I was going to a party at my friend Jim's about a year or so ago, and I decided to make 2 casseroles. One, I thought, would be a gigantic hit, and everyone would love it. The other, I thought, would be nibbled on at best.
I have terrible instincts, it appears.
The one I thought no one would like, the Reuben Casserole, was and is beloved by almost everyone I know. I'm sure someone hates it, but is just too polite to say. But I'll bet that person also hates puppies and loves Hitler. So of course they hate my awesome beloved casserole.
The Reuben Casserole is just what it sounds like: a sandwich. In a pan.
Here's how you do it.
First, in a 9x13 pan, mix together either 2 cans or 1 bag of sauerkraut with about a cup of 1000 Island dressing. You can use more or less dressing, depending on how drippy you want your casserole to be.
Next, cut up a pound of thinly sliced corned beef and spread it evenly over the kraut-n-dressing.
Then top the corned beef with 2 cups of shredded Swiss cheese.
Finally, top the whole thing with bread, each slice buttered on one side. The original recipe called for rye, which you're welcome to use, but I prefer the rye-pumpernickel swirl bread. The bread should be placed butter-side-up. You can arrange the bread however you'd like; the original recipe said to use 6 whole slices, but that seemed like huge servings. Instead, I cut up the slices and make a sort of bread mosaic on top.
Bake at 375 for 30 minutes.
Enjoy the love and admiration you receive afterward.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Monday, September 5, 2011
To be, or not to be, a casserole? That is the question.
Besides the tragic casserole cookbook, I have a "real" casserole cookbook I bought a few years ago. I also am a sucker for those little "Taste of Home" cookbooks (and the like) that hang out at checkout counters.
I'm making a new one from the "real" casserole cookbook tonight. This one has spawned a variety of winners, including my friend Kim's favorite (a spinach, cheese, and thyme pasta dish). I don't know that I've ever made anything from this cookbook I didn't like. Just recently, I made an arroz con pollo that Curtis and I were both quite excited about.
Tonight, I feel, won't be an exception to that rule, but what I'm making, I don't know that it falls into the field I think of as a conventional casserole. I'd like to see what my readers, and what other cooks, think about it.
The name of it is "Chicken Thighs with Peppers." I cut up 2 bell peppers (1 red, 1 green), halved 6 garlic cloves, cut an onion into chunks, quartered 3 medium potatoes, and placed it all in a casserole dish with 4 chicken thighs, then glugged some olive oil over it, and shook some salt, pepper, and thyme over the whole thing.
Now, I think this will be good, and I think Curtis and I will enjoy it. But it doesn't feel like a casserole, at least not the way I understand it. The chicken thighs are whole, bone-in, not cut up at all; the vegetables are sliced, but they're pretty darn big, still; and there is no liquid (soup, a roux, etc.) holding it all together.
I'm making a new one from the "real" casserole cookbook tonight. This one has spawned a variety of winners, including my friend Kim's favorite (a spinach, cheese, and thyme pasta dish). I don't know that I've ever made anything from this cookbook I didn't like. Just recently, I made an arroz con pollo that Curtis and I were both quite excited about.
Tonight, I feel, won't be an exception to that rule, but what I'm making, I don't know that it falls into the field I think of as a conventional casserole. I'd like to see what my readers, and what other cooks, think about it.
The name of it is "Chicken Thighs with Peppers." I cut up 2 bell peppers (1 red, 1 green), halved 6 garlic cloves, cut an onion into chunks, quartered 3 medium potatoes, and placed it all in a casserole dish with 4 chicken thighs, then glugged some olive oil over it, and shook some salt, pepper, and thyme over the whole thing.
Now, I think this will be good, and I think Curtis and I will enjoy it. But it doesn't feel like a casserole, at least not the way I understand it. The chicken thighs are whole, bone-in, not cut up at all; the vegetables are sliced, but they're pretty darn big, still; and there is no liquid (soup, a roux, etc.) holding it all together.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Notes on a Gamble
So I made the French Toast Bake Sunday, before Carolyn left.
Well, to be precise, I made it Saturday afternoon, in the style of all great breakfast/brunch casseroles. Because, as I said in a previous post, no one wants to get up and create Glop in a Pot after you've drunk a jug of Listerine the night before.
I was a little worried about this casserole. After reading all of the reviews, I imagined creating diabetic-coma-inducing egg soup with blueberry floaters.
But I culled the best advice out of the recipe (tear up the bread--don't leave it whole) and went from there.
I mixed everything up together and let it all sit overnight.
