Showing posts with label Casseroles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Casseroles. Show all posts
I will be the first one to put my hand up and admit that I can be a bit lazy at times when it comes to cooking. I am always looking for shortcuts and easier ways to do things. And if I can just use dump and bake recipes, so much the better!
I adore pasta. It wasn't something I got to indulge in very much in my previous relationship, but now I am on my own, I can eat pasta to my heart's content. I have only myself to please now! If I want to have pasta 7 nights a week I can! (Not that I would!)
Cooking for just one, or two people for that matter can be somewhat of a challenge to be sure. Especially if you have been used to cooking for much larger groups through the years and are now facing an empty nest.
Many of us have not been able to get together with family over the last year and some months because of the Pandemic and some of us who were already in small families are now finding ourselves single all of a sudden. (like myself)
My own sweet mother found herself to be completely on her own suddenly at the age of 53, but I can tell you, she never let being on her own stop herself from cooking herself a delicious and satisfying meal.
She was always a fine example to me in this respect. I know a lot of people find themselves on their own, especially once you get into your older years. Even though you might be on your own, you can still cook yourself delicious meals without having a lot of leftovers afterwards.
You will find a lot of times that smaller quantities of ingredients often cost just as much or more than their full sized equivalent. That is not a problem for me. I just buy the full size and then freeze the remainder of the jar or packet in smaller sized servings, ready for me to thaw out when I need them.
Its very easy to do if you have a freezer, some freezer containers and masking tape to label and date what you have frozen. For instance the marinara sauce I have used to day was from a full sized jar, which I divided into three amounts. I froze two, ready to use at another time and used one today.
Just be sure to remember what you have in your freezer and then use it up before you go out and buy some more. A note book where you can write the inventory of your freezer down and keep a record of it is very handy in that respect!
That way you will never be short of the ingredients you need to make and bake easy and delicious casseroles like the one I am sharing with you today!
This simple recipe requires only a few ingredients and goes together very quickly. You can have it on the table pronto. You can find the full-sized recipe which inspired me here.
Of course I made a few tweaks here and there to make it even more delicious than the original! That's me! I can never leave well enough alone!
One thing which is handy to keep in the freezer when you are a singleton is things like Italian meatballs and the like. Things where you can only take out a few or a lot, depending on your need.
Generally speaking (like frozen vegetables) they are loose frozen so you can shake out only a few. The Italian meatballs I used today are from Blue Menu and are lower in fat, salt, etc. than regular meatballs.
Today I took the lazy way out and used prepacked.
I suppose as far as that goes you could also make your own marinara sauce and freeze it in smaller quantities. Again, I took the lazy way out and used a good bottled sauce.
You may wonder why I always specify to use a "good" bottled sauce, etc. Its as simple as "you get what you pay for." When one of your main ingredients is marinara sauce, you want to use the best one that you can afford. Taste is everything when it comes to this recipe.
The pasta actually cooks in the sauce in this recipe (no need to precook). You will be adding an equivalent amount of water to the sauce and watering it down so that the pasta can cook and absorb it. So it only makes sense to use a decent, well flavored sauce.
You will have your favorites I am sure.
For this tasty dish you literally do just dump everything into a casserole, cover and bake. Easy peasy.
Dry pasta, pasta sauce, water and meatballs go in first. I added a few herbs and seasoning to give it even more flavor. Nothing too involved. Just some Italian seasoning, garlic and onion powders, salt and pepper.
These cook, tightly covered, for about half an hour and then you need to uncover the casserole and bake it a bit longer.
Not before you have added a bit of Parmesan to the main body of the casserole and sprinkled the top with a three cheese blend.
The pasta ends up tasting incredible because it absorbs and cooks in the sauce. The cheese adds another depth of delicious flavour.
Altogether this is a fabulously simple and yet delicious casserole that is not only budget friendly, but also single person/small couple friendly, and in its full sized version, very family friendly.
Everyone's a winner! I had a delicious meal as you can see. I had a bit of salad on the side (bacon caesar chopped salad) and I made some garlic toasts to enjoy with it as well.
Eating small need never be boring. That's my promise to you!
Dump & Bake Meatball Casserole (small batch)
Yield: 2
Prep time: 5 MinCook time: 40 MinTotal time: 45 Min
No fuss, no muss, delicious!
