Personal Development and Southern Style Broccoli Casserole

This article is for all the foodies out there. Like you, I love food and cooking and both play an important role in my own ongoing personal development.

If you look inside my personal development plan you’ll find food and cooking in two areas.  First, in my Fun, Recreation and Entertainment life area, I have a goal to try out one new recipe every week. This keeps me inspired about cooking for my family and also feeds my love of free form creativity. Second, in my Health and Fitness life area my goal is to stick to a low-carb diet (just for clarity, the term ‘diet’, to me, means a long term approach to eating not a temporary fad to loose a few pounds quickly).

When you put all of this together what I end up doing each week is modifying standard, yummy dishes into low-carb dishes that align with my food philosophy! I find this exciting, challenging and quite often edibly rewarding. Over the last few years, I’ve come up with some awesome recipes.

This week I’m so excited by my new recipe discovery, that I thought I’d share it with you. It’s an old Southern favorite (I am from Texas, you know!) – Broccoli Casserole.  I owe most of the credit to Paula Dean who gave me the foundation concept, which I have so creatively tweaked by replacing canned and frozen elements with fresh stuff and by replacing the ever delicious Ritz Cracker topping with a more healthy alternative which is just as tasty – almond meal. 

How to Make Southern Style Broccoli Casserole

Ingredients

• 2 cups of water
• 2 large bunches of broccoli (cut into little broccoli trees)
• 1 yellow onion (chopped)
• 1 cup or so of chopped mushrooms
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons of sour cream
• 1 cup of cheese (grated)
• ½ cup mayonnaise
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup or so of almond meal

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 428°F  (220° C)
2. Bring water to boil in a medium/large saucepan
3. Add broccoli, onion and mushrooms and boil/steam until soft
4. Drain excess water and leave mixture in the pan
5. Stir mixture until broccoli is chopped into smaller pieces
6. In a separate bowl beat eggs and sour cream together
7. Add egg mixture, cheese, mayo, salt and pepper to broccoli mixture and stir well
8. Pour mixture into a baking dish and cover with almond meal
9. Bake for approximately 30 minutes

If you like food like me and give this recipe a try, I’d love to hear how it turns out.  I think the next time I try it, I’m going to leave out the mayo. I’ll let you know if it’s just as good.

Is cooking dear to your heart too? What’s your specialty dish?