Carrot Casserole

A holiday favorite of the Vick family.  The original recipe is all about processed cheese.  So we’ve remade the recipe to have the least offensive ingredients.
4 c carrots lightly cooked, set aside
2/3 c chopped onion sauteed in
3T butter
3 T flour sifted into the onion butter mix and whisked to make a roux
When the flour is lightly brown slowly  add
1-1/2 c milk  whisk into the roux until warm and bubbly, add
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
8 oz cream cheese chunked up so it melts faster
1 c mixed shredded cheeses – chedder, parmesan, even gouda
Once the cheese is nicely blended,
Mix the cheese sauce into the carrots and hen put all into a buttered casserole pan
Sprinkle the top with buttered seasoned bread crumbs.

In the past we have added more onion, cut back on the carrots and added red peppers in to the onion saute.   And boy howdy that was nice.

The year we took a recipe off the internet and turned out to be butter soup (we found that there is such a thing as too much butter) that recipe also called for 1/4 tsp dry mustard and 1/4 tsp celery salt which were nice additions into the cheese sauce.  It makes me think that some finely minced celery in with the onion could be delightful.  Celery and carrot are lovely together, it is after all the combination known as mirepoix, aka, the holy trinity of cooking.  In nearly every cooking tradition there is a form of mirepoix, but carrot, onion and celery is classic French so how bad could it be to add celery into our favorite way to cook a carrot?