"My favorite casserole/one dish meal recipe"

[Darienne]

Ruthcooks had this brilliant idea.  Most casserole cookbooks have only a few recipes that the cook will ever use...why not get good casserole ideas by posting the topic title used above.  Thank you Ruth.

 

So my favorite casserole/one dish meals at present are: Moussaka with Spanakopita (that's two), Lasagna and Mafe, an African dish made mainly from sweet potatoes, tomatoes and chicken.  Mafe is one of those dishes which changes from locale to locale.  (Mafe should have an e-acute, but I can never remember how to do those diacritical marks.)

 

What is your favorite casserole/one dish meal recipe? 

 

Thanks. 

[Deryn]

From my childhood (my mother made this), fast and simple but tasty, and I have no idea if there is a name for it other than Sausage and Olive casserole. Pork sausages (spicy or not, out of casing, browned, in pieces) with egg noodles, green pimento stuffed olives, onions and tomato paste are the main components.

[Darienne]

Sounds good Deryn...except for two ingredients.  DH, Ed, loathes olives and I don't do sausages (childhood leftover).  But you tried, and that's the main thing.     Thank you.

 

We do love egg noodles though.  Lokshen kugel, the savory one, I remember from childhood also.  Thank you for leading me back to that one.

[Lisa Shock]

I make Santa Fe style flat enchiladas in a slow cooker: put down a dab of sauce (red or green chile sauce, vegetarian style is more flexible, you'll wind up using about 24 oz total in the dish) then 3-4 corn tortillas, then ¼" layers of whole- cooked or refried beans, sweet corn, cheese, spanish rice, finely sliced raw veggies like carrot & cauliflower with a little sauce poured over, with tortillas separating each layer and a little sauce poured in to moisten. Top layer gets a lot of sauce poured over, then a layer of cheese. You can add layers of precooked meat if desired. Serve with extra sauce if needed, the tortillas really absorb a lot.

 

Does Coq au Vin count? You need to make potatoes or noodles separately....

 

Pizza Rusitca, northern style: it's a pie with a regular pie crust, filled with ricotta/egg mixture with cured meats, I often add chopped spinach or broccoli and some diced onion to boost the nutritional value.

 

Frittata: you can use fresh veg, potatoes, etc. or use cut up leftovers. Some of my best frittata have been made with leftover lasagna. This is one reason why I freeze small amounts of leftovers.

 

Eggs in purgatory, use a simple recipe: just tomato sauce, a pinch of pepper flakes and eggs. Serve with crusty bread.

 

Sushi cake. Ok, it's not a traditional casserole in that it isn't baked. But, it's good in summer and can be assembled hours in advance if kept in the fridge. (it actually works better if you let the layers in the pan rest with some pressure on them for a couple hours) Use plastic wrap to line your pan, I use a round one.You can get creative with the rice, I make an orange layer with grated carrot added. And, I like to make an inside layer of sliced avocado, it does get exposed to air and doesn't turn color as quickly. Anyway, you can decorate the top and sides with all sorts of thinly sliced vegetables, Japanese pickles, etc. in addition to or instead of fish. Ideas.

[Darienne]

Santa Fe style flat enchiladas sounds good.  Thanks Lisa Shock. 

Would you tear the tortillas into pieces?  I expect you might sub corn chips for the tortillas?  What about adding a layer of roasted poblanos or nopales?  I've been gifted with a few jars of nopales and haven't used them yet.   Just made a huge batch of my take on Puerco Pibil yesterday...we ate it on One-Buns for lunch today...and I'd certainly put them into a casserole dish. 

 

Thanks again.

[cakewalk]

I think I'd have to add cholent to this list. It's on my mind because I just got back from my synagogue, where they served a cholent (vegetarian, no less) that was really delicious. (They aren't always.) In brief, since cooking is not permitted on the Sabbath (sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday), and there was need of a hot meal mid-day on Saturday, people would bring pots of meat, potatoes, grains, etc. to a communal oven on Friday afternoon where it would simmer overnight, and then go pick it up on Saturday for their family meal. You can read a bit more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholent Communal ovens are a thing of the past, so it's usually started on Friday afternoons and left to simmer on a hot plate overnight for lunch the next day. (The house smells incredible when you wake up in the morning, that's for sure.) I haven't made it in ages, but every once in a while I have some elsewhere, and when it's good boy is it good. There's something about letting it simmer overnight that adds so much flavor. And it's certainly a classic one-pot dish.

