My dad made a turkey broccoli casserole following Thanksgiving using canned cream of chicken soup, half and half and every other unhealthy, canned ingredient that you find in your typical casserole. Following Christmas dinner he wanted to make the same dish. I protested and said I would remake this casserole as my parting gift. It’s my last evening at home before setting out on a 19 day cross country adventure.

Before finding this recipe I voiced my strong opinion that I could improve on his attempt. Not that I eat turkey, but his first casserole just did not look remotely appetizing (not that mine looks fantastic, but casseroles are not necessarily supposed to be pretty).

This recipe is actually for a chicken casserole, but I figured subbing turkey wouldn’t make that much a difference. They’re both birds, they both have feathers and people eat them on a regular basis.

I did make a few other changes to the ingredient list as well. Instead of using Ronzoni Smart Noodles, I used whatever egg noodles were in the pantry. They may have been no-yolk, but probably not. I also did not measure olive oil or use reduced fat cheese, because that just seems absolutely atrocious. Instead of a shallot, I chopped up half a yellow onion and also used whole milk. Two tablespoons of bread crumbs did not seem like enough so I sprinkled until the whole top layer was covered and opted not to spray cooking spray (redundant yes, but there is not another word for spray) on top of the dish because that seems a bit a strange as well.

Essentially, I took the skinny recipe and made it a bit less healthy, but not entirely terrible for you.

My dad praised the dish and admitted that it came out much tastier than his. I’ll attribute this to avoiding cream of mushroom soup, half and half, and butter as the main fillers. Our foodie neighbors seemed to enjoy it as well.

Takeaways: more cheese.

Who tasted the turkey casserole? My dad, step mom and neighbors

January 12, 2014. Day 52. Recipe #60.