Time for another inauthentic recipe! This one made use of the copious amount of white rice we had leftover from the last time we ordered Chinese take-out. Normally I'd use it to make rice pudding, but we didn't have anything for dinner. Desperate times call for desperate measure. What we ended up with was a surprisingly tasty and filling meal that was super easy to make. It works as a side or main, and is easily made vegetarian by leaving out the ground beef!
Mexican Style Rice Casserole
Ingredients
4 cups cooked white rice
1 can (14.5 ounces) tomato soup
1 can tomatoes with jalapeno (10 ounces)
3/4 can (about 1-1/2 cups) corn
3/4 cup sour cream
1 pound ground beef, browned and drained
1 packet Sazon seasoning
1 teaspoon dried cilantro
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
more cheese, dammit.
Directions
Preheat oven to 375F (191C, Gas Mark 5)
In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients except the extra cheese.
In a 9x13" greased baking dish dump in everything from the bowl and spread evenly.
Top with as much extra cheese as you can possibly tolerate.
Cook for 30-40 minutes or until top is starting to bubble.
I can't believe that we're still cooking meals this far into the stay at home order. I figure at some point we would have devolved into an endless parade of frozen pizzas, ramen, and mac & cheese. And yet here we are! We're even modifying book recipes! Go us! This particular recipe originally called for lasagna noodles, which we thought was dumb. Also, we didn't have enough lasagna noodles and I didn't feel like making them from scratch. We swapped in and out a bunch of ingredients. If you don't have sofrito laying about, or can't make it from scratch, just use a pack of taco seasoning or some chili powder. Go wild. It's all gonna be poop in the end. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this. It had a lot of flavor and was very filling. It's currently sitting in my stomach like a brick. Mocking me. TWAS HUBRIS THAT BROUGHT ME HERE. Sorry, I'll go.
Mexican Style Lasagna
Ingredients
1 pound ground beef
1 16oz. can refried beans
1/4 cup sofrito
1 tablespoon dried, minced onion
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon oregano
12 corn tortillas (6" diameter)
1 16oz. jar of your favorite salsa
16 ounces sour cream
3 ounces (about half a can) of black olives, sliced
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Directions
Preheat oven to 350F (177C, Gasmark 4)
In a skillet, brown ground beef.
Drain the beef and add the minced onion, cumin, garlic powder, oregano, and sofrito. Cook another 3-4 minutes.
Add the refried beans to the meat and mix until completely incorporated.
Grease a 9"x13" baking dish. Add a layer of 6 corn tortillas. (We discovered if you cut the tortillas in half, you can put the flat edges against the edges of the pan and make a uniform layer.)
Take half the meat mixture and spread it evenly over the layer of tortillas
Add another layer of tortillas and top it with the rest of the meat mixture.
Top with the salsa and cook at 350F for 35 minutes.
Take out of oven and add a layer of sour cream. Then top with cheese and olives.
Summer is in full swing and I am still somehow making time to cook! I figure everybody has a recipe like this in their repertoire in one form or another. It's basically Hamburger Helper, but I don't need any help from some freakish sentient glove.
There's a little nightmare fuel for you.
Anyway, this recipe is super easy and is perfect for a quick midweek meal. It makes a lot, but maybe it just felt that way since there's only three of us and The Spud would prefer to live on Cocoa Pebbles cereal and powdered donuts, if that's at all convenient. As always, notes are in blue.
Cheeseburger Mac Casserole
Ingredients
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. macaroni
1/2 onion, chopped
1 can 14.5 ounces diced tomatoes, drained
1 can 7 ounces sliced mushrooms, drained (or you can use about a half pound of fresh, whatever floats your boat)
1 can 10.5 ounces cheddar cheese soup
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1-2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 cup shredded pepperjack cheese (if you don't like pepperjack, cheddar would work great)
Directions
Preheat oven to 375F (190C, Gasmark 5)
In a pan heat the oil. Add the ground beef, mushroom, and onion. Cook until meat is browned. Drain any excess oil.
Cook macaroni according to directions. Stop a minute or so early since this is going into the oven eventually and will keep cooking.
