I grow and eat a lot of vegetables, so I’m certainly not afraid of them.
I do however occasionally revel in the great bogan tendency to serve them dripping in fat- preferably some form of dairy product. You know the type – potato bake, cauliflower and cheese (they need a good boganised name, too – au gratin is way too posh). On reflection, it seems that most good examples are the white vegetables – a good bogan doesn’t like to remind himself that he is eating vegetables, after all.
But I like to take it a step further and disguise my green vegetables with excessive quantities of dairy products too. Boston Market does a mean creamed spinach that I secretly adore, and I have developed an unhealthy fascination for Jalapeno Poppers – how could jalapeno chillies not be improved by stuffing them with 3 types of cheese, crumbing and deep-frying? Tell me I’m wrong!
This brings me to a treasured family recipe – the ultimate in vegetable subterfuge. A recipe so ingrained in my psyche that I no longer recognise it for the many levels of wrong that it is. I crave this stuff regularly, and beg my mother to make it when we visit. She even makes it as part of Christmas lunch, it is that awesome in my mind.
Don’t doubt, just go with me…
Beans and Sour Cream
450g sliced Green Beans (always frozen, but I used fresh in the pictures)
1 medium Brown Onion, diced
1 300g tub Sour Cream
Salt and Pepper
200g Mozzarella Cheese, shredded
200g Corn Flake Crumbs
40g Butter
Place the beans and the onion in a saucepan and cover with water. Boil until the onion is no longer crunchy and starts to go translucent. Drain thoroughly for at least several minutes.
While beans are draining, melt the butter and add the cornflake crumbs, mixing thoroughly to encorporate the butter through the crumbs.
In a bowl, mix the sour cream through the bean and onion mixture, adding a generous amount of salt and pepper. Pour into a small casserole dish or loaf pan.
Spread the shredded mozzarella cheese over the sour cream, bean and onion mixture, then top with the cornflake crumbs, smoothing the surface.
Either put in the oven at 180 degrees for long enough for the cheese to melt and the crumbing to go crispy, or microwave for approximately 3 minutes. My mum always microwaves it.
The result is a side dish with a crunchy, buttery top, an oosey, cheesy layer underneath and a creamy, beaney layer below. Bogan bliss.
This photo isn’t convincing anyone, is it?
Well there goes any shred of foodie credibility that I probably didn’t have anyway. So what are your shameful food loves? Anything you love when you really shouldn’t, just because you grew up eating it?
Did I mention I love Campbell’s Cream of [INSERT ANY VEGETABLE HERE] soup?
I swear I don’t use it in casseroles!
500m2 in Sydney 
Oh yes there is one thing I love from my childhood. But I can’t eat it now since it has tomatoes in it. Sigh. And yes it is from a package and bad for me – but no cheese. Mostly my mom was a mediocre cook. I did like some of her pies since I have a horrible sweet tooth. One of my favorite was strawberry pie. I can’t wait for my strawberries to give me enough to make it again. Yummy.
I’m not a fan of the creamed soups though. The traditional American Thanksgiving meal has a dish with green beans and cream of mushroom soup. I won’t eat the stuff. Nor will I eat the tradition sweet potatoes with little marshmallows that accompanies it. Luckily my group of friends that gets together usually isn’t too traditional.
Oh you remind me of another very tragic family recipe 🙂 With my mum being from the States, a lot of my family recipes have a real American tradition about them. The green beans with mushroom soup dish I have never tried, but I’ve heard of it – I’m resisting!
Your mum’s pies sound lovely – I’ve never had a strawberry pie.
That looks seriously yummy. Mine would be Cream of Mushroom soup… mmm… still love stirring out the lumpy bits as it’s heating up in the pot with the milk… Unfortunately I do use it in casseroles… I’m not real good with cook from scratch when it comes to ‘creamy’ sauce type things… mine always seem to turn out too runny and ends up more like soup rather than a thick creamy sauce.
Oh Lilian, I love the lump bits! I stir it minimally so I still get to eat a few 🙂
I have been so looking forward to your next bogan post – if only so I can tut and say óh dear’ and guess what I get to tut and say ‘oh dear’ – beans & cornflakes with cheese really? Please tell me there isn’t really a product called Cornflake crumbs! For the record I also hate all canned soups – just too iccky. I do like Macaroni cheese though, which I guess is not altogether different – not from the box, but I did like it in ready meal form from the supermarkets in England. And as you know I do fill my peppers with cheese. Does that count as bogan?
Oh, there was really never any doubt about how bogan this is – I did warn you 🙂 Cornflake crumbs are the only product from Kelloggs that I buy actually – I also use it to crumb lamb cutlets – I’m not redeeming myself here, am I? 🙂
I will feel momentarily better as I say that I have never actually tried ready-meal macaroni cheese. My mum used to make it very occasionally from scratch, but it’s never been my type of thing. Pastas with cream sauce in general taste very heavy to me – there needs to be something to break up the gluggy-factor.
It really is a blessing to my waistline that I generally prefer acidic foods with a bit of bite – salt, chilli etc – like you, give me puttanesca anyday!
Oh L, I’m not sure I could go there with you. Though I do have a chowder recipe that uses tinned corn and a tin of cream of chicken soup. And call me bogan but a bowl of Heinz Big Red tomato soup with a piece of grilled cheese send me right back to my childhood, that or substitute the tomato soup for Campbells pea and ham.
On the dairy and vegetable front though, I lived on campus at uni for two years and they used to serve deep fried broccoli with cheese sauce! Can you see why I put on twenty kilos (almost a quarter of my weight pre-uni) in a year! I soon realised if I was going to finish university and still be able to get out of my dorm room I was going to have to start cooking for myself and so began my love of cooking. I still do serve up a mean scalloped potatoes and cauliflower cheese – a salute to my bogan heritage (actually Mum never served up much bogan food, but I did grow up in bogan-central).