Every year at Thanksgiving, my extended family gets together for dinner, and everybody brings a dish to share. There are some staples that we always like to have, and one of them, the traditional Green Bean Casserole, has been assigned to me this year.

If you don't know what Green Bean Casserole is, count yourself lucky. It's apparently a traditional Southern dish, made as follows: Take two cans of French-cut green beans. Mix them with one can of Campbell's Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup. Sprinkle a package of French's French-Fried Onions on top, and bake until hot. It has, I guess, been made this way for thousands of years, since the first sentient creatures in North America saw the French-cut green bean bushes growing near the Condensed Mushroom Soup swamp and thought, "Hmm, I wonder..."

However, I'm not happy with this dish. Pre-made ingredients from cans don't please me much, and while it would certainly be easier to make it the traditional way, I'm not one to embrace tradition for its own sake. That's why I am making a potentially foolish executive decision to make the Green Bean Casserole (da da da dum!) from scratch.

I tried out a miniature version last night. I used frozen French-cut green beans, much better quality than canned ones, and then made a bechamel/alfredo with onions, butter, flour, rice milk, salt & pepper, parsley, lemon zest, nutmeg, cheddar and parmesan cheese, and mixed that with the green beans. Instead of French-fried onions I crushed crackers on the top, and baked it. The result, if I do say so myself, was truly excellent, far better than the old style. Today I'm going to make a much larger version to bring to dinner tomorrow. I'm eager to find out if anyone notices the difference, and if so, what they think about it.