In a large bowl or pot, combine the macaroni, meat mixture, garlic powder, Worcestershire, tomatoes, and cheese soup. Mix well to incorporate.
Spread mixture into a greased 9x13" baking dish. Top with shredded cheese.
Cook in oven for about 20 minutes or until cheese on top is bubbly and starting to brown in spots.
BONUS: enjoy a video of this exact recipe via the Tubez!
Did you ever have an ingredient sitting around the house that you never seem to use? Something that sits in the cabinet mocking you. Something that makes you wonder what you were drinking that day? My ingredient is a jar of Tamicon Tamarind Paste. I bought it thinking it was Tamari. I finally decided I'd use it in a riff on the classic Sloppy Joe. The end result was surprisingly good. It was was sweet, savory and spicy, but not too much of any one of those. I have to think the tamarind isn't going to be a taste that everybody is going to love, but it's totally worth the try for something different. If you try it, let me know if you like it. If you don't, you probably did something wrong. As always, notes are in blue.
Tammy Joes
Ingredients
1 pound ground beef
1 can (10.75 ounce) tomato soup
1 bag (14 ounces) mixed frozen onions, green and red peppers, defrosted (if you don't have access to the frozen, use chop one onion, one green and one red bell peppers)
1-1/2 tablespoons tamarind concentrate (panipuri paste) (you're not likely to have this laying around the house. I got mine from a local Indian grocer. Amazon carries the brand I use)
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Directions
In a pan, brown the ground beef. Drain the excess oil. Put in a slow cooker.
Sautee the vegetables in the pan you used for the ground beef. Add them to the slow cooker. (if you're feeling lazy, you can just throw them directly in the cooker without the sautee)
Add all the remaining ingredients and stir to incorporate.
Cook on LOW for 3-4 hours.
Serve on a bun, with nachos, or over egg noodles or rice.
Sometimes it's fun to try to use up surplus food supplies. You know what I'm talking about. There's always some random can of something or other that's been lurking in the cabinet for six or seven years. You should just throw it away, but it's probably still safe to eat. You weren't raised to waste food or throw away money. Unless the can is inflated like a football.
You may be throwing 90 cents in the trash, but you're saving about $35,000 in hospital bills.
The can that had been lurking in our cabinet was an off-brand can of sauerkraut. The can was not inflated, and the contents didn't smell poisonous, so I decided to use them in a casserole. If you don't like sauerkraut, you could probably substitute a can of greens or even beans. I'm not going to tell you this was a culinary masterpiece. However, it was moderately tasty and filling. It wound up being used for my lunches for over a week. So why do I call it Clear the Kitchen Casserole? Is it because it clears the kitchen of surplus ingredients? Maybe. Is it because after a plate of this you'll clear the kitchen. And the rest of the house. Boom! As always, notes are in blue.
Clear the Kitchen Casserole
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1-1/2 pound ground beef
1 can (14 ounce) sauerkraut, drained
1 can (14 ounce) diced tomatoes, drained
1 can (10.5 ounce) cream of mushroom soup
1 can (8 ounce) tomato sauce
1 medium onion, chopped
12 banana peppers, sliced and seeded (or use two bell peppers if you don't like banana peppers)
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, chopped (or 1 4 ounce small can of mushrooms, drained and chopped)
2 teaspoons garlic powder
4 ounces (1 cup) shredded cheddar cheese
1 pound elbow macaroni
Directions
In a large pan, heat oil. Add beef, onions, peppers and mushrooms. Brown meat. Once meat is browned and the veggies tender, take off the heat and drain excess oil.
Cook the pasta to al dente. Drain off the water and return the pasta to the pot. Dump the meat mixture in there with it.
Unceremoniously dump all the remaining ingredients in the pot and stir until everything is incorporated. Enjoy the horrifying wet noises it makes while you stir it.
Find a large Pyrex casserole dish. Spray it with non-stick cooking spray. Dump the contents of the pot into the dish. Spread it all to an even layer.
Chuck it an oven preheated to 375F (190C, Gasmark 5). Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until casserole is starting to bubble and the top is getting crispy.
