Here is a quick holiday stress test: Thanksgiving is a week away.

If that sentence sent a shiver of fear through your spine, don't worry. Just think casserole.

Casseroles can be easily assembled ahead of time, frozen until needed and are highly portable, which makes them one of the handiest dishes during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

"You can prepare them ahead of time, a lot of times, and I like that," said Dee Klein, a resident of Lanier Village Estates in North Hall. "And they are usually quite good and they are good for a busy person." Klein said she sometimes prepares a casserole the day before an event.

"Then that day you just have to heat it."

Klein shared a recipe for Swiss Corn Bake, a casserole that combines corn, Swiss cheese and onions in a creamy casserole.

"It is done in a pan with fluted sides and it looks pretty," she said, adding that she puts a few red and green pepper rings on the top to add a holiday flare. "That is optional but it makes it look pretty ... it looks really nice for the holidays."

Alto resident LaVerne Edge has a favorite casserole recipe she uses around the holidays that uses just a few ingredients of maximum effect.

Her Squash Casserole includes mashed squash along with cheese, bread crumbs, butter and - the classic casserole ingredient - cream of mushroom soup.

"You can use margarine or butter and for the soup you can use cream of chicken or cream of mushroom, or you can use a cup of milk," she said. "Any of the cream soups will work but they can't be diluted - just straight out of the can."

The other secret to a creamy squash casserole? The food processor.

Because the squash can get stringy, Edge said she will run the mashed squash through the food processor before assembling all the ingredients and popping it into the oven.

Several forums on the Campbell's Soup community Web site note that it's easy to swap out different cream soups, depending on the taste you prefer. Some family or friends may have a mushroom allergy or simply don't like the taste, and in that case cream of chicken or cream of celery can be used in a recipe.

Also, if you're a fan of a casserole with a bit of a crust, dot the light bread crumb topping with some butter before baking it.

"I got it from my great aunt or my aunt," Edge said. "After doing the recipe straight by the recipe, I kind of changed it a little bit because hers called for milk and I started putting the soup in it, and hers called for cheese and I like the extra sharp cheddar cheese in it."

But that's the beauty of casseroles. Creamy ingredients can swap out for other similar creamy ones, and crunchy, cheese ingredients can be swapped out, too.

In the end, the result is a warm dish ready to be shared.

"There are so many things you can't do ahead of time," Klein said. "But this one you can."