This is a great dish to make on those nights when you are wanting to make something quick and easy but something that the family will still enjoy. Macaroni and Cheese is a popular dish with most people, but when its also a pie, that's a win/win!
Mac and Cheese pie fits the bill on all counts!
Plus it is done in one dish, the mixing the baking, etc. You don't have to cook the macaroni first.
Like magic it cooks in the casserole dish along with everything else.
I use my homemade baking mix for this. I always have it in the cupboard. You can find the recipe for that here. Or you can just buy it ready made.
You could use Bisquick or Teabisk. I just use my own homemade one though.
Once it is baked it cuts easily into squares (if you have baked it in a square dish) or wedges if you have baked it in a pie dish.
Just look at how tasty that looks. Pass me my fork!
All you need on the side is some veg or a salad. I like to serve it with meatloaf, or hot dogs. You could also serve it with fish fingers or chicken nuggets, fingers, etc.
Kids love this. Grownups do too. Its really, really good.
*Mac and Cheese Pie*
Serves 6
salt and pepper to taste
30g additional grated cheddar cheese (1/4 cup)
Preheat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6. Buter a 10 inch pie dish or an 8 inch square baking dish, or six custard cups.
Mix the first amount of cheese with the macaroni. Spread out in the prepared baking dish. Combine the milk, tabasco sauce, eggs, baking mix and seasoning until well blended. Pour over the macaroni in the dish.
Bake, uncovered for about 40 minutes. A knife inserted near the centre should come out clean. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese and bake for an additional several minutes until the cheese melts. Let stand for 10 minutes before cuting ito squares or wedges to serve.
This makes the perfect weeknight supper. Your family will love it. Bon appetit!
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 Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
We always said that my mom could make soup out of anything and its true. My mom makes the best soup in the world. Everyone always says I could make a meal out of anything, and that is also true. I am the Queen of Casseroles and best user-upper of leftovers you could ever want to meet. I guarantee that this recipe I am showing you here today will make you the Queen of Casseroles too, and that nothing edible in your kitchen will ever go to waste again!
With this basic Mix and Match Casserole recipe you will never find yourself at a loss as to what to do with your leftover veg, or meat . . . not even your leftover starches will be safe. You will be able to find a use for all of it, guaranteed!
And not only that, but your family will be gobbling up your leftovers pronto because these casseroles are just so delicious. Each casserole is simply a basic combination of protein, vegetable, carbohydrate, sauce, and toppings.
Which can be used in any number of combinations! For instance today, I used some leftover baked ham, leftover cooked potato, swede (rutabaga) and green beans, a bit of chopped celery, onion and frozen sliced mushrooms, half a tin of creamed corn, along with some cracker crumbs and grated cheese on top. Easy peasy and Todd said that it was the most delicious thing he had ever eaten.
And all it was, was . . . . leftovers. bits and bobs of this and that. Not enough of any one thing to do anything major with, but just enough of everything that put all together we had something pretty delicious. In fact I was wishing I had had some leftover turkey to throw in there as well because that would have been pretty tasty.
The combinations are endless. You don't need to use cream soups if you don't want to, you can make a simple white sauce using 1 TBS flour, 1 TBS butter and 1 cup of warm milk (for one cup of sauce) Simply melt the butter, whisk in the flour, cook for a minute and then whisk in the milk, along with some seasoning, and cook until thick. To make a cheese sauce just whisk in some grated cheese and a bit of tabasco. Another easy cream sauce can be made by whisking together 2 eggs (beaten) and 1 cup of milk. No need to cook. Just whisk it all together with some seasoning, and mix into the casserole. It will cook in the oven and make a delicious sauce.
Even mayonnaise works, or leftover gravy (so much the better!) or even half mayonnaise and half sour cream. All work beautifully. You can be your own magician and work the magic with whatever you have that is available for you to use. Like I said, the combinations are endless. Enjoy!
*Basic Mix and Match Casserole*
Serves 2
Select and prepare the ingredients of your choice. Place the protein, starch, and veg in a large bowl and mix together. Mix together the sauce, flavour ingredients and herbs which you are using in another measure. Fold this into the protein mixture and then spread the mixture into the prepared casserole. Sprinkle with the topping.
Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, covered. Uncover and bake for a further 15 minutes, or until bubbling and heated through.
This is very easy to multiply up.
Note: Today I used diced ham, green beans, mushrooms, swede, potato, onions, celery, creamed corn, thyme and parsley. I topped with cheddar and cracker crumbs. It was delicious!
