Spicy Chicken and Stuffing Casserole

There is no denying the perfect combination of poultry and stuffing.  Ok, technically dressing since it is outside the bird. Whatever. The bottom line is I have combined the two into a casserole. Is this an original idea? LOL, no. However, the combo of flavors is original. It is tangy and spicy and is worth a try. 

That said, not all of you are going to have the Scott's Smoked Q sauces and rubs on hand. That's unfortunate, but should not prevent you from trying this dish. It just won't taste the way it does for me. Again, unfortunate, but the world is an imperfect place. I have listed substitutions where appropriate. This recipe also uses beer (Old Style to be specific). If you can't or don't do alcohol, again, no biggie. Again, I give substitutes. Look, in the end, do what you want with it. Throw Fruity Pebbles in there. Crumble in some Takis. Go wild. Life is too short to not screw around a little. As always, notes are in blue.  

*Disclosure. The people at Scott's Smoked Q sent me a great big box of goodies to play with and I am having a great time. If you follow any links here and follow them and subsequently purchase any of their fine wares, I receive a small commission. You also get 10% off  if you use code TFMCK.

Ingredients 

• 1 box (10 Oz.) Cornbread stuffing mix
• 1 can (18.5 Oz.) Old El Paso Chipotle Corn Chowder (if you can't find this, use a can of cream of chicken soup and a half can of creamed corn)
• 1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 cup yellow squash,  diced
• 1 cup zucchini,  diced
• 1 cup shredded taco cheese
• 1/4 cup Scott's Smoked Q Carolina Gold (if you can't get it, use a spicy mustard)
• 2 cups cooked, store bought rotisserie chicken, chopped
• 8 Oz. Beer (feel free to sub with chicken stock or water)
• 1/2 cup shredded Monterrey Jack cheese 
• 2 teaspoons  Scott's Smoked Q AP Rub (If you can't get it, sub in a spicy blend like Slap Ya Mama or something along those lines.)

Directions 

1. Preheat oven to 375F (190C, Gas Mark 5)
2. Grease a 9"x13" baking pan
3. In a large bowl, mix everything but the Monterrey Jack cheese.
4. Pour into the pan. Bake uncovered for 60-70 minutes. It may be pretty moist when it comes out. If so, put it back in for 15 minute increments until it is a consistency you like. 
5. Remove from oven and top with remaining cheese.  Return to oven for another 10 minutes or until the cheese is good and melted. 
6. Take it out and let it rest for 5-10 minutes, because it will be molten.

Good Times!

Taco Hotdish

 Ah, the hot dish. A Midwest tradition. Well, specifically an Upper Midwest tradition, but a tradition nonetheless.  The concept is simple, it's basically a tater-tot based casserole. You get a baking dish, put in a layer of meat mixed with cream soup and possibly some vegetables, and layer tater tots over the top. Pop it in the oven and *POOF* comfort food. There's really no limit to the variations of a hotdish, which is why I ended up making a taco version. I used Dos Rios heat and eat taco meat, but you're under no obligation. Shockingly, my 5 year old daughter would NOT eat this. She loves tacos, but is morally opposed to tater tots. I'm not sure where that defect came from. My attempt to serve it to her ended up in an absolute scorcher of a tantrum. The Wife, though, declared it a success and gleefully went back for seconds. Give it a spin and see if it causes any tantrums in your home! As always, notes are in blue.

