Big Recipe: Pizza casserole

Easy Pizza Pasta Casserole
20 servings 1 1/4 hrs 20 min prep

2 lbs ground beef or ground venison (about $4 - if I use ground turkey, it's healthier & would be <$2)
1 large onion, chopped (about 30 cents)
1 clove garlic, minced (about 30 cents)
1 teaspoon italian seasoning (negligible)
2 tablespoons olive oil (negligible)
2 (26 ounce) jars spaghetti sauce (about $4)
16 ounces rotini pasta, cooked and drained (about 60 cents)
5 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (20 oz) (about $4)
4 ounces sliced pepperoni (about 80 cents)

1. Brown ground beef, onion, garlic and seasoning in oil.
2. Drain.
3. Stir in pasta, spaghetti sauce and 3 cups cheese.
4. Place mixture in 2 greased 9x13x2 inch baking pans or 4 square pans.
5. Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella.
6. Top with pepperoni. (I'm not crazy about pepperoni. Without the pepperoni, this would be just as good, as a "baked pasta dish")
7. Cover and freeze up to 3 months.

To cook now: Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes, until heated through.
To bake frozen casserole: Thaw in refrigerator overnight and bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes, till hot

The cost of the big casserole was $12 at Aldi. For 20 servings, that comes out to 60 cents a serving- and this is good! It was perfect for what we used the recipe for- cooking it in a big foil turkey-roaster pan and serving it to a large group, but I think it would be even better used as a once-a-month cooking recipe, divided into 4 square pans (the recipe's intended purpose). When I have a chest freezer, with room to store cooked-ahead meals, I definitely plan on including this one.

Hamburger & noodle casserole

This week has been crazy. I was looking for something easy to cook on Monday, and Hamburger Helper came to mind. Yes, I admit, we have a few boxes in the cupboard- and I've been good about not using them for a while. I know that they're full of salt and other flavorings and colorings that I would probably prefer not to be a part of dinner. While discussing this with a friend, she said she was making a from-scratch Tuna Helper that evening- and then I remembered- I had been wanting to find a quick substitute for the dinner-in-a-box. I googled 'hamburger helper scratch' and came up with this recipe, which looked OK (by 'OK' I mean, I had everything on hand.). Shoulda read it more closely. It wasn't exactly a stovetop Hamburger Helper- it was a baked noodle casserole, and I managed to make a mess trying to get it all in a skillet on the stovetop (I was determined!) Anyway, because of my disappointments, I wasn't thrilled with the meal Monday night. My husband, however, had seconds- he liked it a lot! I gave it another shot last night as leftovers (Another problem with the recipe I should have caught- it says it serves 5. I think we got 7 servings out of it. It filled almost to overflowing a 9x13 pan.) Lesson learned.

I modified the recipe to use what I had on hand, so here's what I did:

Hamburger-Noodle Bake

Ingredients

* 1 pound of ground turkey
* 1 can of corn
* 1 bag of egg noodles
* 1.5 C shredded cheddar
* 1 C shredded mozzarella
* Two cans of cream of tomato soup.
* 2 Tbsp garlic, chopped and minced
* dry parsley

- Preheat oven to 350
- Cook your egg noodles according to package. While noodles are cooking, brown the meat with the garlic. Add herbs toward end of cooking.
- Drain your noodles and your meat, combine in a big casserole dish. Stir in the corn, cheese and tomato soup.
- Put in oven and bake for 15 minutes. Top with mozzarella cheese and raise the temperature of the oven to 400. Cook for an additional 10 minutes.

Next time, I might experiment with adding more sauce or more cheese on the top. I will also cut the recipe in half. so this isn't all we're eating for the week!

Lesson learned: Even if it's the end of the day, and I'm in need of a dinner recipe quickly, I need to read through the whole thing! I was lucky that this worked out in the end.