I hope you are getting really excited now at that refrigerator full of leftovers and that the wheels are turning. What will you make? I would love to hear the combinations you come up with! Shoot me a comment below and share with us what you have done.
I can still remember the very first time I tasted French Onion Soup. It was when I had been married for the first time. My husband and I were students at a University back home. We had a pair of friends who were very modern and living together, a very much unheard of thing back in those days in the bible-belt of Canada. (I know I am dating myself here.)
A lighter Green Bean Casserole. This tasty recipe for a green bean casserole from scratch, never fails to please.
I can remember the very first time I tasted Green Bean Casserole. I was 10 years old. We were on our way to Nova Scotia from Manitoba and my parents had decided to go through the states to get there.
My mother's cousin Polly and her family lived (and still do) in Vermont. We spent some time visiting with them and enjoying their hospitality. Supper was served out in their garden at a picnic table and Green Bean Casserole was on the menu. It was love at first bite.
I have to say that no green bean casserole I have ever tasted since has come close to the memory of the taste of that one we enjoyed in the dusk of an early summer evening, sitting at that picnic table outside that old house on top of a Vermont hillside.
I am sure it was the company which made it even more delicious.
This is a lighter version of that. There are no cream soups involved. I make my own sauce.
There is plenty of caramelized fresh onion, which more than makes up for the lack of tinned french fried onions. There is plenty of crunch on top from crushed cracker crumbs . . .
I could sit and eat a whole plate of this and nothing else. It pleases me that much.
It went very well with the Gingersnap Glazed Ham I baked the other day.
It felt good to be eating something a little bit lighter than all of that indulgence of our Christmas feasting.
This is a dish I make every now and again, and everytime I do I ask myself why I don't make it more often.
Probably because it is a dish I reserve for special occasions, choosing in my every day life to eat my vegetables simply steamed . . . were it not so, I daren't think of the size I would be.
In any case its a new year and there is no better way to begin it than with a happy memory and a delicious side dish.
*A Lighter Green Bean Casserole*
Serves 4 - 6
1/2 tsp dried thyme leaves
12 round buttery crackers, crumbled
Bring a pot of lightly salted water to the boil. Blanche the
green beans in the boiling water for 3 minutes. Drain well and set
aside.
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium low heat. Add the chopped onion, reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring frequently, over low heat until the onions begin to caramelize. This will take about 10 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a shallow casserole dish.
Sprinkle the flour over the onions in the saucepan. Cook, stirring for
several minutes. Whisk in the warm chicken broth. Whisk constantly
until thickened. (It will be fairly thick.) Taste and adjust seasoning
with salt and black pepper. Stir in the thyme leaves. Add the green
beans and stir well to coat. Spread in the casserole dish. Crumble the
crackers over top.. Cover tightly with a buttered sheet of foil. (In truth I spritz it with a bit of low fat cooking spray.)
Bake in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes covered. Uncover and
bake for 15 to 20 minutes longer, until the beans are tender and the
sauce is bubbling and the top is golden brown. Remove and keep warm.
Serve warm as a delicious side dish.
Bon Appetit mes amis!! ! Bon Appetit!
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 Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
Follow my blog with Bloglovin
As I was sitting here today trying to decide which recipe I wanted to end the year on, I have had a great time thinking over all of the wonderful things I have cooked over this past year. Of course I could do a rehash of my favourite recipes . . . or even a rehash of YOUR favourite recipes, but that is only showing you what I have already shown you and I didn't want to end the year in this way. Instead I wanted to end the year showing you something fantastically different. Hot Ice Cream Pudding was my choice.
I needed to use up the leftover turkey from Christmas today and so I created a skillet supper with it. I used turkey, but you could use any leftover cooked poultry actually. Its a one pan dish that is not only simple and quick to make but also quite delicious!
Growing up in Canada New Years always meant my mother would be cooking a Ham. We had turkey for Thanksgiving and Christmas and we had Ham for Easter and New Years. I don't know if there is a religious reason for this, or if it is just a family tradition, but it is something I still do. Ham for New Years.
My mother never did anything fancy with it. It would be boiled and then roasted. She usually had a bone in ham, but you never see those over here.
It would be served cold with mustard. We would have mashed potatoes and green beans with it and a special dessert. If we were really lucky it would be a Lemon Meringue Pie.