[Lisa Shock]

Santa Fe style flat enchiladas sounds good.  Thanks Lisa Shock. 

Would you tear the tortillas into pieces?  I expect you might sub corn chips for the tortillas?  What about adding a layer of roasted poblanos or nopales?  I've been gifted with a few jars of nopales and haven't used them yet.   Just made a huge batch of my take on Puerco Pibil yesterday...we ate it on One-Buns for lunch today...and I'd certainly put them into a casserole dish. 

 

Thanks again.

 

No, do not tear up the tortillas, you want them to form layers for you, and I always use 4 per layer. They become a soft substance that's easy to cut through, a little like a tamale. The original recipe for this calls for each tortilla to be fried briefly during construction, I just stopped doing that and you can hardly tell. You could use chips, but it will take more sauce to make them soft.  I'd use nopales with green sauce, not so sure about the flavor with red. I usually make scrambled eggs with nopales. A layer of roasted poblanos would be good, you could add other roasted veggies, too, or leftover fajita veggies. I have also done sour cream layers when the sauce was very hot.

[Jaymes]

Yep, it calls for a couple of cans of "cream of" soups, but I think it's quite possible that there's no such thing as a Texan alive that doesn't love King Ranch Chicken:

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/126490-king-ranch-chicken/

[Darienne]

Thanks cakewalk.  I have never had Cholent.  My Bubbi (Mother's side) had a special little oven which sat on top of one side of the stove/oven.  My memories are fairly faint now.  I can't recall how the stove was heated, whether by coal or wood, but it was not electric. 

[gulfporter]

Polenta lasagna with escarole.  

[Darienne]

Jaymes.  :biggrin:  My Mother hated cooking.  And she used cream of whatever soups.  Which I grew to hate.  Oh well...

[ruthcooks]

Meatball Stew

 

The original of this recipe came from an “Open House” type TV show for “ladies” back in the late 1960s. The first time I made it, I had no tomato paste or sauce, so I improvised with catsup and water that gave it a more sweet-spicy taste.  Serves 4 with 3 meatballs each, or 6 with 2 meatballs.

 

Vegetables:

Potatoes, cut up

Onions, sliced

Carrots, cut in 1 inch pieces

Green bell pepper (save part for chopping for meatballs), cut in 1 inch pieces

 

Meatballs:

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 lb. ground beef

1/4 C. chopped onion

1/4 C. chopped green pepper

1 t. chili powder

1 t. salt

1 1/2 t. dry mustard

1/4 C. cornmeal

1/2 C. milk

Flour

Vegetable oil plus butter for frying

 

2/3 C. tomato catsup

1 1/3 C. water

 

Prepare vegetables and steam or boil for about 5 or 10 minutes. Remove to large, flat casserole dish.  Add salt and pepper.

 

Beat egg with a fork in a large bowl.  Add to bowl the ground beef, onion, green pepper, chili powder, salt, dry mustard, cornmeal, and milk.  Combine ingredients with a meat fork that has only 2 or 3 tines; never use your hands, as the warmth will compact meat and make it tough!  Mixture will be rather sloppy.  I portion it out with a large dipper to form 12 large meatballs.

 

Roll meatballs in flour and brown in oil and flour.  They will “slump” so turn only twice, making sort of triangle shapes instead of round.  When brown, place on top of vegetables.

 

Mix catsup and water in 2 C. measuring cup with a whisk.  Add to pan in which you browned the meatballs and bring to a boil.  Pour over meatballs and vegetables and cover tightly with foil.  Bake about an hour, depending on size of vegetables and how long (or if) you pre-cooked them.  If freezing leftovers, remove potatoes and carrots.

 

I never knew how much my kids liked this until my grown daughter came for dinner with her husband and two boys.  She looked in the oven and said, "Oh boy!  Mom's Meatball Stew!"

 

Still my favorite after all these years.

[Jaymes]

Ruth - that looks great. I do a lot of the cooking for my daughter's large family (four kids). I am definitely making this next week.

Thanks!

[Darienne]

Sounds like fun, Ruth.  I do have a pile of Mexican type meatballs in the freezer and this should work very nicely.  Thanks.  And thanks again for the topic idea.