Taco Hotdish

Ingredients

• 1 pound chub of Dos Rios Chile Verde taco meat (if you can't find it or don't want to use it, just use a pound of cooked ground beef with your taco seasoning of choice)
• 1 16-ounce jar of salsa
• 1 10.5-ounce can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 16-ounce can of refried beans
• Nacho chips, broken into small pieces
• 1 bag of frozen tater tots  (you probably won't use them all, but better safe than sorry. Just make the leftover tots for a snack or something)
• Shredded cheddar cheese (I intentionally did not put an amount because there is only one wrong amount of cheese to use and that is "not enough." You're just going to need enough shredded cheese to cover everything. EVERYTHING.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F (177C, GasMark4)
2. Spray a 9x13" baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
3. Warm up the refried beans to make them easier to spread, and spread them in an even layer along the bottom of the baking dish
4. Distribute enough nacho chips into the baking dish to cover the layer of beans.
5. In a large bowl, combine meat, soup and 1 cup of the salsa. Mix to incorporate ingredient, then spread in a layer on top of this chips.
6. Place an even layer of tots over the meat. Just lay them in neat, even rows so they cover everything.
7. Spread remaining salsa over the tots.
8. Cover the top with an absolute shit-ton of shredded cheese. Go wild. Use a whole brick. I won't tell anyone. 
9. Put in oven for about 30-35 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Good times!

The Wife's Eggplant Parmigiana and Meatball Casserole

Note: the following post is from The Wife

This past summer, our garden yielded more eggplant than we could reasonably expect to eat.  Apparently, my coworker was having the same problem, and she started bringing in eggplant for me.  I have a hard time turning down free produce – even when I already have an overabundance of it.  Week after week, I made my recipe for Eggplant Parmigiana (omitting step 9) and then bagged and froze it.  The deep freeze was jam-packed.  The same coworker’s husband had a stroke early in the school year, and the staff put together a meal train to assist them.  I figured it was only fitting to return some of the eggplant from whence it came, so I threw this recipe together as my contribution to the meal train.    

The Wife's Eggplant Parmigiana Casserole

Ingredients

• 3 freezer bags (quart size) of pre-made eggplant parmigiana (Vague, I know.  One layer of the casserole uses approximately 12 average-size eggplant slices.  If you were making the eggplant parmigiana on the same day, I would guess you would need 3 medium eggplants.)

• 48 oz. pasta sauce (The first time, I used The Husband’s pasta sauce because we had it on hand.  When I made this recipe for a staff lunch, I purchased Prego’s Italian Sausage and Garlic sauce.)

• 1 bag (18 count) frozen meatballs (whatever style you prefer)

• Grated Parmesan cheese

• 8 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions

1.  Add frozen meatballs to pasta sauce and heat through.  Once meatballs are cooked, halve them.  (I suppose you could also halve them while they are still frozen – whatever works.)

2.  Preheat oven to 375F (190C, Gasmark 5)

.

3.  In a standard 9 x 13 casserole dish, lay your first layer of pre-made eggplant parmigiana.

4.  Place a dozen meatball halves at regular intervals across the first layer.

5.  Spoon pasta sauce over the first layer; spread so all eggplant slices are completely covered.

6.  Lightly sprinkle with grated Parmesan.

7.  Cover with 1/3 of shredded mozzarella.

8.  Repeat steps 3-7 twice more.

It should look something like this before going into the oven

9. Bake for 25 minutes until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbling.

10. Let rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Good times!

Desperation Casserole

Desperate times call for desperate measures. We were running out of space in our freezer and needed to use up some surplus to make room for all the produce we were vacuum bagging and freezing out of our garden. I'm sure there's plenty of flexibility with this recipe. You can easily swap just about any meat in for the sausages, or leave the meat out and add zucchini or eggplant and make it vegetarian. We considered adding cheese to this, but just couldn't think of any that would work so we just left it alone. The verdict from The Wife: "this is better than it has any right to be." If that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is.

Desperation Casserole

Ingredients

• 1 package Johnsonville Irish O'Garlic sausages (or probably any sausage you prefer)
• 1 lb frozen cubed hash brown potatoes
• 8 ounces kale (washed and dried)
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon dried minced onion
• 2 teaspoons Slap Ya' Mama seasoning (or use salt, black pepper, and cayenne)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375F (191C, Gas Mark 5)
2. Cut sausages into 1" pieces. Cook in a pan until browned.
3. In a large bowl, tear up the kale into small pieces. Add the sausage (and grease) to the bowl. Give a quick toss to get the kale to start to wilt.
4. Add all the remaining ingredients and toss. 
5. Put in a greased Pyrex. Put in oven for 30 minutes or until potatoes start to get crisp at the edges.