The next morning, remembering the issues mentioned in the reviews (too soupy, too wet, etc.), I pulled the casserole out of the refrigerator, fully expecting an egg-batter swamp. I tilted it carefully, waiting to see the puddle of egg goo gather . . . and nothing. It seemed to have set. We'll see.
I finished the recipe, shaking chopped pecans over it. The recipe called for a cup, but I only used a half a cup, and even then I thought, after about a quarter of a cup, I thought, "Shit. That's a lot of pecans."
I also did not bake it at 400 for 25, then 10 minutes. Per the advice, I did 350 for 35 minutes, then 10 minutes. But I would maybe, in the future, do it for 30 minutes, then 15 for the blueberries, to make them pop and ooze.
We didn't have any syrup, but I'm split on the syrup issue. I think the syrup would have been delicious on it, but there was a cup of brown sugar in the recipe (much to my hummingbird husband's delight), and I think the syrup would have given us all the diabeetus, and then we'd be doing commercials with Wilford Brimley and Bret Michaels. And then my friend DJD's aunt would have urged us all to take Tylenoid.
Curtis and Carolyn seemed to really enjoy it. I was nervous about getting Carolyn to Dulles, so I couldn't really eat. But they each had seconds, so that's a good sign.
Well, to be precise, I made it Saturday afternoon, in the style of all great breakfast/brunch casseroles. Because, as I said in a previous post, no one wants to get up and create Glop in a Pot after you've drunk a jug of Listerine the night before.
I was a little worried about this casserole. After reading all of the reviews, I imagined creating diabetic-coma-inducing egg soup with blueberry floaters.
But I culled the best advice out of the recipe (tear up the bread--don't leave it whole) and went from there.
I mixed everything up together and let it all sit overnight.
The next morning, remembering the issues mentioned in the reviews (too soupy, too wet, etc.), I pulled the casserole out of the refrigerator, fully expecting an egg-batter swamp. I tilted it carefully, waiting to see the puddle of egg goo gather . . . and nothing. It seemed to have set. We'll see.
I finished the recipe, shaking chopped pecans over it. The recipe called for a cup, but I only used a half a cup, and even then I thought, after about a quarter of a cup, I thought, "Shit. That's a lot of pecans."
I also did not bake it at 400 for 25, then 10 minutes. Per the advice, I did 350 for 35 minutes, then 10 minutes. But I would maybe, in the future, do it for 30 minutes, then 15 for the blueberries, to make them pop and ooze.
We didn't have any syrup, but I'm split on the syrup issue. I think the syrup would have been delicious on it, but there was a cup of brown sugar in the recipe (much to my hummingbird husband's delight), and I think the syrup would have given us all the diabeetus, and then we'd be doing commercials with Wilford Brimley and Bret Michaels. And then my friend DJD's aunt would have urged us all to take Tylenoid.
Curtis and Carolyn seemed to really enjoy it. I was nervous about getting Carolyn to Dulles, so I couldn't really eat. But they each had seconds, so that's a good sign.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Casserollin' with the Homies
So my girl Carolyn is coming to town this weekend, and the plan for this Sunday is to wake up and eat some breakfast casserole before we take her to Dulles and dump her on the curb.*
I asked Carolyn which brunch casserole she wants; I gave her about 6 choices.
We're going with the French Toast Bake, which I found on AllRecipes.com. AllRecipes is not Epicurious.com. It's not even FoodNetwork.com. It has some craptastic recipes on it, because people can just post some crazy shit.
But it is a veritable repository for comfort food and casseroles.
Like the French Toast Bake.
This recipe sounds freaking awesome, but there are some issues.
For example, the first ingredient: "12 day-old French bread."
Does this mean 12 slices of French bread?
Or an indeterminate amount of French bread that has been aged for 12 days?
Also: we will have to have a side of meat. Because this recipe contains no meat, and Curtis's gout could start to clear up if he doesn't get some meat. The protein in the pecans or eggs won't help, because neither pecans nor eggs are made of meat.
But I'm being a nitpicky baby, as this recipe sounds good and I'm excited about it. I'm making this. Also some sort of meat.
* No, seriously, we are so sad that she's leaving. She doesn't know it, but we're going to handcuff her to some permanent household fixture around 11:59 a.m. Sunday morning.
I asked Carolyn which brunch casserole she wants; I gave her about 6 choices.
We're going with the French Toast Bake, which I found on AllRecipes.com. AllRecipes is not Epicurious.com. It's not even FoodNetwork.com. It has some craptastic recipes on it, because people can just post some crazy shit.
But it is a veritable repository for comfort food and casseroles.