Ingredients
- 1 cup (4 ounces) uncooked fusilli pasta
- 3/4 cup (180ml) good quality marinara sauce
- 3/4 cup (180ml) water
- 8 frozen fully-cooked mini Italian meatballs, thawed
- 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
- 1/4 tsp each garlic powder and onion powder
- salt and black pepper to taste
To finish:
- 2 TBS grated Parmesan cheese
- A large handful of three cheese Italian blend cheese
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425*F/225*C/ gas mark 7. Have ready a small 2 cup casserole dish.
- Stir the meatballs, dry pasta, marinara sauce, water, meatballs, garlic seasoning, onion seasoning, and Italian seasoning together in a bowl. Pour into the casserole dish and spread it out evenly. Cover tightly with aluminum foil.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes.
- Remove from the oven. The pasta should be cooked now, if not, recover with the foil and return to the oven for a few more minutes.
- If your pasta is cooked (al dente) stir in the 2 TBS of Parmesan cheese and season with salt and black pepper. Throw the cheese blend on top and return the casserole to the oven.
- Bake, uncovered, for a further 5 to 10 minutes until the cheese is melted and turning golden brown and the pasta is completely tender.
- Let sit for five minutes before serving.
A lot of us will be baking a ham in the coming weeks for our Easter celebrations. This means many of us will have leftover ham languishing in our refrigerators in the days afterwards. It can be a bit of a challenge at times to present leftovers in a way that our family will enjoy.
That's when I like to use recipes such as this easy ham and pasta casserole. It really doesn't get much easier or tastier than this one.
This ham casserole recipe is one I found in one of my recent cookbook purchases. Better Homes & Gardens 365 Comfort Foods, inspiring meals for every day of the year.
I love books like this. They are filled to overflowing with delicious, family-friendly meals that are usually quite easy to make. Most of the recipes are not complicated and use simple ingredients.
I have ended up in the land of simple eats here at my Sister's house. Both my father and her partner are very simplistic in what they like to eat and so most days it is very simple fare. Meat and potatoes, and veg or a salad.
Not very adventurous to say the least. My father has always been that way. My mother was never allowed to use much more than salt and pepper in her cooking. Nothing has changed. He still balks at anything at all out of the ordinary.
If he gets even a whiff of Parmesan that is it, he becomes very suspicious of what is on his plate. We do sneak some in here and there, but we need to be very judicious to say the least!
He does take a lady friend out for fish and chips every Wednesday night and so we have declared that on Wednesdays we will get a bit more adventurous because he won't be here. This week we are having tacos, and I hope (fingers crossed) next week we can do a curry!
Sometimes you can feel a bit uninspired when it comes to leftovers. My father absolutely does not like leftovers if he knows he is eating leftovers. Funny that. I, myself, love leftovers. And I love being inventive with them.
I thought we might be fairly safe with this casserole because leftover ham is not like other leftover meats. We all enjoy a ham sandwich now and then and what is a ham sandwich, or sliced ham but already cooked ham! A leftover to be honest, no matter how it is packaged up!
One thing I really liked about this easy casserole was that it involved not much more than simply stirring some things together in a casserole dish. You don't even need to cook the macaroni first. It cooks right in the casserole!
You make a loose sauce using some milk and condensed cream of celery soup. If you cannot get condensed soups, then you may make a cream sauce based on 1 1/2 cups of liquid, 1 1/2 TBS of butter and 1 1/2 TBS of flour.
Because it uses cream of celery soup, I would use half milk and half vegetable broth to make the cream sauce, and perhaps add a pinch of celery salt. Once you have made the sauce, then simply whisk in the remaining milk as per the recipe.
I am fairly confident it will work perfectly and you will still end up with a delicious casserole.
Myself, I have a thing about using canned mushrooms. I cannot stand then. When I think about how we used to add to them to a lot of things in years gone by, I can't believe it. They are so rubbery and bland!
Plus I really wonder about the source of them. I am not that happy about eating food-stuffs that come from China. I cannot help it. I just think to myself, no . . . not going there.
This recipe does call for one can of sliced mushrooms, drained. I used a package of sliced cremini mushrooms in the place of the tinned mushrooms.
I just cooked them in a skillet with a tiny bit of butter first. I also added the onions, ham and peppers to the skillet. We had a ham steak and it seemed a bit watery, so I wanted to cook out some of that and I thought if I was going to be browning the mushrooms then why not add all of it.
I was a bit concerned that the ham would release too much water when it was cooking so there was a method to my madness. It worked out perfectly!
Have you ever noticed how watery ham gets when you freeze it??? Where does it all come from! I never freeze ham for that reason. I prefer to use it up in whatever way I can. This was perfect.