I love my close, personal friend, Rachael Ray to death. However, her cutesy language has got to stop. Like this particular recipe. She calls it a stoup. Stoup? What sort of shit is that? Is it soup or stew? It's really thick soup? Then it's a damned stew. Get over it. Just stop this sort of nonsense. Look, it's a bowl full of cabbage and beef. When you're sitting on the toilet howling in despair, you're not going to be coming up with cutesy names for what's going on in that bowl. No stoups there, my friend. With that out of the way, I'm calling this soup. It's a good, hearty soup. You will enjoy it. That is an order. As always, notes and changes are in blue.
1-1/2 pounds ground meat loaf mix (a combination of beef, pork and veal) (veal? Sorry, I was getting the mahogany trim in my Lear jet varnished and didn't have the opportunity to pick any up. I guess we'll just have to go with all 73/27 ground beef. Just remember to drain it!)
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 tablespoon ground coriander (screwed up and only used 1/2 teaspoon. No harm done)
2 teaspoons smoked sweet paprika (I loves me some smoked paprika. I used about a tablespoon)
salt and pepper (why do people insist on adding salt to dishes that use canned goods? There's plenty salt going on right there. I did use a few grinds of fresh black pepper)
1 bay leaf (by now you should know my stance on bay leaves)
1 onion, chopped (We went with a sweet onion)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 carrot, thinly sliced with a vegetable peeler into strips, then finely chopped (I think they meant "grated." That's what it sounded like to me, so that's what I did. I'm not a real chef. I can't be bothered with frippery like that)
1 pound Savoy cabbage, thinly sliced (I just used regular old green cabbage from my garden, because that's the sort of shit we rustic types do. Just pluck a bastard from the garden and chuck it on a plate)
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes (I used two 14.5 ounce cans. Didn't drain the liquid either)
Heat a deep pot over medium-high heat. Add olive oil and meat. Brown the meat (draining grease if necessary. It was for me because I used cheap-ass meat. Ask for it by name)
You can never go wrong with quality "miscellaneous service meat"
Season the meat with the allspice, coriander, smoked paprika, salt (if you're a fan of high blood pressure) and pepper. Then add the onion, carrots, garlic and bay leaf. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until vegetables begin to soften, then add the cabbage to wilt slightly. Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce and stock and bring to a boil.
Add rice and reduce to heat to a simmer. Cook for 16-18 minutes until the rice is just tender. Stir in the parsley and dill (if using). Discard the bay leaf (see? Even Rachael Ray knows bay leaves=DEATH).
It's always nice to find simple recipes in cooking magazines. Half the time they require ridiculous ingredients with insane direction. "Lightly lambaste a pre-pubescent hedgehog for 16 hours before braising another 12 hours in a reduction of leprechaun tears and the sweat of an owlbear." I hate that sort of shit. Give me a nice simple recipe involving simple ingredients. If I can bang it out in under 30 minutes, that's even better. This is one of those recipes. This came together in about 20 minutes and was plenty tasty. I like that options for the harder to find ingredients were provided. Naturally, I took liberties with the recipe. The end result was plenty tasty and very filling. We'll call it a winner and add it to the rotation. As always, notes and changes are in blue.
1/2 lb. ground beef chuck (85% lean) (That didn't happen. I went with about a pound and a quarter of 73/27 ground beef)
1/2 pound ground pork (omitted. I figure I'd go straight beef for this)
Kosher salt (I try to limit salt intake, so I omitted it)
2 Tbsp. chile bean sauce, preferably tobojan dijan(Nope. I did have black bean garlic sauce, which I used instead)
2 Tbsp. homemade sriracha. Use store bought if you prefer.
2 Tbsp. hoisin sauce or tenmenjan (soybean paste) (We had the hoisin on hand so that's what we used.)
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
One 14-ounce package soft tofu, drained and finely diced
1-1/2 tsp. cornstarch
1/2 cup water
3 scallions, finely chopped
white rice for serving
Directions
Heat a large pan until hot (if you can heat it until it's cold, you've done something wrong). Add the oil, followed by the beef and pork (since the beef was a touch fatty, I just omitted the oil). Season with salt and cook over high heat, stirring and breaking up the meat until crumbly and lightly browned, about 3 minutes (if you used higher fat meat like we did, remember to drain the grease)
Stir in the chile-bean sauce, hoisin and soy sauce (and the sriracha, if you're using it) and cook, stirring for 3 minutes; gently fold in the tofu.
