It all started with a complaint. Somebody didn't like it when I called that green bean casserole with the canned onions on top a low-rent "dreaded" dish.

There's a lot not to like: packaged ingredients with preservatives that create a metallic taste, an overabundance of grease that masks the saltiness, an ugly, mushy, grey appearance once you spoon up what's under the onions.

I flip through the pages of grocery store cookbooks and turn up my nose. How can people love it? But guess what? They do.

So if I can't beat 'em, I will join 'em. That's right: This year I'm caving in. And I have a confession to make. Just because I don't like green bean casserole doesn't mean I don't have a few of these recipes in my repertoire.

My favorites are Coca-Cola brisket, Texas Sheet Cake and Tater Tot casserole, a hillbilly cousin of green bean casserole with hamburger and lotsa Tots on top.

What can I say? Some of these recipes are horrible. But some are downright addictive. What they all have in common is country-cook wiliness: Think Paula Deen letting her imagination run wild as a pole cat.

These dishes are rib-sticking, full of shortcuts and made with plain ingredients you can find in any grocery store. But many of them have some kind of screwball twist involving convenience foods or crazy flavors: cranberry in meatballs, Bisquick in quiche, cocktail sausages in barbecue sauce with grape jelly.

Some even look wacky. I'm talking about mini multicolored marshmallows on gelatin salad or the one that made me drop the grocery store magazine in disgust: a circular hero sandwich with a hole cut in the middle that looks like a toilet seat. Holy sugar!

Don't make that monstrosity. Let me guide you to some better recipes. You'll plan your next family potluck with ease.

Strategies

n Before you start cookin' and recipe lookin', make sure you know what everyone is bringing to the potluck. There needs to be enough main dishes, sides and desserts.

n A casserole should feed eight to 10 guests. The host should make up the difference. Vary the menu so you have some newfangled dishes and some old favorites.

n Make sure you're going to have enough room in the oven and the microwave to get everyone's dish hot by dinner time. Borrow a microwave or two. Fire up the toaster-oven for the breads and rolls.

n If the recipe goes into a crock pot, remind your friends to bring one along and make sure you've got an electrical power strip on the counter so they're plugged in, with ladles nearby, ready to go.

n Set up two serving tables so the buffet line never gets too long. Take "get it while it's hot" to a whole new level and roll out the desserts as soon as everyone's made a first pass at dinner.

Classics

You have to have the green bean casserole -- there'd be a riot if it didn't appear alongside the roast turkey or the spiral-cut ham.

But maybe you want to uptick it this year. A recent issue of Better Homes and Gardens gives all kinds of ideas for brightening the recipe: Add real sauteed onions instead of canned; use a mixture of goat and cream cheese instead of the mushroom soup; start with fresh green beans; use flat-leaf parsley for color.

Just remember, it's like taking grease out of tamales. Cut back too much and they're not tamales any more. If you want to, play it safe. My sis gentrifies hers simply by adding Lipton onion soup mix and sour cream. There are never any leftovers.

Other classics include the sweet potatoes with marshmallows and a variety of Ambrosia-like salads with fresh citrus fruits, coconut and marshmallows. My mom always makes a relish with fresh cranberries, fresh oranges and red Jell-O.

Classics are great, but pay attention to trends, too. Seven-layer dip is pretty much out. Anything with cranberries is in, and mac and cheese is back in a big way. Mac with a mixture of premium cheddar, Parmesan, blue cheese and Swiss are taking center stage since steakhouse chefs have returned them to the limelight.

Velveeta is passe unless you're making a crock pot full of chili con queso to pour over tortilla chips. Boxed stuffing dishes are always popular but give 'em new life: Make sausage balls and fry them up like hush puppies; bake individual stuffing servings in muffin tins; trick out your dressing with new-wave ingredients like golden raisins or chorizo.

Search the Web for recipes by ingredient or by classic names. The best of these dishes are urban legend and the recipes are traded, re-traded, graded and improved all over the home-cook Web sites.

Look also in the grocery store for mini cookbooks the size of TV guides. And ask at your church; sometimes cookbooks with recipes from the congregation are published as fundraising tools.

Keep it simple

You wouldn't believe how many of these recipes include convenience foods such as canned soups or dry soup mixes, Bisquick and bottled barbecue sauces. The brownie recipes have candy bars plopped in and the cheesecakes are no-bake varieties.

Many of the desserts start with a cake mix and then get a makeover with fresh ingredients. "The Cake Mix Doctor" cookbook is a trove of these.

A friend brought me a piece of rum cake the other day made with yellow cake mix perfumed with liquor and crowned with a crunchy pecan topping. It gets raves everywhere she takes it.

You really want this convenience when you're cooking for a crowd. Remember, you're making 10 servings and you're going to have to tote them to somebody else's house. It's not the time to bake a cake so fancy that you have to carry a Martha Stewart repair kit of spatula, extra icing and garnishes with you. Think cobbler, not lacy lattice-crusted pie.

Whatever you do, make sure your dish has plenty of pizzazz in the flavor department and that it's a crowd pleaser with everyone from toddlers to grandparents. You don't want to be the jerk who shows up with a couscous salad or white gazpacho. At this kind of party, it's a badge of honor to trade leftovers.

Don't blow it or you're guaranteed the ultimate insult -- taking that dud home where it will sit in your refrigerator long after New Year's.

What goes with ...

Spiral sliced ham: Pickled peaches, citrus fruit salads, cole slaws, baked beans

Turkey: Stuffing dishes, cranberry gelatin relish

Smoked turkey: Sweet potato casserole, candied yams, black eyed pea dishes

Roast beef: Green bean casserole, stuffed potatoes

Roast chicken or game hens: Stewed fruit dishes and chutneys, rice dishes and pasta dishes