Like the French Toast Bake.
This recipe sounds freaking awesome, but there are some issues.
For example, the first ingredient: "12 day-old French bread."
Does this mean 12 slices of French bread?
Or an indeterminate amount of French bread that has been aged for 12 days?
Also: we will have to have a side of meat. Because this recipe contains no meat, and Curtis's gout could start to clear up if he doesn't get some meat. The protein in the pecans or eggs won't help, because neither pecans nor eggs are made of meat.
But I'm being a nitpicky baby, as this recipe sounds good and I'm excited about it. I'm making this. Also some sort of meat.
* No, seriously, we are so sad that she's leaving. She doesn't know it, but we're going to handcuff her to some permanent household fixture around 11:59 a.m. Sunday morning.
It's not quite breakfast, it's not quite lunch, but it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end.
Let me just take a moment to talk about how much I love brunch.
It's the best meal in the entire world.
You get to sleep in, then you get up and eat steak & eggs, or huevos rancheros, or a Belgian waffle, or bagels & lox, or a Breakfast Plate (3 eggs, bacon and/or sausage, some sort of bread item, and some sort of potato item).
You are also allowed--nay, EXPECTED--to drink a Mimosa, or a Bellini, or a Bloody Mary, or 5, as early as 11:00 in the morning.
How can you go wrong with this?
This is such a fantastic idea that I have mastered the Bloody Mary. My Bloody Mary has a name: the I Can See Through Time Bloody Mary.
This is such a fantastic idea that I have thrown whole parties around it; Lunkfest, for example. Or my 35th birthday, which was spent in pajamas, watching Intervention with my friends.
And you know the best thing to have at brunch?
The brunch/breakfast casserole.
No matter how you feel about the casserole, you have to admire the brunch/breakfast casserole. You're the hero with the brunch/breakfast casserole.
You wake up on a Sunday morning, stagger to the kitchen, try to remember where that bruise came from, attempt to make coffee, remember that 10 of your friends are coming over at 12:30, and then realize 12:30 starts in 5 minutes . . .
You run around the house for a few seconds, trying to dress yourself, wondering what on earth you're going to serve these people . . .
And then it hits you: you made that breakfast casserole yesterday.
It's sitting there in the refrigerator, a cool 9x13 rectangle of bread, eggs, meat, and cheese. You just have to turn the oven on to 350.
When your friends arrive in 35 minutes (because you know those bitches can't get ANYWHERE on time), they all have champagne and orange juice in hand.
And you take the bubbling brunch casserole out of the oven, to your friends' delight, as they're hung over too, and they are looking forward to a plate of meat and cheese and bread.
They toast to you, celebrating how awesome you are.
And then you all watch a Law & Order marathon.
Seriously, if you can come up with anything better, then you must live in Tahiti.
It's the best meal in the entire world.
You get to sleep in, then you get up and eat steak & eggs, or huevos rancheros, or a Belgian waffle, or bagels & lox, or a Breakfast Plate (3 eggs, bacon and/or sausage, some sort of bread item, and some sort of potato item).
You are also allowed--nay, EXPECTED--to drink a Mimosa, or a Bellini, or a Bloody Mary, or 5, as early as 11:00 in the morning.
How can you go wrong with this?
This is such a fantastic idea that I have mastered the Bloody Mary. My Bloody Mary has a name: the I Can See Through Time Bloody Mary.
This is such a fantastic idea that I have thrown whole parties around it; Lunkfest, for example. Or my 35th birthday, which was spent in pajamas, watching Intervention with my friends.
And you know the best thing to have at brunch?
The brunch/breakfast casserole.
No matter how you feel about the casserole, you have to admire the brunch/breakfast casserole. You're the hero with the brunch/breakfast casserole.
You wake up on a Sunday morning, stagger to the kitchen, try to remember where that bruise came from, attempt to make coffee, remember that 10 of your friends are coming over at 12:30, and then realize 12:30 starts in 5 minutes . . .
You run around the house for a few seconds, trying to dress yourself, wondering what on earth you're going to serve these people . . .
And then it hits you: you made that breakfast casserole yesterday.
It's sitting there in the refrigerator, a cool 9x13 rectangle of bread, eggs, meat, and cheese. You just have to turn the oven on to 350.
When your friends arrive in 35 minutes (because you know those bitches can't get ANYWHERE on time), they all have champagne and orange juice in hand.
And you take the bubbling brunch casserole out of the oven, to your friends' delight, as they're hung over too, and they are looking forward to a plate of meat and cheese and bread.
They toast to you, celebrating how awesome you are.