In a small bowl, whisk the cornstarch into the water. Add to the pan and simmer until the sauce thickens, about 2 minutes.
I'm pretty sure most people have some sort of variant of a "Kitchen Sink Recipe." There's just something fun about grabbing all sorts of stuff you need to get rid of and putting it together in a meal. Maybe you end up with soup or stew. We ended up with a casserole. I have no idea what compelled me to make a "crust" with mashed potatoes. I just needed to use them because they had all sprouted and were approaching sentience. Surprisingly, this wound up being an extremely tasty meal. I feel it benefited from a tableside dousing of hot sauce, but it was pretty flavorful as is. The fun of this is that you could swap in or out just about anything. Go crazy. Take out the green beans and add Jolly Ranchers. I'm not here to judge. Actually, I'm totally judging, but quietly. Behind your back. I never said I was a nice person. All right. I may have said it, but I lied. As always, notes are in blue.
Kitchen Sink Casserole
Ingredients
6 potatoes (peel them or don't. I like the peel. At the very least, wash them.)
1/2 pound yellow or green beans
1 medium onion, chopped
4 ounces mushrooms, chopped
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1" squares
1 yellow bell pepper, cut into 1" squares
1 can (about 10.5 ounces) cream of mushroom soup
1-1/4 pound ground beef
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup white wine
1 tube biscuit dough (at least 7.5 ounces if you want it to completely cover the casserole)
2 tablespoons butter
another 2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons Milwaukee Avenue Steak Seasoning(available at The Spice House. If you don't want to buy it, it contains: salt, hickory smoke powder, Hungarian sweet paprika, garlic, Tellicherry black pepper, cardamom and marjoram.)
Directions
Cut potatoes into large cubes and boil in salted water until fork tender (the potato, not the water. The water is already fork tender.) Remove the potatoes from the water and mash with the butter.
Take a 9"x13" baking dish and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Spread the mashed potatoes in an even layer across the bottom.
Blinding speed is the key to good potato spreading.
In a pan, heat the olive oil and add the ground beef, mushroom and onion. Cook until meat is browned. Drain all but a bit of the oil and move the meat to a bowl. With the heat still on the pan, add the wine and scrape up all the brown bits in the pan. Boil off about half of the liquid. Add the peppers and beans. Simmer for about 5 minutes.
These fresh vegetables will balance out the 9 Guinness Stouts I'm going to have with dinner.
Add the contents of the pan to the bowl of meat and onion. Add the cream of mushroom soup and seasonings. Stir it all up and spread it evenly over the mashed potatoes.
Have someone brave pop the tube of dough (I will freely admit that I am a grown man, but I am scared shitless of opening a tube of biscuit dough. It never pops when you'd expect it and I jump out of my skin every time. I just hand the tube to The Wife and leave the kitchen until it's all over). Flatten out the biscuits as much as possible. Wad it up and roll it out in a big sheet if you'd like. The plan is to lay that sheet of dough over the top of the casserole.
Spread the other 2 tablespoons of butter over the biscuits. Put the casserole in an oven at 375F (190C, Gasmark 5) for about 20 minutes, or until the biscuit dough is golden brown.
Cut yourself a big old hunk and slather that bastard with hot sauce. Now get to work.
UPDATE: Ruthie passed away in 2021 at the ripe old age of 100. A firecracker to the end, her recipes and delight in feeding people live on.
You have to love my Great Aunt Ruthie. A child of The Depression, Ruthie is now a spry 93. I'm not even kidding. At 93, she's complaining that the cancer medication she's been taking for a year has now started making her hair fall out. She's been through like five pacemakers. She still has all her teeth. She's sharp as a tack. She also makes a wicked cabbage soup. Unfortunately, like most of my family, she doesn't commit recipes to paper. They're all locked up in her noggin. When I called her for the recipe, she gave me exactly what I expected: a fairly nebulous list of ingredients with no real amounts specified. Her soup was something to behold. It incorporated a whole pot roast and country ribs. I didn't have some of her ingredients on hand. I took what I did have and ran with her fantastic base recipe. I ended up with a soup that is a fine tribute. I can certainly taste her soup in there, but with new flavors along side. I think it's fitting that two different generations of cooking would combine to make something new, but still honoring the old ways. Maybe it's just cabbage soup. Maybe it's a family timeline that gives you gas. As always, any notes will be in blue.
