Still here

Hi! I’m still here- just have been swallowed by work and finishing up wedding tasks. To compensate, I’ve moved my twitter feed up on the right side, since that’s where I’ve been most active recently.

Casserole revision!

I revisited the taco casserole last night, and I think I have some tasty revisions (or a brand new recipe!)

• Little over 1/2 lb. ground beef
• 1 small green pepper, sliced, diced, just cut up however. I had a combination of little pieces and longer strips
• 1 can corn (I used Kroger brand white/yellow mix, no sugar added)
• 1 can black or mixed beans
• taco seasoning
• rice (3/4 cup before cooking)
• cheese, I used about a cup of shredded cheddar, plus a little to sprinkle on top

Brown the beef, add the green peppers near the end, add taco seasoning & water, let simmer. User about double the amount of taco seasoning you would normally use for that amount of beef. (I made my own taco seasoning again, a mix of paprika, chili powder, cumin, herbs, lemon pepper, aleppo pepper, dried jalapenos, and a small pinch of cocoa powder.)

Once the sauce has gotten nice and thick, dump all the ingredients into the casserole dish (I re-discovered the oval blue covered casserole, which is awesome), stir to mix everything together, and back for about 30 minutes at 350F to heat through.

Result: I should have taken the cover off with about 5 minutes to go, to brown up the cheese on top, and a little more rice would have been nice, but this was definitely a winner! We had this on burrito shells, dressing it like tacos.

Names

Finally officially “met” our new neighbors last night, all both of them and the little one on the way. He’s a restaurant manager, she’s from Knoxville, we talked for a long time.

I can only remember our neighbor-to-be’s name.

Casserole 3

Apparently, it’s casserole week at our house. Tonight, I made a broccoli-rice-chicken casserole from imagination.

• 2 chicken breasts, semi-frozen
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• herbs, spices to your liking
• 1 head broccoli, chopped up
• rice to fill (again, 3/4 cup before cooking)
• Cheese

Cut chicken into reasonable chunks and brown in a skillet (I added paprika while cooking.) Mix everything together and put into the casserole dish. (or: dump chicken, then broccoli, then rice in casserole dish, realize there’s no room to stir and it’s mounded up int he middle, then pour liquids on top, scooping what spills onto just-cleaned counter back into dish.)

Bake at 350F for 40 minutes. I did it uncovered, mostly for fear with would bubble over into the just-cleaned oven. It was fine, since I had a bit of extra liquid anyway. I should have added the cheese into the mix when supposedly stirringit all together, to add some glue but, since  I didn’t plan well and started in a too-small bowl and exactly-right dish, I sprinkled it on top near the end.

Result: tasty. Wish I’d had a larger dish to make whole big bunches of it, since it’s cheap with sale soup & chicken and disappeared quickly. I also might have added peas or another green veggie for some more color.

Doughy

I took a class on Whole Grain Bread last night at Cook’s Warehouse. It was interested, though I thought it would have focused more on the grains and less on the bread-making techniques. (The whole-grain aspect was a demonstration of putting the wheat in the mill and turning it on. Then we used the resulting flour.) Anyway, we formed different kinds of bread shapes with pre-made dough (then made the dough while those loaves rose, since primary rising would take too long.) I ended up with focaccia-shaped, so I put my mad rolling pin skills to work.

Things I learned:

• focaccia-making includes a bunch of poking at the dough
• bread is done when it reaches an internal temperature of 200F
• I can screw up bread, even if someone else makes the dough

Seriously. My bread came out of the oven, the chef tasted it and said “oh, that’s not good.” It tasted fine to me, but the texture was apparently wrong? (I’m not really sure what focaccia’s supposed to be like.) We all thought it would have made a good pizza crust, but preferred the rolls and loaves made with the dough. Oh, well. We thought it might have been the weather and a too-hot final rising spot.

We got a portion of the dough that we made to take home, so I’m hoping the loaf I make with it will turn out as expected.

Casserole 2

Feeling confident from last night’s success in the casserole dish, I decided to try again with the bits of stuff in our fridge. My goal: some kind of taco casserole.

• 1/2 lb beef
• 1/2 large green pepper, chopped into largeish chunks
• 1/3 can of corn
• taco seasoning (or facsimilie thereof)
• rice, cooked (3/4 cup before cooking, or however much you need to fill your casserole dish.)
• sm can tomato sauce
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• cheese

Brown the beef, then add peppers and spices near end of cooking, plus  a little water to even out the spice. Once that’s heated and the beef is cooked, add the corn, tomato stuff and any extra spice you want. It’s ok to overspice at the point- you’ll be adding rice to dilute it. Mix in the rice, then pour it into your casserole, bake at 350 for 25 minutes, loosely covered. Uncover, sprinkle with cheese, bake another 10-15 minutes.

Very tasty served on burrito shells with some lettuce.

Result: Excellent. I was concerned that it’d be soupy when I put it in the oven, but it thickened up nicely. I would make a better taco seasoning next time and spice it a little more heavily, to end up with less of an enchilada casserole.

Combinations

Tonight, I wanted to use the kielbasa we’d thawed, but didn’t want to go to out usual “kielbasa with peppers and tomatoes over pasta” dish. (though it’s very tasty.) And I’ve been jonesing to try out my dollar-store mandoline, hoping that it would do better than the dollar-store-ness implied.
After much searching, I decided to combine these two recipes:
Microwave potato dish
Baked potato dish

Unfortunately, the mandoline performed as I expected: uneven paper-thin pieces of potatoes when it cut at all.

My recipe:

• 3 potatoes, sliced thinly (enough to fill my casserole dish after the other ingredients)
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 small green pepepr, coarsely chopped
• 1 lb turkey kielbasa, cut into thinnish rounds
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1-1.5 cups of milk (I splooshed some extra in after the sour cream didn’t quite fill the cup)
• pepper, aleppo pepper, herbs as desired
• 1/3-2/3 cup shredded cheese

Mix the liquidy ingredients, herbs and spices together, then add the more solid ingredients to coat. Put it all in a casserole and bake, covered, for 75 minutes at 375. Uncover, sprinkle cheese on top and bake for another 15 minutes to melt the cheese (alternatively, add the cheese when mixing ingredients together, I meant to do that, but forgot until the mixing bowl was nearly empty.)

Result: Very tasty. It’s not totally attractive on top and it was also nearly gone before I thought “I should take a picture,” which is why there’s no picture. If I make it again (when I make it again), I think I’ll use real milk instead of powdered and add some charnuska in the herb mix.  Also, I’ll use smaller/fewer potatoes to make it in the same dish- it was bubbling over.