And then you all watch a Law & Order marathon.
Seriously, if you can come up with anything better, then you must live in Tahiti.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Tuna Noodle!
I promise that this entire blog will not be dedicated to me being a contrary bitch about 70s-era casseroles. As I've said, I will also share interesting twists and comforting oldies-but-goodies.
One of the members of the Casserole Pantheon is Tuna Noodle Casserole. Everyone knows about it, and it's either well-beloved (in an ironic and/or nostalgic sense) or reviled (in a "My mother couldn't cook and we were forced to choke this shit down" sense).
I'd never really thought about Tuna Noodle until Curtis and I got together. It started when he was making this thing called "tuna salad."
My mother made the most amazing tuna salad in the entire world. I will never be able to reproduce it for the following reason: my mother weighed 122 pounds the day before I was born. And that was the most she ever weighed. EVER. I cannot make the tuna salad she made. She preferred tuna packed in oil. Real mayo. She cut up super-sweet midget pickles (and complained in the latter days that "they're just not sweet enough") and then added sugar too.
And I would inhale that tuna salad. On shitty white bread. Because I can be a food snot, but I can also eat food that hard-core food snots turn down. Because they're stupid.
I've tried making my mother's tuna salad recipe, and I've gotten close, but never quite achieved it. Part of it was that she was just GOOD at it. Part of it was that I couldn't in good conscience make exactly what she made. I'd make it, then stare at it sadly, and think about how I didn't weigh 122 pounds the day before I gave birth. I've never given birth, and I don't weigh 122 pounds.
But I digress.
Curtis said to me one day that he had made "tuna salad."
I was wholly unprepared for Curtis' version of "tuna salad."
He boiled macaroni, then drained it (but didn't rinse it in cold water), added a can of peas, an unspecified quantity of mayo, an entire chopped onion, and a can of tuna.
I did not like Lukewarm Tuna Casserole, as I came to call it. It had to be either Tuna Noodle, or Tuna Salad. There was nothing in between.
So I set about making Tuna Noodle.
I went through about 4 incarnations before finally finding The Recipe for Tuna Noodle. And, actually, I didn't find it. I cobbled it together from a bunch of recipes.
Here it is.
A bag and a half of large egg noodles
1 can cream of mushroom soup (98% fat free)
1 can cream of celery soup (98% fat free)
3 5-oz cans tuna (drained)
2 cans of peas (drained)
2 cups of sharp cheddar
1 large onion, chopped (preferably with a Vidalia Chop Wizard, the best gift I ever received, other than a car)
Salt & pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 350.
Boil the egg noodles per their boiling instructions. Drain.
Put the egg noodles back in the pot in which they were boiled. Add the (undiluted) soups, the tuna, the peas, the cheese, the onion, and as much salt and pepper as you'd like to the pot. Mix until combined. Dump into a casserole dish and spread around. Cook at 350 for about 20 - 25 minutes (depends on how you like your Tuna Noodle).
Eat it for 2 meals a day, every day, for the next week. Unless
A) You hate it
B) You have a large family or a lot of guests
C) You eat it all at one sitting (and in that case, JESUS CHRIST, throttle back a bit, eh?).
One of the members of the Casserole Pantheon is Tuna Noodle Casserole. Everyone knows about it, and it's either well-beloved (in an ironic and/or nostalgic sense) or reviled (in a "My mother couldn't cook and we were forced to choke this shit down" sense).
I'd never really thought about Tuna Noodle until Curtis and I got together. It started when he was making this thing called "tuna salad."
My mother made the most amazing tuna salad in the entire world. I will never be able to reproduce it for the following reason: my mother weighed 122 pounds the day before I was born. And that was the most she ever weighed. EVER. I cannot make the tuna salad she made. She preferred tuna packed in oil. Real mayo. She cut up super-sweet midget pickles (and complained in the latter days that "they're just not sweet enough") and then added sugar too.
And I would inhale that tuna salad. On shitty white bread. Because I can be a food snot, but I can also eat food that hard-core food snots turn down. Because they're stupid.
I've tried making my mother's tuna salad recipe, and I've gotten close, but never quite achieved it. Part of it was that she was just GOOD at it. Part of it was that I couldn't in good conscience make exactly what she made. I'd make it, then stare at it sadly, and think about how I didn't weigh 122 pounds the day before I gave birth. I've never given birth, and I don't weigh 122 pounds.
But I digress.
Curtis said to me one day that he had made "tuna salad."
I was wholly unprepared for Curtis' version of "tuna salad."
