Casserole Derby

Okay, so Jess asked me for some casserole and slow-cooker recipes, and I thought this would be a good place to collect them.

Mostly I don't use a recipe for casseroles, but I do make them a lot, and I always make two at a time (one for dinner, one for the freezer).

One thing to note is that these casseroles take a loooooong time to thaw, like an hour on defrost in the microwave before they're ready for the oven. I've often taken them out and put them in the fridge the night before and found them still frozen by dinnertime. It's still convenient to have work-free dinners around, but they do take time.

Let's start with Baked Ziti
I came up with this after watching the movie In Good Company, and after the scene where Marg Hellgenberger drops the baked ziti and then pukes because she's pregnant, Ian said "aw that looked good. I want baked ziti." So, I came up with this dish which has now become one of our standards because it meets the golden triangle of criteria: easy, nutritious, cheap. The fat is a lot lower than your average lasagna because of the cottage cheese, and the italian-style vegetables include lima beans, which add protein. You can pack a lot of vegetables in here. This has displaced lasagna at our house, something I never thought possible.

Ingredients

• ziti noodles
• 1.5 jars tomato sauce
• 3 cups or more frozen italian-style vegetables
• a clove or two of garlic
  
• 1 egg
  
• 500 mL low-fat cottage cheese
• pinch nutmeg
• basil, oregano (fresh or dried) to taste, salt and pepper to taste (depends on the sauce you use)
  
• one ball part-skim mozarella cheese, grated (you probably won't use it all)
  

1. Preheat oven to 350, 375 if you want to hurry it up
2. Cook pasta (don't overcook as it will get baked later), drain, set aside
3. Combine frozen vegetables with some tomato sauce (I do this in a 4-C measuring cup), and microwave to thaw
4. mince garlic finely, or crush, and add to veggies, along with basil and oregano.
   
5. In the largest bowl you have, beat the egg and mix in the cottage cheese. Add nutmeg and about a third of the mozarella.
6. Add the cooked pasta to the cottage cheese mixture and toss to coat. This step gets all the cheesy creamy goodness inside those ziti tubes and ups the yummy quotient considerably.
7. Put a bit of sauce in the bottom of 2 casserole dishes, spread a quarter of the the pasta in each dish, then a quarter of the veggies, maybe a bit of extra mozza, then repeat the layers.
8. Top with mozzarella
9. Bake one casserole in your prepared oven until bubbly and melty and good. At 350 this will take around 40 mins, maybe 25 mins at 375.
10. Freeze the other casserole, unbaked, tightly covered with plastic wrap or foil.
    

Mexican!

This is a regular staple in our house. I don't want to quite call it fajitas, because there is no meat, and there are beans, so we just refer to it as "mexican," even though I make lots of other kinds of Mexican and Southwestern food nowadays. In any case, it's easy, nutritious, inexpensive, and super yummy, and no-one has ever complained that we eat it too often. Every other week or so, I buy an avacado quite hard and unripe, because when you buy them ripe they're just bruised, and then just let it ripen on the counter, and whichever day it's ripe is Mexican day - yay!

Components:
Tortillas (I usually buy medium-sized whole wheat or multigrain)
Refried Black or Pito Beans (see below)
Fajita Veggies (see below)
Guacamole (see below)
Salsa (I like Herdez medium Mexican salsa)
Shredded Cheese (monterey jack is best, but cheddar works too)
Lettuce of some sort
Corn Tortilla Chips (I'm way into Neal Brothers organic blue corn chips right now - they're so fine and crispy, they make Tostitos seem like cardboard, but I particularly hate Tostitos, don't get me started...)
Maybe some Sour Cream if something turns out hot

Guacamole (make this first)
1 ripe avocado
1 small clove garlic
juice of 1 half lime (or a squirt of bottled, but freshly squeezed tastes better - you could use lemon)
1 tsp salsa
1 pinch cumin
1 green onion, chopped
salt and pepper
Cut the avocado in half, remove the stone, and scoop the flesh into a bowl. Press garlic with a press, or crush it an mince it up very fine. Mash the avocado, garlic, and lime juice with a fork. Stir in the salsa, cumin, S&P, and chopped green onion. Leave it to sit a while for the flavours to meld, but not so long that it turns brown - 1/2 hour to an hour - while you're making everything else. I've heard various tricks for making guacamole keep, but as far as I can tell none of them really work, and guacamole really only tastes good when it's fresh - so eat it all now and don't bother saving leftovers.