One Local Summer, week 2: Pasta with spicy tomato sauce

Our Fourth-of-July meal was local (local brats, sausages, & sweet corn, grilled at the family party), but I thought that was a cop-out answer, since I posted about local brats last week.
So... I made a really quick trip to the farmers market Saturday and picked up, among other things, locally-made fresh pasta and local tomatoes. I used the tomatoes along with parsley and basil from my garden, and locally-made hot Italian sausage to make a tomato sauce similar to one I made a couple weeks ago. The difference: there was no canned tomatoes, just fresh tomatoes, in the sauce. While this made a great sauce, the hot Italian sausage was less 'watered down' because I had less tomatoes & tomato sauce. This made for a VERY SPICY sauce. I don't usually like spicy things, but, with this, I was glad for the flavor- it worked out. I also had never had fresh pasta before, and it was good as well.

The challenge of making an entirely local meal is new to me, but it has been eye-opening. I've loved having fresh, seasonal vegetables in the house. We've found a butcher shop that has local meat, and are appreciating the quality. I had thought eating locally would be cost-prohibitive, especially because we can't grow much ourselves right now, but it hasn't been. None of our local meals have been elaborate yet, but I know I'm still learning. As I've been told by others, the transition to eating locally is a gradual process, not something all done at once. I'm getting there. I appreciate this summer challenge- it motivates me to keep trying.

Spicy Sausage Tomato Sauce

Last weekend, after visiting the farmers market, we ventured to a popular butcher shop in town, Joe's Butcher Shop. It was very busy at the time, and really felt like a meat market- crowded, people reaching and talking over one another, with lots of high-quality cuts of meat visible behind the glass in the small shop. Next time I go, it will be a weekday. Anyway, we bought some meat to try- one pound of brats and one pound of "hot Italian sausage". We had grilled up both brats and sausage before, and we went home promptly to do that fro lunch. We each had a brat, and my husband wanted to try a sausage as well... they weren't kidding about the "Hot" designation.

Now that I figured out that the sausage was not to be eaten plain, I have 3 more in the freezer that I need to find something to do with. With a few tomatoes about to go bad, I made a decision last night to make spaghetti sauce- and amazingly had everything on hand. In the middle of cooking, I found out we were having a guest for dinner, so it was good there was enough. Here's what I did:

Spicy Sausage Tomato Sauce
1 large hot italian sausage
4 small tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
2 small onions, diced
2 Tbsp minced garlic (I use the canned minced garlic)
2 tsp dried oregano
3 T. chopped fresh parsley (or more)
3 T. chopped fresh basil (or more)
2 Tbsp oil
1/4 C carrots, shredded

Cut sausage casing and brown sausage in a small amount of oil, breaking it up into small pieces. Add fresh & diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, garlic, oregano, onions, and oil. Cook about 5 minutes, add the carrots, parsley & basil & cook 3-4 minutes more.

Serve over pasta. Serves 4.

The sauce was delicious, affirmed by my husband and my guest. The downside: I served it over freezer ravioli that was a bit freezer burned, and that made for a less-pleasant meal. The sauce recipe is definitely a keeper, though.

Macaroni & Cheese for a CROWD

For those rare times when you have a ridiculous number people to feed at large picnics, cookouts, family reunions, company events, or whatever it may be, large-batch recipes can come in handy. Smaller recipes don't always scale well.

This was my dilemma this weekend, when I had to make a serves-50 macaroni for an event. I had a Joy of Cooking recipe for "Macaroni & cheese for a crowd", but when I read it, it only filled 2 9x9 pans and made 16 servings. I was cooking for a different-sized "crowd".

Big-batch macaroni
4 pounds elbow macaroni
7 cups milk
2 pounds colby cheese, shredded (I couldn't find colby, so used colby-jack)
2 pounds sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup flour
2 cups more milk
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 cup seasoned bread crumbs
-Or-
1 small box Ritz crackers, crumbled (I didn't know what a small box was. I used 2 1/2 stacks, if that makes sense. It was plenty.)
and mixed with
1/2 cup melted butter
1 lg. (18"x12"x3") foil roasting pan

Make a roux by melting butter, add flour and stir, then cook over low heat for 2 to 3 minutes while stirring constantly. Set aside to cool.