He boiled macaroni, then drained it (but didn't rinse it in cold water), added a can of peas, an unspecified quantity of mayo, an entire chopped onion, and a can of tuna.
I did not like Lukewarm Tuna Casserole, as I came to call it. It had to be either Tuna Noodle, or Tuna Salad. There was nothing in between.
So I set about making Tuna Noodle.
I went through about 4 incarnations before finally finding The Recipe for Tuna Noodle. And, actually, I didn't find it. I cobbled it together from a bunch of recipes.
Here it is.
A bag and a half of large egg noodles
1 can cream of mushroom soup (98% fat free)
1 can cream of celery soup (98% fat free)
3 5-oz cans tuna (drained)
2 cans of peas (drained)
2 cups of sharp cheddar
1 large onion, chopped (preferably with a Vidalia Chop Wizard, the best gift I ever received, other than a car)
Salt & pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 350.
Boil the egg noodles per their boiling instructions. Drain.
Put the egg noodles back in the pot in which they were boiled. Add the (undiluted) soups, the tuna, the peas, the cheese, the onion, and as much salt and pepper as you'd like to the pot. Mix until combined. Dump into a casserole dish and spread around. Cook at 350 for about 20 - 25 minutes (depends on how you like your Tuna Noodle).
Eat it for 2 meals a day, every day, for the next week. Unless
A) You hate it
B) You have a large family or a lot of guests
C) You eat it all at one sitting (and in that case, JESUS CHRIST, throttle back a bit, eh?).
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
The Casserolening
In 2006, my friends Shannon and David threw a party for the 4th of July. They were known for their parties, and we were quite excited to be a part of it.
Shannon worked with my best friend Jim, along with a few others. At work, they decided to have a Casserole-Off at the party. I was excited to be a part of this.
Jim made a casserole from a recipe book I'd purchased; it will be discussed on this blog. his casserole was a savory meat-based casserole, and was quite well-received. I'll post the recipe later.
I made a ziti, parmesan, thyme, and spinach casserole; our friend Kim is quite fond of this one. Also: recipe later.
There was another casserole, made by our friend Jen, and I was shocked at its severe deliciousness. It was an old-school Southern staple that I'd never heard of: pineapples, cheddar cheese, and crackers were the main players. Tasty.
And then, there was Jim's and my crowning achievement.
In my "good" casserole book, there was a recipe that sounded downright vile: Ham & Lima Bean. Hork. That sounded more like a punishment than dinner.
So we decided to make this casserole.
We didn't actually follow the recipe, though. We altered it.
We dumped chunks of ham and a can of lima beans into a pan, then covered this concoction with multicolored sprinkles.
We were dismayed when nobody ate it. Perhaps the Ham, Lima Bean & Sprinkle Casserole can find love somewhere, with a nice farm family.
Shannon worked with my best friend Jim, along with a few others. At work, they decided to have a Casserole-Off at the party. I was excited to be a part of this.
Jim made a casserole from a recipe book I'd purchased; it will be discussed on this blog. his casserole was a savory meat-based casserole, and was quite well-received. I'll post the recipe later.
I made a ziti, parmesan, thyme, and spinach casserole; our friend Kim is quite fond of this one. Also: recipe later.
There was another casserole, made by our friend Jen, and I was shocked at its severe deliciousness. It was an old-school Southern staple that I'd never heard of: pineapples, cheddar cheese, and crackers were the main players. Tasty.
And then, there was Jim's and my crowning achievement.
In my "good" casserole book, there was a recipe that sounded downright vile: Ham & Lima Bean. Hork. That sounded more like a punishment than dinner.
So we decided to make this casserole.
We didn't actually follow the recipe, though. We altered it.
We dumped chunks of ham and a can of lima beans into a pan, then covered this concoction with multicolored sprinkles.
We were dismayed when nobody ate it. Perhaps the Ham, Lima Bean & Sprinkle Casserole can find love somewhere, with a nice farm family.
Monday, July 4, 2011
"California" means different things to different people.
The first recipe in the book is California Casserole.
"California cuisine" has become ubiquitous, almost passe, but in the 1970s, it was a novel idea. By the 1980s, it had very nearly taken over. Seafood could be served in ways other than "breaded" or "fried." Avocado began to show up everywhere. Oranges made their way into green salads. "Fusion" became a household word.
Because The Casserole Cookbook was published in 1971, though, it came along a few years before "California cuisine" meant fresh fruits, lightly cooked vegetables, Latin and Southwestern influences.
The California Casserole was published well ahead of this trend.
