K8'z Kasseroles!

OK, OK...  I know that after only 2 relevant entries, I kinda "crapped the bed", "dropped the ball", "fell off the wagon", whatever.  It's not that this blog wasn't on my mind, because it WAS...  It's more that I had hit a bout of writer's block, and was having trouble coming up with topics or recipes that people would actually want to read.  I'm working on a couple of rant/advice topics, but they will take longer to turn out than recipes, because I want to make sure that I don't come across the wrong way in my writing (you know, like a raging B-word, lol!).

SO, for now, I've decided to do a series of posts that profile my FAVOURITE kind of supper dish - casseroles!  I've you've ever dined at my house, it's likely that you'll have tried at least one of my "dinners in a dish".  Casseroles, to me, are the ultimate in comfort food, simple to prepare, and you're often left with leftovers for lunch the next day.  I will try my best to highlight one per week for the remainder of the Winter season because that's really the best time to enjoy one of these hearty dishes.

First up, a dish we had just last night.  This meal makes its way into our menu plan at least once a month, and came from Steve's mother, although it was originally an Uncle Ben's magazine ad.  There's no real name for it on the photocopy I have, but we call it "Rice-Topped Shepherd's Pie".  I chose it as the debut casserole because it's good exactly as-written, but also very forgiving if you need to make substitutions for health reasons, personal preference, or simply just an "oops!".

Rice-Topped Shepherd's Pie

Here's what you'll need:
1 tsp vegetable oil
2 carrots, peeled/diced
1 onion, chopped
1 lb. ground beef
2/3 Cup beef stock
1 Tbsp tomato paste
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
salt/pepper
3/4 Cup frozen peas
3 Cups "Uncle Ben's Converted" rice, cooked.
1 egg, beaten
1 Cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 Cup sour cream

Here's what you do:
In frying pan on stove top, heat oil over medium heat.  Cook carrots and onion for 3 minutes.  Add beef and cook for about 5 minutes or 'til browned.  Drain off fat (if using extra-lean, you probably wont need to do this).

Stir in stock, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce and salt/pepper to taste.  Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add peas, cook for 1 more minute.  Spread evenly into 9x13" oven-safe dish.

Stir together cooked rice, egg, cheese and sour cream.  Spread evenly over meat.  Broil 7 minutes or until rice is heated through.

Tips, Substitutions & Alterations:
- I've made this casserole ahead of time and kept it in the fridge, to bake (@350-degrees) at a later time.  Leftovers keep well in the fridge and freeze well too.

- I DESPISE waste, and if you're not careful, this recipe will cause you to dump a bunch of broth and tomato paste in the garbage.  Most times, I use double the amount of tomato paste that it calls for (about 1/2 of one of those tiny cans), and half a can of stock.  Then I mix up the leftovers in a small container, throw in the tablespoon Wocestershire sauce and freeze it for the next batch.

- The veggies can be played with in any number of ways.  No onion?  No sweat, just add another carrot or more peas.  Don't like peas? Try some corn.  Only have frozen veggies?  No problem!  My favourite mix is the one with peas, carrots, corn, green beans and lima beans all in the same bag.

- As with the veggies, the sauce can also be played with a bit.  Beef stock, chicken broth, consommé, it really doesn't matter.  So far, I've found the tomato paste is necessary for thickening, but the Worcestershire can be replaced by soy sauce in a pinch.

- The rice mixture really should NOT be played with.  Use any type of rice you like, but the egg, sour cream and cheese are required for "fluff factor".  The topping is really what makes this dish.  I have added chopped spinach to it with success, and you could probably scale down the dairy by about half if you're looking for lean.

- It's good on it's own, but *I* like to have mine with a side of cranberry jelly (whenever it's left over, I will find a use for ANYTHING, haha!).  Steve likes his with sriacha hot sauce (like everything else, lol), and I've seen others put some ketchup on it.  :)

Stay tuned next week for another of "K8'z Kasseroles"!  Lol! ;)

Pizza Night!

Tonight is pizza night in our house.  We try as often as possible to make all of our junk food from scratch, that way it's usually not quite *as* bad for you.  Also, the ever-picky toddler will ALWAYS scarf down a piece of pizza or cheesy bread, so pizza's on tap quite often over here.  It took us numerous attempts to get our pizza dough recipe "just so", so I thought I would share it here with the world.  It's a combination recipe/method from one of my kitchen "bibles", Dining On a Dime and my Mumma's own recipe for pizza dough.  Figured this would be a good sequel to the marinara post, since that's what we use for our pizza sauce!

Pizza & cheesy breadsticks

Here's what you'll need:
1 Cup warm water (120-degrees F)
1 Tbsp. white sugar
1 Tbsp. yeast
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp cooking oil
2-1/2 to 3 Cups flour
Optional:
2 tsp crushed garlic
1 tsp basil
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp oregano

Here's what you do:
Dissolve sugar into water; stir in yeast, and let stand 10 mins or til mixture doubles in volume. Add salt, oil, and spices if desired. Mix well. Gradually add flour to form stiff dough. Knead on well-floured surface 'til smooth. Place in a greased bowl and turn dough over so as to grease all sides in the bowl. Cover and let rise 'til doubled. (1/2 hr to hour)

Divide dough in half for two medium pizzas and roll out to about 1/4" thick. Fold and pinch edges up to form crust. Bake on sheet for 3-5 minutes at 350 to firm up a bit. Remove from oven, sauce lightly and top as desired. Bake again at 350 for 5 minutes, then broil 'til crust edges turn golden and cheese is nice and bubbly.

