My grandmother was an amazing cook. I remember going to her house on holidays and having the most amazing meals. I have no idea how much time she spent preparing them, but I remember eating them. One holiday was always more special than the others, especially for the food, can you guess which one I’m talking about? If you guessed Halloween, you would be totally wrong. But if you guessed July 4^th, you would still be totally wrong. If you guessed Thanksgiving however, then you would be right. Thanksgiving was absolutely amazing. My dad and uncle would go hunting in the morning and then my aunt and uncle and their six kids, would join my family at my grandma and grandpa’s house for an over the top feast. Every amazing Thanksgiving dish you can think of was there: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn bread, pâté (just kidding), cranberries, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, ambrosia salad, Waldorf salad. You name it. The only downside? There were no leftovers. And I don’t mean in the “A Christmas Story” sense because the neighbor dogs got in and destroyed the turkey. I mean because we had such a large crew that there was just never any food left. So there was no turkey soup, or turkey sandwiches, or any of the other things that turkey gets turned into post-Thanksgiving.

The other downside? To this day no one knows how my grandma did most of it. You see, she didn’t use recipes. For anything. So we have had to try and recreate all the recipes she used. From scratch. Not so easy when you have a bunch of not quite as talented chefs.

For us, the hardest one to reproduce was her green bean casserole. I don’t know what her secret ingredient was, but it made her casserole amazing. To this day we still aren’t sure what it was and so we have finally given up. Apparently that is something she decided to take to her grave.

Since we can’t recreate it, we decided to spice it up, so this year we are trying a variation to see what we like and don’t like. After several attempts we found a version we like. So here we have “Not Quite Grandma’s” Green Bean Casserole.

Now, in case you didn’t know (I didn’t know), here is the original green bean casserole recipe.

Ingredients

• 2 cans (10.5 oz. each) Campbell’s® Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
• 4 cans (14.5 oz. each) any style Del Monte® Green Beans, drained
• 2 2/3 cups French’s® Crispy Fried Onions

Directions

1) Stir soup, milk, black pepper, beans and 1-1/3 cups onions in 3-qt. casserole.

2) Bake at 350°F, uncovered, for 25 min. or until bean mixture is hot and bubbling. Stir bean mixture. Sprinkle with remaining onions.

3) Bake for 5 min. or until onions are golden brown.

To be honest I don’t think anyone in my family ever knew there was an original recipe. Oh well, we mixed it up a bit. How did we do that? Well, we are fans of mushrooms and onions in my family so we took half of a medium Vidalia onion, diced it up and about 15 mushrooms sliced and diced. We sautéed them in a pan with a little butter and then mixed them in with the other ingredients. And then because everything goes better with cheese, we added 1 1/2 cups of grated sharp cheddar cheese. It was yummy. At least I think it was, because everyone’s mouth was busy doing something other than talking. Coming soon, not only did we change what goes in in, we change how it’s served. Keep an eye out.

In the meantime, share with us your favorite holiday recipe twist!

Next time you’re in Walmart, go look at the screens by the green bean casserole display at the end of the aisle.  Walmart is picking the best of the ideas to show right there in the store!  If you see mine, let me know with a post or a tweet!  Make sure to go to thisismytwist.com to see everyone’s suggested twists!

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post written in conjunction with Walmart and a campaign with Sverve. Regardless, all opinions and ideas are 100% my own.