This is the California Casserole:
2 lbs of round steak
1/3 cup of flour
1 tsp of paprika Why? Seriously, can someone tell me what ONE TEASPOON of paprika--plain paprika, mind you, not Hungarian or smoked--could POSSIBLY do for this recipe? Growing up, my mother put this on cottage cheese to give it "some color." I was never clear on why cottage cheese needed to be colored, but whatever. Anyway, I can't really understand what this paprika is going to do for ANYTHING in this recipe.
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper Yes, for God's sake, be careful, you don't want anyone to hurt themselves. Between this and the paprika, you could get yourself sued!
1 can cream of mushroom soup Here we see a major player in many casseroles. I'm not casting aspersions on this most noble of soups--it can really tie things together. But, yeah, it's a casserole staple.
1 3/4 cups of water
1 3/4 cups of cooked small onions How small is small? Are we talking pearl onions? Regular onions, but of the runty variety?
Cut the steak into 2-inch cubes. Mix the flour and paprika and dredge steak with flour mixture. Brown in small amount of hot fat.
Now, wait a second. Although I am happy to see the introduction of one of my favorite ingredients in this cookbook, I'm upset to see that you didn't say anything about fat in the ingredient list. And what kind of fat am I supposed to use here? As this is California Casserole, I am inclined to imagine bags of liposuctioned fat, just sitting in the creator's refrigerator, waiting to be poured into the pan, for the browning of the steak, made oh-so-flavorful by the powerful paprika.
But I digress.
Add the salt and pepper and place in a large casserole. Add the soup and water to drippings in skillet and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Pour over steak and add the onions.
DUMP.
That is what I would say as I poured nearly two cups of runty onions onto my overly spicy, fat-browned, soup-slathered steak.
This is it? THIS is California Casserole?
But wait! There's more!
There are DUMPLINGS. So one gets to say DUMP again. And then, quietly, "ling."
Dumplings:
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of salad oil
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp poultry seasoning Why isn't there beef seasoning? I cry foul. Or FOWL. Ha ha ha, I'm so funny.
4 tsp baking powder
2 cups of flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp onion flakes
1/3 cup melted margarine
1 1/2 cups bread crumbs
Okay, now I get the California theme. I read this and instantly thought "Mojave," as it contains dry ingredients. Lots and lots of dry ingredients. In fact, by the time I got to the end of this list, my blood had turned to dust.
Mix the milk and oil. Place the celery seed, poultry seasoning, baking powder, flour, salt, and onion flakes in a large bowl and mix well. Add the milk mixture and stir until mixed. (The word "mix" has appeared four time at this point. That bothers me for reasons I can't quite explain. Thesaurus, anyone?) Drop by tablespoons into margarine to coat (because the oil wasn't enough), then roll in bread crumbs.
Wait, WHAT? you're making bread and then covering it in bread? Why didn't you roll the beef cubes in desiccated beef, or creamed chipped beef, before covering it in soup? You're really not thinking outside the redundancy box of redundancy, here.
Place on steak mixture. (Cover up those runty onions, lest your dinner guests tell everyone at The Club about you.) Bake at 425 for 20 to 25 minutes. 8 servings.
So, "California" apparently has to do with cooking your beef twice, first in "fat," then in the oven, after you have covered it up with dwarf onions, doused it in soup, and blanketed it in breaded bread.
WATCH OUT FOR THAT PAPRIKA, KIDS. IT'LL GET YOU.
"California cuisine" has become ubiquitous, almost passe, but in the 1970s, it was a novel idea. By the 1980s, it had very nearly taken over. Seafood could be served in ways other than "breaded" or "fried." Avocado began to show up everywhere. Oranges made their way into green salads. "Fusion" became a household word.
Because The Casserole Cookbook was published in 1971, though, it came along a few years before "California cuisine" meant fresh fruits, lightly cooked vegetables, Latin and Southwestern influences.
The California Casserole was published well ahead of this trend.
This is the California Casserole:
2 lbs of round steak
1/3 cup of flour
1 tsp of paprika Why? Seriously, can someone tell me what ONE TEASPOON of paprika--plain paprika, mind you, not Hungarian or smoked--could POSSIBLY do for this recipe? Growing up, my mother put this on cottage cheese to give it "some color." I was never clear on why cottage cheese needed to be colored, but whatever. Anyway, I can't really understand what this paprika is going to do for ANYTHING in this recipe.
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper Yes, for God's sake, be careful, you don't want anyone to hurt themselves. Between this and the paprika, you could get yourself sued!
1 can cream of mushroom soup Here we see a major player in many casseroles. I'm not casting aspersions on this most noble of soups--it can really tie things together. But, yeah, it's a casserole staple.
