California Casserole-Foodie Friday

     Several years ago a friend brought a covered dish to a potluck. I loved it, but I wasn't sure what I was eating. I'm one of those people who can taste something and usually tell all or at least most of the ingredients...but, I just wasn't sure with this one. I have prepared this many times and my family loves it. Don't be thrown by the ingredients, they really do taste good together.

Ingredients:

1 can shoe peg corn, drained

1 can French cut green beans, drained (I bought regular green beans by mistake, they worked just fine but I do prefer the French cut in this recipe)

1 can sliced water chestnuts, drained (my friend chops hers, I don't)

1/2 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup chopped onion (optional-I don't use it)

1 can cream of celery soup

8 oz. sour cream

1 tube Ritz Crackers, crushed

1 stick butter, melted

     Mix together soup and sour cream. Fold in corn, green beans, water chestnuts, celery and onion. Put in greased baking pan. Crush the Ritz Crackers and mix with the melted butter. Sprinkle on top of casserole. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes-uncovered.

     Most of you probably know how easy it is to crush crackers in a Ziploc bag. I use my grandmother's old rolling pin, but a glass turned on it's side would also work. I melt my butter and pour it into the bag of crushed crackers, mix it all up and dump it on the casserole.

     I'm going to do a little venting now. I live in a small town, where we are lucky to have a large family owned grocery store. It isn't quite as big as a city grocery, but it is very nice and the butcher will cut your meat and the manager knows your name. I buy all of my meat, produce and most of my groceries there. We also have a WalMart Superstore very convenient to my house. I do pick up canned goods, paper products etc. at WalMart. In recent months, WalMart has been changing the shelves over to their generic white-label brand. In the above picture, you will see the cream of celery soup from WalMart. I wanted Campbell's, it wasn't available. I've never liked generic food and I don't like WalMart taking away the option of "real" food. The cream of celery was runny when I opened it...and gray. I threw it away and my husband ran to our "good" store for Campbell's. I also threw away the sour cream you see in the picture (also from WalMart) bought that day and the consistency of milk when I opened it. I have noticed that more and more, the brands that I use are not on the shelves at WalMart, and the space is being taken over by the white packaging. Anyone else notice this?

I am linking today with Michael @ Designs by Gollum.

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