I don't ever remember her glazing it. Not ever. I do remember seeing photographs of glazed hams in the magazines . . . the fat glistening and cut into diamonds and crusted on the edges with a sweet sugary crust . . . each diamond studded with a clove or a cherry.
They looked so very pretty, and tantalizingly delicious.
This year I bought a boneless cooked ham. Over here uncooked ham is called Gammon and you have to boil it before you can eat it.
However once it is cooked and called a ham it is always edible right out of the pack. I like to heat it through though and glaze it. It just makes something quite simple that little bit more special.
This glaze was absolutely brilliant. Nice and spiced with ginger, both from the gingerale and from the ginger jam, a tiny bit spicy from the Dijon mustard and tabasco, sweet also from the ginger jam and some brown sugar and a smidgen tart from the addition of apple cider vinegar.
Those ingredients get heated together until the ginger jam melts and then all whisked together. I cut diamonds in the ham so that some of the mixture would go down into the ham.
I rolled it in it all over and then I baked it in a moderate oven, basting it every ten to fifteen minutes with the glaze.
Now here is where it gets really special. I crushed gingersnaps for even more ginger flavours and sprinkled them over the top of the ham and basted it again.
Baked for a short time longer it forms a nice gingery crust. I probably basted it two more times before it was done.
The end result was a lovely flavoured ham with a gingery crust and the juices in the roasting dish thickened up from some of the crumbs to make a sauce that was just gorgeous spooned over the warm ham.
All in all this was a real winner! We loved it. Oh, I do love it when an experiment or an idea turns out to be every bit as delicious as I had envisioned it to be! I hope you will give it a go!
*Gingersnap Glazed Ham*
Serves 4 to 6 with leftovers
This
is delicious. Simple to make. The oven does all the work. The
leftovers are delicious sliced and served cold with cheese and pickle.
60ml apple cider vinegar (1/4 cup)
1/2 (454g)jar of ginger preserves (about 1/2 cup)
I really do hope you will try this out. I can promise you, you won't be sorry. If you cannot find the ginger jam, use some orange marmalade with a tsp of ginger powder added. It will be every bit as good. Happy New Year!!
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 Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
This is a deliciously simple cheese cake that I have been making for years that your family will really love. Its as simple as blitzing a few ingredients together and pouring them into a pie dish. Seriously.
You cannot get much easier or tastier than this delicious dessert!
It magically bakes into a delicious dessert that is a LOT less trouble than making a regular cheese cake. I think the original recipe came from a box of baking mix but I make my own baking mix these days and just use that.
You can find that recipe here. It, too, is very easy to make. I always have a plastic container of it in my cupboard. It comes in handy for all sorts.
Once you blend everything and pour it into the pie dish, you simply bake it and then presto chango you end up with a delicious cheesecake that went together in a flash and tastes fabulous!
I love desserts like this. Quick, easy and delicious.
I like to make a sour cream topping for it. This not only tastes nice, but helps to hide the inevitable crack which appears in the centre of the cheesecake. (The sign of a great cheesecake I might add!)
You can also hide it by adding a fruit topping. Cherry Pie filling comes to mind. Very nostalgically retro.
I like to serve it with a simple fruit topping which I create by mixing together some fresh fruit and jam and heating it gently together until the fruit softens. This day I used blueberries, but fresh raspberries or strawberries and jam also work very well.
About 1 cup of fruit with several spoonfuls of jam and a tiny bit of water does the trick. Altogether this is quite, quite delicious! And a real doddle to make!
*Magic Cheesecake*
Serves 6 
Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Butter a 9 inch pie tin really well. Set aside.
Place the milk, vanilla eggs, sugar and baking mix into a blender. Beat on high speed for about 15 seconds. Cut up the cream cheese and drop it in. Blend for about 2 minutes longer on a high speed. Pour into the prepared pie dish.
Place the milk, vanilla eggs, sugar and baking mix into a blender. Beat on high speed for about 15 seconds. Cut up the cream cheese and drop it in. Blend for about 2 minutes longer on a high speed. Pour into the prepared pie dish.
Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until the centre is set. Cool completely.
Mix together the topping ingredients until smooth. Spread on the centre of the cheesecake. Chill to set. Serve cut into wedges with pie filling or your favourite fruit topping.
Mix together the topping ingredients until smooth. Spread on the centre of the cheesecake. Chill to set. Serve cut into wedges with pie filling or your favourite fruit topping.
Easy and delicious can't be beat!
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
Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Social Icons