1 3/4 cups of water
1 3/4 cups of cooked small onions How small is small? Are we talking pearl onions? Regular onions, but of the runty variety?
Cut the steak into 2-inch cubes. Mix the flour and paprika and dredge steak with flour mixture. Brown in small amount of hot fat.
Now, wait a second. Although I am happy to see the introduction of one of my favorite ingredients in this cookbook, I'm upset to see that you didn't say anything about fat in the ingredient list. And what kind of fat am I supposed to use here? As this is California Casserole, I am inclined to imagine bags of liposuctioned fat, just sitting in the creator's refrigerator, waiting to be poured into the pan, for the browning of the steak, made oh-so-flavorful by the powerful paprika.
But I digress.
Add the salt and pepper and place in a large casserole. Add the soup and water to drippings in skillet and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Pour over steak and add the onions.
DUMP.
That is what I would say as I poured nearly two cups of runty onions onto my overly spicy, fat-browned, soup-slathered steak.
This is it? THIS is California Casserole?
But wait! There's more!
There are DUMPLINGS. So one gets to say DUMP again. And then, quietly, "ling."
Dumplings:
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of salad oil
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp poultry seasoning Why isn't there beef seasoning? I cry foul. Or FOWL. Ha ha ha, I'm so funny.
4 tsp baking powder
2 cups of flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp onion flakes
1/3 cup melted margarine
1 1/2 cups bread crumbs
Okay, now I get the California theme. I read this and instantly thought "Mojave," as it contains dry ingredients. Lots and lots of dry ingredients. In fact, by the time I got to the end of this list, my blood had turned to dust.
Mix the milk and oil. Place the celery seed, poultry seasoning, baking powder, flour, salt, and onion flakes in a large bowl and mix well. Add the milk mixture and stir until mixed. (The word "mix" has appeared four time at this point. That bothers me for reasons I can't quite explain. Thesaurus, anyone?) Drop by tablespoons into margarine to coat (because the oil wasn't enough), then roll in bread crumbs.
Wait, WHAT? you're making bread and then covering it in bread? Why didn't you roll the beef cubes in desiccated beef, or creamed chipped beef, before covering it in soup? You're really not thinking outside the redundancy box of redundancy, here.
Place on steak mixture. (Cover up those runty onions, lest your dinner guests tell everyone at The Club about you.) Bake at 425 for 20 to 25 minutes. 8 servings.
So, "California" apparently has to do with cooking your beef twice, first in "fat," then in the oven, after you have covered it up with dwarf onions, doused it in soup, and blanketed it in breaded bread.
WATCH OUT FOR THAT PAPRIKA, KIDS. IT'LL GET YOU.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
The creation story
This blog got started for many reasons.
First of all, I love casseroles.
And, not only do I love casseroles, I also love the work of James Lileks. If you have never looked at lileks.com, you should. And you should do it soon.
So part of my blog, in which I examine crappy old casserole recipes, is nothing new. lileks.com has been doing it, and doing it better than I ever will, for more than a decade. I'm not trying to rip him off, I'm just writing in homage to his genius.
It also got started because of a book, a very special and wonderful book, that my best friend Jim bought me in March.
We were in Beckley, WV, on a ski trip planned by our friend Carolyn. After a day of skiing, we had a day in which we went to see the New River Gorge Bridge, then some of us went hiking . . . and the rest of us went shopping.
Jim, Carolyn, Aaron, and I went shopping. We visited a store where Carolyn bought the glorious Bambo (a polyresin statue of a deer, holding and carrying various weapons), I spit Coke all over her, and Aaron bought The Cock.
Then we went to the world's tiniest and saddest pawn shop.
We went to the antique store next door, where I bought some antique pharmaceuticals (as I collect them).
Then we went to the Beckley Goodwill, where, Jim bought some sunglasses. He also bought me, for a whopping ten cents, The Southern Living Casseroles Cookbook.
And we spent a glorious evening reading this book, and talking about it. And laughing. A lot.
I was encouraged to start a blog about this cookbook, but I never quite got around to it.
So I am.
I'll start writing reviews of the recipes at the next post. Today: The Genesis.
First of all, I love casseroles.
And, not only do I love casseroles, I also love the work of James Lileks. If you have never looked at lileks.com, you should. And you should do it soon.
So part of my blog, in which I examine crappy old casserole recipes, is nothing new. lileks.com has been doing it, and doing it better than I ever will, for more than a decade. I'm not trying to rip him off, I'm just writing in homage to his genius.
It also got started because of a book, a very special and wonderful book, that my best friend Jim bought me in March.