Good Times!

Cheeseburger Mac Casserole

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

1. Preheat oven to 375F (190C, Gasmark 5)
2. In a pan heat the oil. Add the ground beef, mushroom, and onion. Cook until meat is browned. Drain any excess oil.
3. Cook macaroni according to directions. Stop a minute or so early since this is going into the oven eventually and will keep cooking.
4. In a large bowl or pot, combine the macaroni, meat mixture, garlic powder, Worcestershire, tomatoes, and cheese soup. Mix well to incorporate.
5. Spread mixture into a greased 9x13" baking dish. Top with shredded cheese.
6. 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!

Good times!

Clear the Kitchen Casserole

     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

1. 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.
2. 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. 
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.

Slow Cooker Loaded Baked Potato Casserole

Once again we turn to the trusty slow cooker to burn through surplus ingredients. We had plenty of potatoes and green onions on hand. We also had some sour cream getting ready to go off. We didn't have any bacon, but we did have bacon bits. They worked, but game the dish a queasy pink hue. In the end, it worked. It had all the flavors you'd expect from a loaded baked potato. Would it have been easier to just pop a couple spuds in the oven and then put on the toppings? Yes. Yes it would. There's a lesson to be learned here, but I'll be damned if I know what it is. As always, notes are in blue.

Slow Cooker Loaded Baked Potato Casserole

Ingredients

• 2 pounds potatoes, washed and cut into 1/2" cubes
• 2 scallions, chopped
• 3 tablespoons bacon bits (if you're not down with bacon bits, feel free to use real bacon. You'll likely need about 1/2 pound, cooked until crisp and then crumbled into the mixture.)
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 pound sour cream
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and dump unceremoniously into a slow cooker that has been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Cook on LOW for about 5 hours (cooking time may vary. At five hours, give it a taste. You'll know right away if the potatoes aren't done)

Good times!

Kitchen Sink Casserole

     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

1. 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. 
2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.
5. 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. 
6. 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.
7. Cut yourself a big old hunk and slather that bastard with hot sauce. Now get to work. 

Good times!

Meatball Sub Casserole

     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

1. 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)
2. 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. 
3. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes. 

That's not fake vomit, that's Good Times!

UPDATE: Here's the video for this recipe!

Tuna Casserole from The Wife

This recipe is a guest post from my lovely wife. It is one of my favorites. I turn things over to her.

     I don’t do much cooking in my house. It’s just easier to let my husband cook and tell him how good it is. However, there are a few dishes he occasionally asks me to make. A few nights ago, he had to stay late at work, so he requested I throw together a tuna casserole for dinner. I guess his incessant cooking has inspired me, because I decided my usual version needed some tweaking. Notes are in blue:

Tuna Casserolevia The Wife

Ingredients

• 1-16oz. bag of egg noodles (This was my first tweak. I’ve always used macaroni for my tuna casseroles, but there was a bag of egg noodles in the cabinet – and they were calling to me.)
• 2-5oz. cans of tuna in water (Use more if you like a lot of tuna. This seemed to be the right amount for our tastes.)
• 1-10.5oz can of cream of mushroom soup (Of course…)
• 1 cup (4oz) shredded cheddar cheese
• 2/3 cup of peas (Husband’s request)
• 1 small red pepper – chopped
• 1 small yellow pepper – chopped (We had an overabundance of peppers, and not being a big fan of peas, I decided peppers would both add color and lessen the pea flavor.)
• 1 cup crushed potato chips
• Lake Shore Drive Seasoning to taste (from The Spice House)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cook noodles according to package directions.
3. Drain egg noodles and return to pot. Add tuna, cream of mushroom soup, and cheese, and stir until incorporated. (In my original version, the shredded cheese was sprinkled over the top of the casserole.)
4. Mix in peas and red and yellow pepper.
5. Add Lake Shore Drive Seasoning to taste
6. Pour mixture into greased Pyrex and top with crushed potato chips. (This may surprise some of you, but I had never made a tuna casserole with potato chips before. The inspiration came from a story my mother likes to tell. My grandmother would always make her children their favorite meals on their birthdays. My Uncle Steve’s favorite meal was tuna casserole with crushed potato chips on top. My mother hated it.)
7. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until potato chips start to brown.

