Cheddar Cheese Soup with Haricots Verts, Mushrooms, & Cronions; A Green Bean Casserole Makeover

In honor of Thanksgiving, the theme for this month's 5 Star Makeover, hosted as ever by Natasha of 5 Star Foodie and Lazaro of Lazaro Cooks! is a holiday classic, the green bean casserole.

For those of you who did not grow up in the U.S., the green bean casserole is a staple of many American Thanksgiving celebrations, and generally consists of some variation of canned or frozen green beans, cream of mushroom soup, cheddar cheese or imitation cheese product, and bread crumbs or fried onions. It's a gloriously and unabashedly white trash dish, and it conforms perfectly to my late, much-missed mom's philosophy of cooking: Do as little as possible.

Bison Cottage Pie

There aren't many foods I can think of that are more comforting than this bison cottage pie. After all, it's got meat, gravy, and mashed potatoes, and in my book that's about all you need when you've got a case of the chills, the nasties, or the blues. Well, that and a big glass of red wine.

The semantical among you may wonder why I am calling this a cottage pie, rather than a shepherd's pie. Well, according to many definitions, cottage pies use minced beef, while shepherd's pies go with minced lamb ... I am using neither in favor of ground bison, and so I decided I would call it whatever I pleased.

Truffled Tuna Noodle Casserole with Crispy Shallots & a Mushroom White Wine Sauce

Look at me, getting all pretentious with a casserole! But I have a very good reason: You see, I had originally planned to make this dish for the upcoming International Incident Nostalgia Party hosted by Penny aka Jeroxie of the super cool blog Addictive and Consuming, but I ended up going in a rather different direction for that. (You can check it out this Saturday.) But once the notion of a kicked up tuna noodle casserole started rattling around in my head I just couldn't rest until I had a taste.

My version is modeled on the Stouffer's frozen variety that my mom used to "make" for me when I was a kid. It was one hot mess of a trashy dish, but I loved it. Oh, it had it all: scant bites of tuna, long, slippery overcooked noodles, and a strange half-crunchy half-soggy bread topping, all bound together by a thick, gloppy, vaguely mushroom-y mystery sauce. What's not to love?

Cheesy Zucchini Summer Casserole and Crunchy Beet Burgers

Among other veggies, this week we got zucchini and beets from One Straw Farm, our CSA.  This was a pretty sweet haul, especially given that when it comes to food I tend to think in colors - like my mom always used to say, if it looks pretty on the plate there's a decent chance it's good for you and tastes yummy to boot. I couldn't resist the thought of pairing pale green strips of fresh zucchini with the vibrant purple of the beets. But how?