Cook macaroni according to package directions. (This is not as easy as it sounds. The package directions only accounted for cooking half a package at a time- and I needed to cook 2 packages! I used my two largest pots to boil water & cook the macaroni, and all was well.) Drain and put into foil pan. While macaroni is cooking, heat 7 cups milk, add cheeses and cook over medium heat while stirring to melt cheese. Add salt and white pepper. Add roux and stir constantly until well thickened. (I got distracted and didn't stir this constantly, and the bottom burned. Be warned.) Add this to macaroni and mix well to coat macaroni. (Not easy, again, because the macaroni already just barely fits in the foil pan. Add a little at a time, stir in, add a little more, etc. Otherwise you'll have a mess. I got help with this from my obliging husband.) Pour in remaining 2 cups milk (Again, slowly) and sprinkle with bread crumbs or Ritz crumbs. You may prepare it ahead and bake it later. Bake for about 1/2 to 3/4 hour in 350 degree oven.

Slow Cooker Lasagna

I was having a friend come down to go to church and have dinner with us Saturday night. The complication of this is, church Saturday night isn't out until 7:30, and by the time we get home, it makes for a very late dinner, unless I can have it pre-made or cooking while I'm away. I'm not too keen on leaving the oven on while I'm not home, because I think the apartment-building neighbors would hate me if the place burned down. Previously, I've assembled a casserole beforehand, and cooked it after church, but even that made for a later-than-I'd-prefer dinner. The solution this week? Utilize the crockpot.

This is a record for me- last night's meal made for TWICE in the same week that I used my slow cooker. Crazy. Anyway, I've had a box of lasagna noodles sitting in my "pantry" (I don't really have a pantry) for a while, and been intending to make it, but hadn't had an occasion yet. Well, this was a perfect one. Luckily, I fund a slow cooker lasagna recipe, tweaked it a bit, and gave it a try.

Slow Cooker Lasagna
Ingredients:
1 lb ground turkey (You can use ground beef. We were trying for slightly-healthy.)
1 T chopped garlic
2 mushrooms, chopped
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 container ricotta cheese
2+ C shredded mozzarella
1 box lasagna noodles (mine had 10 noodles)
2/3 C water

Also will need: a slow cooker * Note: Mine is a huge oval. I don't know if everyone's slow cooker will work the same as mine.

Brown meat in a pan with the garlic.

Combine meat, mushrooms, and sauce. Break the noodles in half. Put about half the noodles on the bottom of the crockpot. Layer half the water and half the meat mixture on top of the noodles, followed by a layer of half the ricotta cheese and half the mozzarella cheese*. Repeat layers.

Cook on Low 5 hours. (I didn't have 5 hours. I cooked on High for just over an hour, then on Low for just under 3 hours with great results.)

Serve with garlic bread and a salad. Feeds 6.

* My visiting friend is a bit quirky and has an aversion to melted cheese, so I used significantly less than what I would have otherwise. I would suggest just making a layer of cheese to your liking.

The results of this experiment were exciting- I've had things both burn and be too wet in past crockpot recipes (and have eaten both soupy and rubbery lasagna), so I was worried that either the noodles wouldn't cook and the whole thing would be dry, or that I modified the recipe too much and the whole thing would be a drippy mess- I used about twice the water the original recipe called for. Both these very real possibilities were going to be embarrassing, as I was trying a new recipe to company. I knew my friend was very gracious.

As it turned out, it was perfect. Hooray! We love lasagna, and this was a first-try for me. Hopefully I'll have more excuses to make it in the future! Who will be the next 'company' so I can try it out again? ;-)

Super-easy Chicken Tetrazzini

Tetrazzini is a nice, creamy comfort food around here and, last night, when dinner got started later than usual, it was also a super-quick dinner, and great leftovers to take to lunch today!