Cabbage Soup
Inspired by my Great Aunt Ruthie
Ingredients
14 ounce bag cole slaw mix (feel free to shred cabbage and carrots to make about a pound if you prefer fresh)
1/2 cup cider vinegar
2 ounces vodka
1 cup corn relish (if you don't have corn relish on hand, just use a cup of frozen corn topped off with some cider vinegar)
If you're feeling lazy, you can replace the previous 4 items with one pound of prepackaged sauerkraut
1 onion, cut into 1" slices
1 medium sized green cabbage, sliced thin
4 potatoes, cut into 1/2" cubes
1 can (10.75 ounce) tomato soup
1 can (10.75 ounce) stewed tomatoes, with liquid
1-1/2 pound ground beef
1 large pork neck bone
1 tablespoon Old World Central Street Seasoning (available at The Spice House)
If you can't get the spice blend, it has a mix of the following: paprika, salt, celery seed, garlic, sugar, pepper, onion, dill seed, curry powder, caraway, scallions, dill weed and bay leaf
2 teaspoons fresh grated ginger
43 ounces water (just fill and empty the soup can into the pot 4 times)
Directions
In a large bowl, combine the cole slaw mix, vinegar, corn relish and vodka. Stir and let sit for 30 minutes.
In a large pan, heat up a bit of oil, brown the neck bone 3-5 minutes on each side. Set aside. Brown the ground beef, draining excess oil. When meat is browned, put it in the biggest damned Dutch oven or pot you can find.
Add everything else except the the green cabbage. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer. Cover and let simmer for one hour.
Add the cabbage and stir to incorporate. Return to simmer; cover and let simmer for another hour.
Sometimes it's not about how a recipe looks. I know many of the food bloggers out there cringe at my photography. Most people know by now I don't find it that important. I want the food to taste good, not be photogenic. That leads me to this recipe I came up with. If you don't put sauce on the top, it looks like fake vomit. If you put the sauce on top, it looks like fake vomit with red sauce. I'd like it noted I took the high ground here and did not post a picture of fake vomit for comparison. Enough talk about vomit, let us talk of this fine casserole. I attempted to combine the flavors of a meatball sub into a casserole. I think I got pretty close. The combination of beef and red sauce come together well with the herbed stuffing mix. It's not spot on, but very reminiscent of a meatball sub. Granted, this hasn't really been a ringing endorsement. This is a tasty casserole and we wound up gladly eating all of it. As always, notes are in blue.
Meatball Sub Casserole
Ingredients
1-1/2 pounds ground beef (I used 80-20%)
1 6-ounce box herbed stuffing mix
1 can (10.75 ounce) tomato soup (use two cans if you want a more squishy casserole)
8 ounces shredded Mozzarella cheese
2 red bell peppers, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
1 pint red sauce of your choice (I just whipped up a simple one with tomato sauce, garlic, basil and oregano. Use a jar or can of sauce if you're feeling lazy)
Directions
Combine ground beef, onions and peppers. Cook in a skillet until beef is browned. Drain grease (Unless you're a huge fan of lots of grease and a super soggy casserole, then by all means, leave it in)
In a large bowl, combine meat, onion and peppers with stuffing mix and the tomato soup. Mix thoroughly. Transfer to a 13"x9" baking dish coated with cooking spray. Spread it into an even layer. Pour red sauce over the top.
As I've mentioned before, The Wife loves her soup. It doesn't really matter what time of year or what the weather. She will almost never say no to a bowl of soup. I'm pretty sure it's due to some previous psychological trauma, but there's not much to be done for it now but give her soup. I'd hate to be responsible for causing a psychotic break. Anyway, she found this recipe in one of our cookbooks and made it herself. If was a good, hearty soup with a nice savory flavor. Next time I would use diced tomatoes instead of stewed. I'm not a big fan of enormous wads of tomato floating in my soup. As always, changes and notes are in blue.
