The Comfort Casserole (or "What can we throw in a pan?")

Most of the time I am making dishes from scratch- carefully breaded chicken, homemade sauces, soups that take longer to create than they do to eat. Then there are those times that I want something easy. Something thrown together. In this case, that something was a casserole.

This wasn't going to just be any casserole. It was going to be a comfort casserole. I was at work having a particularly difficult day, and started thinking about what I wanted for dinner. I wanted something comforting, and in this situation, that meant something cheesy, potato-y, and chicken-y.

What part of the chicken do the rings come from? 

I really love those bags of frozen chicken rings. Basically, they're just small chicken patties with the centers cut out, but yum. Seriously. I had a bag of diced potatoes, and a random package of marked down bacon, a bag of white onions, some green onions, a few Roma tomatoes, and a couple of half-empty bags of cheese.

I cooked the chicken rings in my toaster oven, then lined the bottom of the lasagna pan with them. The diced potatoes were cooked on the stove top with a little olive oil, and the bacon was done in a smaller pan on the stove top. I topped the chicken rings with a mixture of the browned potatoes, sliced onions, crumbled bacon, and shredded cheese. Popped it into the oven for 20 minutes or so at 400, and took it out. As I spooned the gooey concoction onto my plate, I topped it with some diced tomatoes and chopped green onion, and finished it off with some ranch dressing.

Not one of my more elegant dishes, but I'll be damned if it wasn't delicious. Sometimes the comfort foods are the best remedy for a bad day.

Feeding the book club- Part II

It’s that time again- time to feed the book club! As I've said before, I look forward to it more than anything because I love cooking and serving groups. This time, I didn't spend that much time coming up with a specific dinner- it all just kind of happened randomly as I wandered around Kroger.

The first piece of the puzzle happened when I found some marked-down organic veal sirloin cuts. The price was too good to pass up, so I grabbed them. It’s been a while since I've cooked veal cutlets like that, and I didn't want to just do plain broiled or grilled. I ran a quick trial on some pork medallions to test three different methods and spices- broiled/chimichury, broiled/salt and pepper, lightly fried in olive oil with breadcrumbs and yellow curry. Lisa and I tried them all and settled on the fried variety. The trick was going to be A) not overcooking it and B) not having too much oil. This was going to be cooking without a net on the day of book club.

Pre-breading 

Post-breading

Sizzle sizzle!

The next piece of the puzzle was figuring out what to serve alongside the veal. I was thinking about doing a baked potato, but then changed my mind when I thought about what the veal sirloin looked like- mini steaks! So what would you have with a mini steak? Mini baked potatoes! I got some baby red jacket potatoes and cooked them like a regular baked potato, split them, and served them with the usual accouterments.

I forgot to get a picture of the potatoes, but they looked similar to these.

The last piece was the most difficult to conceptualize. I knew in my head what I wanted. Kind of. My doodles were the genesis of what became my crispy spinach salad, but it went through a couple of revisions before I had it right. 

Right in between interview questions and ERP implementation tasks. Where will YOU be when inspiration strikes?

It started with thinking about doing a spinach salad, but again, that’s a very expected side to go with veal and potatoes. I wanted to see if I would be able to make spinach crispy by either frying it or baking it. I decided to try baking it first- 350 degrees for about 10 minutes, single-layered on a baking pan. The spinach dried out and got crispy as I had hoped, but I ran into some problems with it sticking to the foil, so I tried again with a little spray of PAM. This time it worked great, and I was able to get the spinach off without any issue.

Baked and crispy spinach

The first pass was to stack spinach, provolone, and then more spinach, and top it with a bit of vinaigrette. It was, for lack of a better word, boring both visually and taste-wise. My second attempt added a tomato slice to the bottom, and this time I stacked the spinach, cheese and spinach on top of the slice of tomato and cooked it at a low temp on the stove top to melt the cheese and give the tomato a bit of a cooked flavor. I topped the finished product with Parmesan cheese and a drop or two of vinaigrette. This was miles better than the first try, but still was lacking…something. I wanted to have something that would add a savory flavor to the side. I went through my refrigerator and found exactly what I needed- Genoa salami!

Tomatoes on top of salami, waiting for the spinach and cheese

The final revision was the same as the second version, only this time the tomato/spinach/cheese was placed on top of a slice of salami and then cooked. A happy accident occurred when, as the salami heated up, it curled up and over the edge of the tomato slice, which looked really nice. I eliminated the vinaigrette, as the salami/tomato/cheese had enough intermingling flavors that it was no longer required.

Lid on to help melt the cheese

Fully assembled but not cooked

With the dinner planned, all that was left was to make it for everyone. One thing that I’ve always excelled at (even back to my days as head cook at Hoggy’s!) was getting everything to come up at the same time. It’s a strategy, to be certain, figuring out how long everything needs to cook and raising or lowering temperatures speed or slow things. This worked out great- the veal with the breadcrumbs and curry was flavorful, tender, juicy and crispy. The salami/tomato/spinach/cheese “salad” was as delicious as it was unique, and the baby baked potatoes were the perfect complement to the rest of the dish.  

Yes, I even created a menu for them!

In the end, this dish wasn't as impulsive as the rest of the meals I've blogged about, but it is interesting to follow the train of thought from idea to plate from time to time.

Until next time!

Sllabtaem yseehc

Dreams are like repressed desires of things we wish we could have. In this case, my repressed desire consisted of a cheesy meatball risotto. I mean, if you're going to dream, dream big.

Do they serve meatballs in the Black Lodge?

Basically I had a dream where I was eating meatballs in a creamy, cheesy sauce, but it was a little spicy and had a lot of tomatoes in it. Think sort of like a tortilla and cheese soup, but a little thicker, served over risotto. Why? I don't know. Most of my dreams are typically night-spanning epics, involving subplots and cliffhangers, but this...this was different. Maybe it was a commercial? Anyway, I wanted to make it.

Since I had other things going on that night, I opted for pre-made meatballs and baked them in the oven. The sauce was going to be 100% trial and error. I started with about two cups of water and a few chicken bullion cubes. I added about 3/4 cup of milk as well. I brought that to a boil and added Velveeta (well, the Kroger version) and a can of diced fire-roasted tomatoes to the sauce. I let that all start to simmer and then added a small can of chipotle sauce that I had purchased a bunch of when they were marked down to $0.29. 

 

The sauce began to thicken and the meatballs were nicely baked, so I removed the meatballs from the oven and combined them into the sauce. I figured any mingling of flavors would be good while the risotto cooked. As the risotto finished, I ground some black pepper into the sauce. 

I plated the dish with risotto on the bottom and meatballs on top, covered with the cheesy sauce. It didn't turn out as thick as it was in my dream, but then again I literally threw this together with stuff I had at the house (and I had spent most of the evening working on my Mustang, so it was nearly 8pm when I started cooking!)

Gratuitous picture of my Mustang

In the end, it turned out to be delicious! A little spicy, lots of tomato, oodles of cheese, and a really nice risotto base. It made a ton, so I am looking forward to eating the leftovers.