I realized after cooking last night that my recipe for this dish is very approximate. It's very forgiving, and I've looked online and found that there's a large variety of recipes. This is definitely one of the simpler ones. What I did:

Ingredients:
- a handful of spaghetti, broken in half then cooked (told you it was approximate!)
- 2 chicken breasts, cooked and cut into bite-size pieces
- 1 can of Cream of Mushroom soup
- 1 scant can-full milk
- shredded cheddar cheese

Heat the oven to 375. Mix spaghetti, chicken, soup and milk. Mix a handful of cheese in as well, and spread in a baking dish. top with a layer of cheese. Bake until cheese is melted but not too brown, and casserole is bubbling, about 25 minutes.

Someday I will be a better chef (or a better food blogger...) and actually write down what I do. And take pictures. As it is, you'll just have to trust me that two of us enjoyed this so much that it got snarfed down over last night's dinner and today's lunch. It really is a nice last-minute, hot dinner.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

It was Sunday night when Josh turned to me and said, "So, what side are we bringing tomorrow?" In the midst of traveling last weekend, I had totally forgotten that we were eating dinner with our bible study group on Monday and we were bringing the side dish. Ack! So, I wracked my brain for what we had in the house, and what would go with dinner- barbecue pork sandwiches, potentially eaten on the patio, if the weather's nice. We were out of potatoes, so no potato salad... what else is a good 'cookout' food? Macaroni and cheese, of course!

I had never made macaroni and cheese from scratch, except in 7th grade home economics class, where I missed the day they made it, so I had to make it at home and bring it in to the teacher. That was my first attempt at a white sauce. I didn't try another one for 10 years.

I found a recipe online and modified it to what I had on hand (and what I thought sounded good!). All in all, this was a good recipe- the topping turned out crunchy like it should, but the macaroni in the casserole didn't dry out, which is a definite fear with this dish.

Here's the recipe:

6 tbsp. butter
6 tbsp. flour
Sprinkle of paprika
Salt and pepper
3 3/4 cups hot milk
4+ cups grated cheddar
1 lb. short macaroni, cooked al dente
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup crushed Ritz crackers

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Melt 6 tbsp. butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, for about 4 minutes (flour mixture must foam as it cooks, or sauce will taste of raw flour). Stir in paprika and season to taste with salt and pepper. Whisk in hot milk, 1/2 cup at a time, and cook, stirring, until sauce thickens. (Joanna's note: The first 1/2 cup I stirred in thickened the mixture to a SOLID. I panicked. Stirring in the rest of the milk makes it liquid again. It has to cook for a while to thicken again.) Take off heat and stir in 2 cups of cheese. Stir until cheese melts.

2. Combine pasta and sauce in a large bowl, and season with salt. Sprinkle 1/4 of the remaining cheese over the bottom of a buttered 8" × 11" baking dish. Place one-third of the pasta in the baking dish, top with a layer of cheese, then repeat, layering pasta and cheese, ending with cheese, making three layers in all.

3. Pour cream over assembled macaroni and cheese. (Joanna's note: This worried me too. It did not look good. The cream just kind of sat on top of the casserole. Don't worry, it turns out alright in the end.) Sprinkle crushed Ritz crackers on the macaroni and cheese. Bake until crust is browned, about 30 minutes. (I turned the oven to Broil the last few minutes to finish browning- but I almost did it too long! You have to watch it!) Allow to rest for 15 minutes before serving.

From Cooking Fun

Comfort food at its best, seriously. My husband had some leftovers for lunch yesterday, and I'm eating the rest today (and looking forward to it!) This probably makes sides for 10, at least, and a meal for 6. We had 7 people eating off of it (and one two-year-old) and had less than a quarter of it left, but that was with most of us going back for generous second helpings!

Check out the rest of Make It From Scratch on Tuesday!

Birthday cake, etc

Originally posted at keeping feet on 3/11/07

Last week, with all the visits with Matts, was quite a whirlwind. Monday we brought garlic bread to the small group dinner. Tuesday we were ambitious with Matt W and made gnocchi. Both Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, I used free apples and made apple pie. Both were eaten too quickly to get a good picture. Saturday I baked a cake for brother-in-law Matt and family, and we celebrated with the crowd.

Potato Gnocchi

Originally from a post at keeping feet on 1/10/2007

On weeknights, normally the goal is to think up a recipe that is easy, fast, and can be thrown together without much work or thinking after a long day at the office. Yesterday afternoon, however, we had nothing planned, so I schemed to try a meal that I hadn't tried to cook before, that was much more involved than the normal evening dinner: gnocchi.

