I’m finally starting to get caught up on my Christmas party prep. As of this morning, my freezer contains Rocky Road Fudge, Caramel Pecan Fudge (post coming soon), Mint Chip Fudge (post coming soon), York Peppermint Brownies, Peanut Butter-Oreo Brownies, Gingerbread bars, Pecan bars, Browned-Butter Pecan Cookie dough, and Gingerbread mini cheesecakes. And that’s just the sweets!
The savory bites so far are Mushroom Palmiers, Olive and Feta Pinwheels, Pesto Palmiers, Eggplant Meatballs, Sun-dried Tomato Pinwheels, French Onion Cups, Arancini, Spinach Stuffing Balls, Spinach and Artichoke Dip Cups, and now these Green Bean Casserole Cups.
Last year I saw a survey that said that the most popular holiday side dish in America was green bean casserole and I thought “how can I turn that into finger food?” Because let’s be honest: I don’t have enough flatware to accommodate anything other than finger food at my Christmas party.
When I did a quick search for green bean casserole cups, I found options but those options were all using the green bean casserole made from Campbell’s soup. No, thank-you. Most of the recipes I found used canned crescent roll dough and I figured everyone loves those so I’d still use the crescent rolls but I’d make my own casserole. I’m a big fan of Alton Brown’s recipe, so I used that. This was a fair bit of work and the casserole cups were a hit, but I really thought they were just okay. The dough to green bean ratio was off and those crescent rolls are way saltier than I would have guessed (we didn’t have crescent rolls growing up).
I’m not going to post this like a real recipe since I just used someone else’s green bean casserole recipe, but I will share some pointers. First, because these are going into mini muffin tins you need to chop your green beans and mushrooms extra small.
Next you’re going to spray Baker’s Joy on your muffin tins and line each cavity with circles of pie crust. You could make this pie crust yourself, but the boxes of pie crust in the canned biscuit section are quite good. I know there are lots of pie crust snobs out there though, so if you have a tried-and-true pie crust recipe go ahead and use that.
Then you just fill each cup with casserole
And bake at 350F until the crusts begin to turn golden.
I’d like to pretend I was surprised that I didn’t take a close up of these, but I made A LOT of tasty things on Saturday. I’m just never going to remember to take pictures of everything and at every stage.