The original recipe called for only half the cheese that I used. I felt it could use more, so I doubled it. (I know, I'm shameless!) I stirred half of it into the casserole and sprinkled the remaining half on top for the last 10 minutes of baking.
You could pop it under a grill for a few minutes if you wanted a golden brown topping, but I didn't bother. We had it with salad and boiled carrots. I think some crusty bread would have gone perfectly.
Dad enjoyed it. Job done.
One Step Ham Casserole
Yield: 4
Prep time: 15 MinCook time: 50 Mininactive time: 10 MinTotal time: 1 H & 15 M
This delicious casserole is as simple as stirring together a few ingredients, and then baking. You can use tinned ingredients or you can use my suggestions in the notes for using fresh ingredients.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups (360ml) milk
- 1 (10.75oz/300g) tin of condensed cream of celery soup
- 2 cups diced cooked ham
- 1 cup (150g) dried elbow macaroni
- 1( 4-oz /115g) tin of sliced mushrooms, drained
- 2 TBS diced red pepper
- 1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
- 1 cup (235g) grated cheddar cheese, divided (I use strong)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375*F/190*C/gas mark 5.
- You will need a 2 liter/2 QT casserole dish. Add the soup to the dish (ungreased) and slowly whisk in the milk. Stir in the ham, macaroni, peppers, mushrooms, and onion, combining well together.
- Cover tightly with a lid or aluminum foil.
- Bake, undisturbed for about 40 minutes, or until the macaroni is tender. Remove from the oven.
- Stir half of the cheese into the macaroni mixture and sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top.
- Return to the oven and bake for a further 10 minutes, uncovered. Remove from the oven and let sit for about 10 minutes before serving. Delicious!
Notes:
I really don't like tinned mushrooms and so I choose to use fresh mushrooms which I sauté in a skillet until browned. I then add the to the casserole as above. I use about 2 cups sliced. If you like you can also brown the ham a little bit along with the peppers and onion at the same time.
Zucchini Casserole. This old fashioned zucchini casserole with stuffing mix is possibly one of my favourite things to make and to eat of all time. Not only is it very easy to make, but it is also incredibly delicious. Another thing which I really love about it is that it is a recipe shared to me by my sister way back when we were both young women with young families.
I am quite sure the original recipe came from the back of a box of stuffing mix or some such, but that doesn't really matter. It has been made in our family for so long that it is now considered a family recipe and nobody really cares about where it originally came from!
This is my sister Cindy and I standing at the end of the back yard of our home in Gimli, Manitoba about 1961. I would have been six years old and she would be three. I love this photograph because it perfectly illustrates our relationship with each other.
Side by side. Through thick and thin, this fabulous amazing woman has been making my life better for all of her life. She has been my best friend for 62 1/2 years. I am always telling my father she is one of the greatest gifts my parents ever gave to me, and I mean that sincerely.
This is a recipe she shared with me one time when I was visiting her when she was living in Windsor, Ontario. I was living in Alberta at the time and we had driven down to Ontario to visit family, specifically my sister and my ex's brother. She made this for us one night for supper and I, quite simply, fell in love with it.
I have always loved to watch my sister cooking. As with anything she does, she puts great care into it and I could stand and watch her for hours. She is very methodical about everything she creates, and everything always turns out beautifully. I just think she is the most amazing person and I hope she knows it.
I am a bit more slapdash when I do things and haphazard at best. How anything ever turns out is amazing to me. Oh, I do follow directions, but I am a lot faster when I do things, lacking the patience that she uses in whatever she is doing.
That lack of patience has gotten me into lots of trouble in my life. I can't believe it has taken me 65 years to realize that fact and I am now working hard at becoming a much more patient person in the hopes that my life will be a lot smoother and without too many bumps from now on.
But back to this wonderfully delicious zucchini casserole. It does make use of several convenience foods. In short, stuffing mix or crumbs and cream of chicken soup. Everything else is natural and not from a box.
Fresh zucchini. There was a time when we only had it available to us in the summer months, but these modern days mean that we can enjoy this garden delight all year round. For this casserole I prefer to use smaller zucchini. (Courgette in the UK)
They are much more tender and look nicer in this casserole and I personally think they are not as watery and have more flavour.
You will need roughly four of them, not more than about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. If they are larger then cut them into half moons rather than coins.
