it just makes a great casserole. It’s one that cooks depend on a lot. I will tell you that it is estimated that there are 20 million servings of this served every year. It’s very popular. If you’ve not tried it, at least give it a try.

So, I am just scraping this out into a casserole dish. I’ve chosen a round one. Actually, it’s a little on the large side but what have you think works for the amount that you have and then, just spread it out. I did spray this dish with some cooking oil. That’s not really necessary; it’s just something I wanted it to be free from the bottom and sides and to be dipped out very easily. So, we’re just spreading it out nicely and then, it’s going to go in a 350° oven for 25 minutes. I’ll watch it if it’s bubbling at lot, I might decide to take it out a little earlier than that but remember, we still have a little bit of baking to do. So, I’ll take it a little shy of done, so I can get these on the top and get them all crisp up. We’ll have a wonderful casserole.

It’s been 25 minutes since I’ve put the green bean casserole in the oven. You can see what it looks like. It would be done like that but there is a little treat that goes on top that I’ve told you about. We have this little mixture of 2/3 of a cup of the onions and also, quarter of a cup of the grated cheddar cheese. So, I am going to put this around in a ring just because I like to have a little decoration. You can put it just all the way over the top if you’d like to but this may stand out a little bit and look a little nicer. I decided to do that mainly because I had a round bowl. I don’t think I would have done it with the rectangle. I am going to put this back in and let it brown off for about five minutes. It doesn’t take long at all. Then, we’ll have a nice, crispy topping to go with the green bean casserole. It’s going to taste luscious. So, see you back in five minutes.

This is our green bean casserole that has the extra chopped red bell pepper and also, the extra cheese, the Sharp Cheddar Cheese. I want to show you the texture when you go down into it, try to get some of that good crust on top and put that on your plate. You’ll have some good creamy beans with that good mushroom soup and cheddar cheese and a little hint of red bell pepper. That’s what it’s going to look like and I think you’re really going to enjoy it if you’ve never tried it.