Good times!

Cheesy Broccoli Cauliflower Casserole

     As often as I repost recipes from Taste of Home Everyday Light Meals, I figure I'm eventually going to get a lucrative endorsement deal. Or a cease and desist order from their lawyers. Either way, until I hear otherwise, I'm going to keep sharing recipes I've used and abused from this book. This is everything you'd want from a casserole: veggies, meat and cheese with a nice crust. We absolutely destroyed this the night we served it. The wife, myself and a guest ate about 2/3 of this before falling asleep at the table. As always, changes and notes are in blue.

Cheesy Broccoli Cauliflower Bake
via Taste of Home Everyday Light Meals

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 4-1/2 tablespoons flour
• 1-1/4 cup 1% milk (we used 2%)
• 3/4 cup shredded reduced-fat cheddar cheese
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 package (10 ounces) frozen broccoli florets, thawed (we used fresh from the garden, we steamed the broccoli before adding it to the recipe)
• 1 package (10 ounces) frozen cauliflowerets, thawed (the cauliflower in our garden wasn't ready to harvest yet so we used a bag of frozen mixed Italian veggies. It had cauliflower, lima beans, carrots, etc)
• 1 cup cubed fully cooked lean ham (had some Honey-Baked Ham in the freezer. Score!)
• Butter-flavored nonstick cooking spray (just used regular canola oil non-stick cooking spray)

Directions

1. In a saucepan, melt butter. Stir in flour until smooth; gradually add the milk. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat. Add cheeses and stir until melted. 
2. Place vegetables in a 2 quart baking dish coated with non-stick cooking spray. Sprinkle with ham. Pour sauce over ham.

   

   Just before the sauce goes on. Looking good so far!

3. Place bread crumbs in a bowl; spray with butter flavored cooking spray (or just regular cooking spray. It's just a casserole; no need to get overly fancy) Sprinkle crumbs around edge of casserole.
4. Bake, uncovered, at 350F for 25-30 minutes or until heated through and bubbly (we let it go for 40 minutes so it was good and molten when we got it out. That skin on the roof of your mouth will eventually grow back, right?)

Good times!

Monday Recipe: Chicken Cordon Bleu Stuffing Casserole

     We've been trying to burn through some surplus ham for a few days now. This weekend I thought maybe I could make a chicken cordon bleu for dinner. Then I decided that was a lot like work. So naturally, I completely lost my mind and decided to completely wing a recipe loosely based on chicken cordon bleu. It turned out far better than I expected. It was a warm, tasty and satisfying meal. Truly, is there anything more definitive of the middle class than the humble casserole? This is super easy to make and the herbs really give it a nice pop of flavor.

Chicken Cordon Bleu Stuffing Casserole

Ingredients

• 3 cooked chicken breasts, cut into 1" cubes
• 2 cups cooked ham, diced
• 1 cup grated Swiss cheese
• 2 6-oz. boxes of Herb de Provence Stuffing Mix (if not available, you're going to need to add those herbs yourself)
• 1 can low-sodium Cream of Mushroom soup
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon melted margarine

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and toss so everything is coated
3. Pour into baking dish coated with non-stick cooking spray
4. Bake for about 35-40 minutes depending on how crispy you like the top.

Good times!