Beautiful Bacon/beef/pepper/onion pizza

Garlic fingers with bacon and feta, in the style of Fadi's Pizzeria (Fredericton NB)

And finally, here are a few tips for personalizing it:
- Cream cheese or strips of mozza can be folded into the crust to make a "stuffed crust" version that is always a hit with cheese lovers.
- When it comes to pizza sauce, I find less is more.  Not many people like to bite into a slice of fresh pizza, hit a pocket of sauce that's the temperature of molten-lava, only to burn their mouth and have it running down their face, amirite??  Start with slapping a tablespoon or two onto your crust and spread it thinly in a circular motion until your crust is lightly coated.
- Speaking of sauce, don't limit yourself to the tomato variety!  Try it out with BBQ sauce (with chicken and peppers), ranch dressing, pesto or cream cheese (paired with spicy toppings, it's a dream!).
- Get creative with the toppings! If you can dream it, it'll be good on your pizza. :)
- Pizza dough also makes for good "cheesy bread" or garlic fingers.  Instead of sauce, slather the crust with some garlic/herbed butter and top with cheese.  Slice into fingers, and serve with a dipping sauce.  Here's my favourite recipe for homemade donair sauce. 

Jalapeno popper pizza; cream cheese instead of sauce, bacon, jalapenos and green onions! 2DIE4!

As always, I want to hear if I've inspired you, and how it went! :)

Tomato Sauce!

No matter what you call it (tomato sauce, pasta sauce, marinara, "red" sauce), it's something that I think every household goes through a lot of.  In our house, spaghetti and meatballs is a weekly staple, as is homemade pizza, so we use a TON of it.  Finally, five years into my "domestic-hood", and in keeping with our ongoing efforts to "healthify" things, I have decided to start making large batches of the stuff to have in the freezer and amp-up the veggie count in something we use twice weekly.  Plus, having a veggie-hating toddler, I'm always desperate for ways to sneak foods into him that pack a super-nutritional punch.

There's no real "recipe" for what we do, it's more of a method.  First, you've gotta do a big ingredient round-up.

- You'll need some kind of base (tomatoes, "durh") and we've found that pretty much any mix of the following will work well: canned tomato sauce (whatever's cheapest or a personal fave), canned tomatoes, and tomato paste.

- Then, gather as many different veggies as you can find, it doesn't even matter if you really LIKE a few of them or not, because in the end you won't even be able to tell that they're there!  It's usually my goal to get as many colours and varieties as possible in there because it's important to "eat the rainbow" and we all know, "variety is the spice of life", but if you only have a few lying around, it's fine.  Seriously, ANYTHING GOES on pasta sauce day.  Cut 'em, cook 'em up 'til soft, whiz 'em up in the blender and set 'em aside.

- Next you'll need your spices and special extras that make it "yours".   Oregano, basil and thyme are staples here, as well as a few bay leaves (try to find and remove them before bottling, though!).  I found out that my bonus-Mom's sister puts PINEAPPLE in her spaghetti sauce - tried it once and have never looked back since.  We blend that up along with our veggies and it gives the sauce a nice sweet note.  We like a bit of heat too, so ground black pepper and cayenne go in there, too.  Really use your creativity here, whatever you "think" might be good, probably will.  Dump some parmesan cheese in there, or even some booze, lol (it'll cook down, which brings me to the next step)...

- Throw it ALL into your biggest pot and simmer it on low for, oh, "a long time"...  Two to four hours?  The whole day?  As much time as you've got, but keep on the stirring, every 20-30 mins or so.  Cleaning burnt tomatoes off the bottom of your pot is never fun.  I despise cleaning BIG dishes for many reasons, but that's another rant for another day. ;)

- Bottle it up in some clean jars, plasticware, whatever you've got.  We went out and bought some 500mL bottles specifically for our last batch, they were pricier than I would have liked, but an investment for sure because we will re-use them and they're microwave safe (for when you forget to defrost it in advance).  I'm sure there's a way to safely "can" this stuff for shelf-storage... But we're not set up for that (yet), and recently purchased a deep-freeze so we have lots of space to fill, so my tutorial ends here. :)  

I'd love to hear YOUR suggestions on personalized pasta sauce, or at the very least, let me know how it goes if I inspired you to whip up your own batch!  

Oh-kay, so here it is, my 1st-ever blog post!  I tried to make a comment for somebody's give-away, and ended up clicking my way into an old blogger account that didn't even make it to it's debut entry...  Since it happened to be nap-time, I decided to spiff things up a bit and do some reading to make sure I was set up as securely as *I* wanted to be.

I don't have anything worth publishing and sharing right now, and it's apparent I'm going to have to learn some intermediate HTML in order to have a decent blog design, so this will be a work in progress for a while.  In the meantime, I'll work on some topics that might actually be worth reading about. :P

-K8