We were in Beckley, WV, on a ski trip planned by our friend Carolyn. After a day of skiing, we had a day in which we went to see the New River Gorge Bridge, then some of us went hiking . . . and the rest of us went shopping.
Jim, Carolyn, Aaron, and I went shopping. We visited a store where Carolyn bought the glorious Bambo (a polyresin statue of a deer, holding and carrying various weapons), I spit Coke all over her, and Aaron bought The Cock.
Then we went to the world's tiniest and saddest pawn shop.
We went to the antique store next door, where I bought some antique pharmaceuticals (as I collect them).
Then we went to the Beckley Goodwill, where, Jim bought some sunglasses. He also bought me, for a whopping ten cents, The Southern Living Casseroles Cookbook.
And we spent a glorious evening reading this book, and talking about it. And laughing. A lot.
I was encouraged to start a blog about this cookbook, but I never quite got around to it.
So I am.
I'll start writing reviews of the recipes at the next post. Today: The Genesis.
They can be good . . . or evil.
I love casseroles. You can ask my best friend Jim. I love them. I love making them. I know they're retro, and they can hark back to a dark and medieval time in the gourmet world, when people liked the idea of Glop in a Pot (courtesy of James Lileks). People threw anything they found into a casserole dish, and that was dinner. Macaroni & cheese was considered gourmet Italian cooking, what with the word that ended in "i" in the title and whatnot.
Casseroles can suggest laziness. They can suggest a lack of ingenuity, a lack of creativity. They suggest a miserable lack of taste.
At the same time, they hark back to a time when women did, well, everything. Men went off and made money, and their wives stayed at home and had babies and cleaned everything and washed all the clothes and ironed all the shirts and cleaned the whole house and and and and and.
And in all of that, they made dinner.
So while we, in 2011, with our microwave ovens and our instameals and our Pac-Man and our Dan Fogelberg, denigrate the craptastic casseroles of yore, there's a certain beauty in them.
Because, sometimes, I'll bet that some of these women, who had gotten up before their husbands, and ironed their clothes, and made them breakfasts that would cripple a farmer, and gotten all the kids up, and made their breakfasts too, and dressed everybody, and gotten everyone out the door, and made sure the baby wasn't choking, and then cleaned the whole house . . . these women eventually said, "You know what? I'm going to drink a bottle of gin. And I'm going to throw a bunch of shit in a pan, and they're going to damn well eat it, because I'm tired."
I approach casseroles with both a healthy skepticism and a great love. There are some amazing ones out there . . . and there are some that are miserable failures.
So I'm going to celebrate all of them in this new blog:
The interesting new take . . .
The delicious comfort food . . .
The well-meaning, but bland . . .
And the Glop in a Pot, aka "Suburban Housewife's Subversive Statement." This one will get the hardest time, the most scorn, the least admiration . . . but it's with the understanding that, 3 gin martinis into the laundry, sometimes you have to say "Screw this noise" and dump a bunch of shit into a pan.
Casseroles can suggest laziness. They can suggest a lack of ingenuity, a lack of creativity. They suggest a miserable lack of taste.
At the same time, they hark back to a time when women did, well, everything. Men went off and made money, and their wives stayed at home and had babies and cleaned everything and washed all the clothes and ironed all the shirts and cleaned the whole house and and and and and.
And in all of that, they made dinner.
So while we, in 2011, with our microwave ovens and our instameals and our Pac-Man and our Dan Fogelberg, denigrate the craptastic casseroles of yore, there's a certain beauty in them.
Because, sometimes, I'll bet that some of these women, who had gotten up before their husbands, and ironed their clothes, and made them breakfasts that would cripple a farmer, and gotten all the kids up, and made their breakfasts too, and dressed everybody, and gotten everyone out the door, and made sure the baby wasn't choking, and then cleaned the whole house . . . these women eventually said, "You know what? I'm going to drink a bottle of gin. And I'm going to throw a bunch of shit in a pan, and they're going to damn well eat it, because I'm tired."
I approach casseroles with both a healthy skepticism and a great love. There are some amazing ones out there . . . and there are some that are miserable failures.
So I'm going to celebrate all of them in this new blog:
The interesting new take . . .
The delicious comfort food . . .
The well-meaning, but bland . . .
And the Glop in a Pot, aka "Suburban Housewife's Subversive Statement." This one will get the hardest time, the most scorn, the least admiration . . . but it's with the understanding that, 3 gin martinis into the laundry, sometimes you have to say "Screw this noise" and dump a bunch of shit into a pan.
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