You will also need one medium onion and one medium carrot. Both peeled. The onion will be thinly sliced and the carrot grated. I like to cut the onion in half lengthwise and then cut it thinly into half moons.
I hand-grate the carrot on a box grater using the large holes. That gives you the best size I find. I think anything smaller would get lost.
The zucchini and onion are wilted in a saucepan and then drained. Make sure you drain it really well or it will add too much liquid to the sauce. Once you have it ready to go, then you just mix it with the carrot, the soup and some sour cream.
And some seasoning of course. We just use salt and pepper. This delicious mixture then gets layered in a baking dish between layers of buttered stuffing crumbs. You can use a stuffing mix like Stove top if you wish, or the Pepperidge Farm stuffing crumbs.
In the UK I used crushed herb and garlic croutons because we couldn't get stuffing mix there. At least not any that was an acceptable substitute for North American stuffing mix. The stuffing mix in the UK is made from crumbed rusks and not the same at all.
Once you have it all layered in the baking dish you just cover it with some aluminum foil and bake for about an hour, uncovering it for the last 10 minutes or so. That way the top gets all golden brown and crispy.
Oh my, just thinking about how delicious this is makes my taste buds tingle!! This is a beautiful side dish to serve with most things but also makes a delicious entrée for vegetarians. To be honest I could quite happily eat a plate of this and nothing else!
Of course if you are a vegetarian you will want to make a sauce instead of using the soup. Just make a cream sauce based on 2 cups of liquid (480ml), with 2 TBS butter, 2 TBS flour and 1 cup of milk and 1 cup of vegetable stock. Delicious!
You would be surprised at the number of people who think there is cheese in this, but there isn't. Just the carrot, although I am sure you could add some cheese if you really wanted to.
I really hope you will give this tasty zucchini dish a go, and that you will enjoy it as much as we do!
Zucchini Casserole
Yield: 4
prep time: 15 Mincook time: 1 Hourinactive time: 10 Mintotal time: 1 H & 25 M
This tasty casserole is one of our favourites
Ingredients
- 4 medium zucchini, washed, dried and sliced 1/4 inch thick
- 1 medium onion, peeled and thinly sliced
- 1 medium carrot peeled and coarsely grated
- 1 tin (10 3/4 oz) of Campbell's cream of chicken soup, undiluted (305g)
- 1 cup of sour cream (120g)
- salt and pepper to taste
- 6 TBS melted butter
- 2 1/4 cups of bread stuffing cubes, or (In the UK) 2 1/4 cups of lightly crushed seasoned croutons (I like the herb and garlic ones)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Lightly butter a 1 litre baking dish and set aside.
- Heat a large skillet on top of the stove and add a few TBS of water. Add the zucchini and lightly sauté until crispy tender. Add the onion for the last five minutes of cooking so that it gets tender as well. Drain well in a colander.
- Put the drained vegetables into a large bowl and mix together with the grated carrot. Stir in the cream soup and the sour cream. Season with a bit of salt and pepper to taste.
- Melt the butter in a small saucepan or in the microwave. Toss with the bread stuffing cubes to coat.
- Layer half of the buttered crumbs in the bottom of the baking dish.
- Pour the zucchini mixture over top and then layer the rest of the buttered crumbs on top.
- Cover tightly with tinfoil and then bake it in the heated oven for approximately 45 to 50 minutes.
- Uncover and bake for another 10 minutes or until the zucchini is tender and the casserole is bubbly and nicely browned.
- Remove from the oven and let sit for about 10 minutes before serving. Delicious!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at mariealicejoan at aol dot com.
The recipe I am sharing with you today is for an old fashioned classic tuna casserole with chips. Every once in a while I feel very nostalgic and I crave something from my childhood. Classic Tuna Casserole is just such a dish.
This easy tuna casserole is probably something most of us grew up on. You can try to fancy these things up as much as you want, but the heart still wants what it wants. You just cannot beat the classics.
There is nothing fancy about this. Absolutely nothing. And yet, it is one of the most popular comfort food dishes out there.
When I was growing up Fridays usually meant fish. We were not catholic, but I suppose it was somewhat of a tradition. In many places fish is still the protein of choice to be eaten on a Friday and what tastier way to get it than with this traditional recipe!
If you are a purist and don't like recipes which use cream of whatever
soup, look away now. As for myself, I feel they have their time &
place, and this classic tuna bake is just such a time & place!
This casserole was never fancy eating. My mother wasn't a fancy cook. Her food was
simple and it was delicious. End of.