Josh and I had each only eaten gnocchi once before, when Daniel's family came to Indy while he was here for the summer, and they made it from scratch for us. It looked like fun, and I had come across a couple recipes for it on the internet, and thought it would be a fun family activity which would conveniently result in dinner.

While researching recipes, I discovered cooks have very strong opinions regarding gnocchi ingredients. The first opinion is that eggs should not be used. ("Lots of recipes around advocate the use of eggs - that's because they are lazy.") Other food bloggers are equally adamant that salt does not belong in gnocchi ("What absolutely does not come in the gnocchi is salt.") That said, there are only 3 ingredients in gnocchi: potato, flour, and egg or salt (though some call for both). The final product is something like a small dumpling, but it's preparing it that is the fun!

First, I boiled 3 medium potatoes until they were soft all the way through. Many recipes insist on using a potato ricer on the hot potatoes at this point, others say to mash them. I decided to simulate a potato ricer by shredding the potatoes with a cheese grater. To the potatoes, I added 1/4 tsp of salt. The recipe said to add 'up to 2 cups of flour' until the mixture is a firm dough and not sticky. I added probably 1-1/4 cups.

Then comes the fun part. take pieces of dough, roll them out to 1-inch-diameter ropes, cut off 1-inch pieces, and roll the pieces with your thumb on fork tines, to get lines on one side of the gnocchi, an indent on the other. Fun part #2: to cook the gnocchi, we brought salted water to a boil and dropped the pieces into they water. They sink to the bottom. When they start to float, they're done! Josh did this part, and removed them with a slotted spoon. We ate the dish with spaghetti sauce, but there's lots of different sauces and toppings possible. I had the leftovers for lunch today and was pleased yet again. I would have taken pictures, but I was having too much fun making them, and then they were gobbled up to quickly.

Not only are these fun to make and eat, they're a very inexpensive meal: 3 potatoes, a cup or so of flour and some water was all it took. As Josh said, the sauce was the expensive part of the meal.

Italian Sausage Soup

Originally published on 8/25/2006 at keeping feet



This picture is demonstrating the quality of my new phone's camera, since Ashley and Beth expressed an interest in what I thought of the phone. It's great, except I think Josh's camera on his phone is better. For me, though, this is the first camera-phone I've ever had, so I'm loving it.

More importantly, though, this is a picture of my latest cooking attempt, and it was declared by my picky-eater husband as a success! Hooray! I thought it was pretty yummy as well.

When I asked Josh earlier in the day, he wasn't going to be super-hungry for dinner, so just soup or a sandwich sounded good to him. Well, I was going to be hungry, so I decided to compromise and whip up this Italian Sausage Soup for dinner that would be hearty enough for a whole meal.

Italian Sausage Soup

• 1/2 lb mild Italian Sausage


• 3 medium tomatoes peeled & chopped or 1 can tomatoes, chopped with their juices (I had diced tomatoes, so that's what I used.)
• 3 cups chicken broth (Again, I used what I had-- water & chicken bouillon cubes)
• 1 tsp basil
• 1 cup uncooked macaroni
• 1/4 tsp salt
• ~1/2 cup frozen corn kernels (This wasn't in the original recipe, but I thought it sounded good. I'm all about sneaking vegetables into dishes-- we don't eat enough.)



• Brown sausage at the bottom of a large saucepan.
• Add tomatoes, broth, and basil.
• Bring to a boil.
• Stir in macaroni & let simmer for about 10 minutes, until the macaroni is tender. Add the corn 3-5 minutes before the macaroni is done.
• Add salt and serve

The recipe said it served about 4 (I'd say about 3, unless you were having bread & salad with it), and that it could be refrigerated for a couple days or frozen, so we've got about 1/3 of the soup left in our freezer for a side dish later.

Tonight is our 3rd Social Friday in a row-- we're going bowling with our small group. It shall be fun, for they are a fun group of people.