Refried Beans
Most of the time these days I buy canned. My brother Brian insists that home made are better, and he's right, but I find that if I make the beans then this dinner goes from a quick and easy weeknight affair to something much more complicated. You can find good quality canned refried beans everywhere these days, but watch out for heavy fat or MSG content, as there is a lot of variation between brands. I like PC low-fat refried beans, or the Eden or Amy's refried black beans.
If I'm making the beans, I always make black beans, and I either start early with dry beans and cook them up in simmering water with a bay leaf until they're reasonably tender (it depends how fresh your beans are how long this will take: 45 mins to an hour and a half - it'll go faster if you soak them first overnight, but it isn't really necessary), or I start with canned beans. Then:
1 Tbsp canola oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp or more ground cumin (sometimes I use whole)
1/4 tsp ground coriander
pinch garam masala
1/8 tsp chili flakes
salt to taste
fresh ground pepper
1 1/2 cups cooked black beans or one normal-sized can of black beans, rinsed
2 C water or veggie stock
In a medium sauce pan, saute onion in oil over medium-low heat for a good while until it is starting to brown. Add in the cumin, coriander, and garam masala, and let the spices toast up a bit. Stir in the garlic, and cook for a minute or so but be careful not to scorch it. Add in the beans and stock or water to cover. Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, and adding in the chili, salt and pepper in the last five minutes or so. If it gets dry, add more water or stock, if it's too wet turn the heat up and stir it more. Mash with a potato masher. Can be made ahead and reheated, and freezes pretty well too, although it takes a long time to thaw.
Alternatively: open can, dump into a bowl and heat in the microwave (See, much easier).

Fajita Veggies
Ingredients will vary with the contents of my fridge:
1 Tbsp oil
1 medium onion
1 red, orange, or yellow pepper
1 large clove garlic
1 jalapeno pepper
1/2 a small zuchini or 1/2 cup of frozen corn niblets or whatever else I have kicking around
juice of the other half lime (or lemon)
salt and freshly ground pepper
Dice up vegetables or cut them into strips. I remove the seeds from the jalapeno, but you might like it hot and want to leave them in. Saute onion in oil until translucent, add the rest of the veggies and stir fry for a few minutes. Once they start to soften, sprinkle in the salt and pepper, which will help the veggies to give up their juices. When they do, squirt over the lime or lemon juice. Let them finish cooking as the juice evaporates.

Serve with all the rest of the components, and let everyone wrap their tortillas at the table. Arriba!

Welcome

Welcome to Mags's food blog, On A Roll. I like to eat and drink. I also like to cook. I try to keep things simple, but I get bored easily. Life is hectic, too, so I don't always get to put as much creative energy into my food as I would like and tend to wind up eating crap a lot. I've heard the same thing from lots of my friends, and others lament that they want to cook more, but they don't know how or what to do. So let's have a food blog to talk about the successes and failures in the kitchen, to share ideas and keep the ball rolling!

I will be posting "recipes" here, but I have a pretty loose style in the kitchen, and tend not to measure things (except when baking - then you have to measure). And I like to mix things up depending on what I happen to have on hand. These recipes are original, in the sense that I haven't consciously stolen them from anyone else, but sometimes I forget where I picked up an idea. When I do remember, I'll note it.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll get husband Ian to post some stuff here too. He's actually a much better cook than I am - although I have been on a roll lately (hence the title).

I may also post stuff about restaurants, stores, and other food-related things in Ottawa. Who knows?

Sesame Green Beans

This simple Asian-inspired green bean salad is good on its own for lunch when I'm feeling health conscious, or as a side dish for dinner. I threw it together after seeing a green bean salad at Farm Boy and thinking it looked tasty but it was expensive, so I figured I'd just make it myself. And it was tasty, and cheap, and easy, and nutritious - so a winner all round. I've made it several times now and it always turns out well, even if, like today, all you have is tough old winter beans. Of course, I forgot to take a picture before I ate it - oops. That's probably going to happen a lot.

Ingredients

• green beans (at least two big handfuls)
• sesame seeds - 1/2 Tbsp?
• vegetable oil (I used peanut today for the richness) - 1/2 Tbsp?
• soy sauce - 1 tsp
• juice of half a lemon (or 1 Tbsp orange juice - but then you probably don't want the honey, unless you like your salad dressings sweet - who am I to judge?)
• a small squirt of honey - 1/2 tsp?
  
• a dash toasted sesame oil
• rice vinegar - 1/2 Tbsp?
• peanut butter - 1/2 Tbsp?

Method

1. Put some water in a pot to boil. Clean green beans and remove ends. When water is boiling, add some salt, and the green beans. Cook until tender but not overcooked - depends on your beans - today it took about 8 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat a frying pan up over med-low heat, throw in the sesame seeds and let them toast, tossing occasionally.
3. While those are going, mix up the rest of the ingredients in a good-sized bowl with a fork. If it looks like you have too much dressing, pour some out into a small jar to save for next time. Or, if you've thought ahead and figured out that there's going to be too much dressing, make it in a jar in the first place.
4. When beans are cooked, pour out the hot water and run cold water over them to cool. Then dump them into the dressing, toss them (with the fork), top with the toasted sesame seeds and toss some more.
   
5. Eat.