My mother always topped her
casseroles with something crunchy. It could have been buttered cracker crumbs, or bread
crumbs or potato chips.
In our family we loved potato chips, or potato crisps as they are called in the UK. You don't even need and shouldn't get fancy with those. Plain salted suits perfectly.
In fact, thinking about it, I cannot imagine it with any other kind. Salt and Vinegar? Nope! BBQ? Hell no!! Sour Cream and Onion? Maybe, just maybe.
Plain Salted. Yes. Yes. Yes! Now you can get a little bit fancy here and use crinkle wavy chips, but that's as fancy as I would go. Do not waste your Pringles. This calls for old school potato chips all the way!
Lets talk tuna now. I always, always buy Albacore Tuna. Its the best with nice white flesh and a beautiful meaty texture. Its not quite as "fish" as the other kinds if you know what I mean.
You can of course use any kind, but I only ever buy Albacore. That is my tuna of choice. Mosty in spring water, occasionally (like for a salad or some such) in olive oil.
Imported Italian Tuna is the best, but I wouldn't waste that in a casserole. I would reserve that for eating on its own or in a salad. Just saying.
Once when I was a very young woman and grocery shopping for the family, I had an old woman stop me when I was getting ready to put some tuna in my cart. It was just plain old ordinary cheap tuna. I had never bought any other kind.
Never ever eat anything but Albacore she told me. The rest is garbage. So . . . I did pick up some Albacore instead of the cheap stuff and have never looked back.
She was right. The rest is garbage. You get what you pay for. Okay, I am a bit of a Tuna snob I suppose. But agree with her, Albacore is the best. I also try to buy solid if I can, rather than flaked.
It does cost more than flaked, but you are paying for less water and larger, meatier chunks in your casserole. I like it.
The sauce for this is very old school. Tinned cream of chicken soup. (Tuna isn't called chicken of the sea for nothing!)
Undiluted soup, some milk, cheese, seasonings, etc. Very old school. Very delicious. Unbeatable in my opinion. You can of course just make a simple white sauce and flavour it with the suggested seasonings.
I would do a 2 cup recipe, based on using 2 TBS butter, 2 TBS flour, 2 cups (480ml) milk, and some seasoning. Aways use whole milk.
Just melt the butter, whisk in the flour and cook for a minute. Slowly whisk in the milk and seasoning and cook over moderate heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture bubbles and thickens. Easy peasy.
You can use flat egg noodles in this, or elbow macaroni. Today for added interest I used bow macaroni. Farfalle. I love the way it looks in this. It makes for a very pretty presentation.
I always use peas. This is a classic after all and mom didn't have any fancy vegetables. Frozen peas was as fancy as she would get. We normally had tinned peas. I hated tinned peas. I much prefer frozen and I like the tiny peas best of all.
With a bit of cheese and some lemon (a true luxury in mom's day), and some dill weed in the sauce, you really can't go wrong. Mom would have used grated Velveeta. Today I use grated Cheddar and Parmesan. Oh are we not very lucky to have a wealth of variety in the ingredients available to us these days??? We are so very blessed.
In any case, if you are looking for real comfort on Fish Friday, you can never go wrong with this delicious Classic Tuna Casserole! A salad on the side and some bread and butter (perhaps) is all you need with this!
Classic Tuna Casserole
Yield: 4
prep time: 15 Mincook time: 30 Mintotal time: 45 Min
Purists look away now. There is cream soup in this. Never killed me as a child and is a wonderful taste of nostalgia as an adult.
Ingredients
- 1 (10.5 oz) (295g) tin of condensed cream of chicken soup, undiluted
- 1/3 cup (80ml) whole milk
- 1 cup (120g) grated cheddar cheese
- 2 TBS grated Parmesan cheese
- 2(5-oz) tins (1 - 220g jar) albacore tuna in spring water, drained and flaked
- 1 cup (150g) frozen peas
- 1/2 tsp seasoning salt
- 1/4 tsp dried dillweed
- the juice of 1/2 lemon
- 2 cups (180g) of dry noodles or pasta shapes
- 1 cup (35g) crushed plain salted potato chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a shallow casserole dish and set aside.
- Cook the noodles al dente according to package directions. Drain well and rinse. Drain again.
- Mix together the soup, milk, both cheeses, the tuna, frozen peas, seasoning salt, dillweed and lemon juice. Pour into the prepared casserole dish. Top with the crushed potato chips.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, until bubbling and heated through. Serve hot.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
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