[cakewalk]

Thanks cakewalk.  I have never had Cholent.  My Bubbi (Mother's side) had a special little oven which sat on top of one side of the stove/oven.  My memories are fairly faint now.  I can't recall how the stove was heated, whether by coal or wood, but it was not electric. 

Interesting. On the stovetop? Was it a gas stove? If so, the little oven probably had a tray of metal on the bottom, separating it from the direct flame underneath, which would have been kept at a low flame. This is typical, a thin metal tray on top of a low flame. The tray is called a "blech" (which means "tin" in Yiddish and German, think of Die Blechtrommel, The Tin Drum). I think now most people use a crock pot or other slow cooker to make cholent. Such modern conveniences!

[andiesenji]

My all-time favorite one-dish meal is meatless, pasta e fagioli  and I vary it with different types of beans and different types or shapes of pasta.

 

If desired one can add meats - smoked ham, bacon, leftover cooked beef, pork or chicken.  Endless choices.

[Martin Fisher]

I have a lot of favorites because on the farm casseroles were popular for several reasons...time savings was the biggest one...there's not a lot of spare time during the busy season(s).

Shepherd's pie and classic cassoulet are at the top of the list.

[Shel_B]

We do love egg noodles though.  Lokshen kugel, the savory one, I remember from childhood also.  Thank you for leading me back to that one.

 

If you enjoy kugel, you might enjoy a Jerusalem Kugel.  There are some recipes for such on line, but, if you're interested,  I'll be happy to shoot you the one I use when I get home after the weekend.

[ChefPip]

I would mention "The Amish Breakfast Casserole" for your list

 

 

Link to image: http://www.recipechatter.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/breakfastmacncheese.jpg

 

 

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/amish-breakfast-casserole

 

 

If you haven't tasted this, reserve a piece of it for yourself before serving your diners..  LOL   It almost disappears

before your eyes.  I'd suggest having some biscuits & gravy,  fried apples, and grits to go with this. I've known of some

restaurants that opened early in the morning that had this on their breakfast menu.  Some of the working men would come in and have "doubles orders" of it as it was that good.  It was always a sell out.before the businessmen got there. 

[Jaymes]

My all-time favorite one-dish meal is meatless, pasta e fagioli  and I vary it with different types of beans and different types or shapes of pasta.

 

If desired one can add meats - smoked ham, bacon, leftover cooked beef, pork or chicken.  Endless choices.

A favorite in our house, too. We like it best with cannellini beans and pancetta.

[gfweb]

Does lasagna count?

[Martin Fisher]

We do love egg noodles though.  Lokshen kugel, the savory one, I remember from childhood also. 

 

I love that stuff but haven't had it in many years.

[huiray]

The OP talks about casseroles but also includes one-dish-meals in the subject matter.

 

So, with me, regarding "one-dish (or one-pot) meals":

• Rice congee with whatever I add in that day, cooked in the same pot.  I've posted about them here.

• Any number of "Instant Noodle" or "Ramen" packs gussied up with whatever I feel like in the same pot.  Ditto.

• Any number of soups (hearty or otherwise) I cook in the same pot and eat as-is; and there are lots of them which I have posted about here.

• "Irish Stew".

• Although it does involve another pot or bowl, any number of braises (meat + veg) I do; eaten w/ or w/o something like rice noodles( mei fun) softened in the same bowl (w/ hot water) that the braised stuff is ladled into, etc etc.  I've posted many of them here too.

Etc.

 

I do almost all of my cooking on the stove top.  Using the oven is very, very rare for me.  Home cooking with an oven is almost mandatory with Western/European cooking but this is not so in very large swaths of the world elsewhere.

 

None of them are specific "favorites".  I just do whatever I feel like that day.

Edited November 2, 2014 by huiray (log)

[annachan]

Mac n cheese

Claypot rice

Fideau & paella

Rice noodle w/ satay beef

Macaroni in soup, ham and egg as toppings

[basquecook]

I don't know if it's my favorite but, I am having some people over for the marathon this morning and will make as a dish, eggs in purgatory.  I have to make the tomato sauce but, one could open a can of tomato sauce, add some onions, red pepper flakes and then crack some eggs into the sauce before baking and serving with bread.  Simple and really satisfying.. If you are hosting brunch with a hangover (i don't have one), it's a cheap, easy and impressive meal.  

 

I also make a baked egg dish that has a layer of spinach, ham, egg and cheese.  

Edited November 2, 2014 by basquecook (log)