Casserole - beans, taters, chicken, cheese - super easy

Delicious one dish meal -
4 cups baked potatoes (peeled, chunked),
1 cup shredded cooked chicken,
4 ounces mozzarella cheese - cut into small bits
4 ounces mild cheddar cheese - cut into small bits,
1 can (1 1/2 cups) beans (drained of any broth) - any type will do, but I used black beans/kidney beans/pinto beans mixed.

Mix all a glass casserole dish (cake pan sized).  Cover with foil.  Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

Holiday Cooking Marathon - Pumpkin Mascarpone Pie, Pumpkin Soymilk Pie, Broccoli Casserole with cheese sauce

Holiday Cooking Marathon:

Pumpkin Mascarpone Pies –

3 ½ cups cooked, mashed pumpkin

1 ½ cups honey

6 large eggs

2 cups milk/cream mixture

12 ounces mascarpone cheese

8 ounces apricot preserves/jam

1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon sea salt

Mix all until smooth.  Pour into glass or ceramic pie pans (at least 2).  Bake at 350 for 60-90 minutes until dry on top and starting to crack.

Pumpkin Soymilk Pie

8 ounces cooked, mashed pumpkin

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup honey

4 eggs

8 ounces vanilla soymilk

Mix all until smooth.  Pour into metal pie pan.  Bake at 350 for 1 hour until dry on top and starting to crack.

Broccoli Casserole with cheese sauce

Broccoli

3 bunches broccoli cut into bite-sized bits.

3 cups thick chicken broth (chicken broth boiled down to at least ½ original amount to concentrate flavors and to make freezer storage easier)

½ onion, finely minced

3 cloves garlic, minced/crushed

1 cup water

Put all ingredients in large stock pot.  Bring to boil.  Cover.  Boil 4 minutes until broccoli starts to soften and turns bright green.  DRAIN – SAVING THE BROTH!!.  Run cold water over broccoli to stop cooking.  Set aside.

Return broth to stock pan to use in cheese sauce.

Cheese sauce

8 ounces Colby cheese, shredded

8 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded

4 ounces feta cheese, shredded/crumbled

4 ounces finely shredded Asiago cheese

4 cups full-flavor broth (ex. Broth from the broccoli, thick chicken broth, chicken broth plus extra bouillon cube, etc.)

1 cup 50/50 bean flour (Besan flour) and starch (I used a blend of tapioca starch and sweet potato starch)

2 cups cold water.

16 ounces sour cream

6 eggs

Bring broth to boil.  While broth comes to boil, mix water and flour/starch until smooth (Important that there are no lumps!!). 

Set cheeses in bowl beside stove.  Set sour cream beside stove. 

Once broth boils, drizzle flour/starch/water mixture into broth STIRRING CONSTANTLY.  It should thicken quickly.  IF too thick add more water.  If too thin add more starch/flour/water mixture.  Target is thick gravy consistency. 

Once thickened, still stirring constantly, start dropping handfuls of cheese into the pot.  Stir until melted.  Add another handful.  Continue until all cheese is added and melted. 

Stir in sour cream.  Bring to simmer.  Remove from heat.

In a large, metal bowl - Whisk eggs until smooth.  Slowly add hot cheese mixture ¼ cup at a time to temper the eggs.  When cheese mixture is completely added, sauce is complete. 

Put cooked broccoli in casserole dish.  Pour over cheese sauce until covered.  Bake in oven at 350 until browned and bubbly on top.

TIPS AND DISCUSSION

I had a ton of extra cheese sauce, so I also cut up a casserole dish worth of baby potatoes and covered those with the cheese sauce.  Still had a quart left, so am going to see if it mixes into mashed potatoes well.

My hands get sore because of fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis – so I did all mixing with a mixer. 

I have allergies, so I used safe for me ingredients.  Because so many of my friends and family have allergies, there are no brands listed here – too much possibility of reactions.

Thick broth – I make my own broth from chickens I stew.  When the bones and skin have had all the wonderful nutrients stewed out, I strain out the solids and then boil the broth down to about 1/6 of what the original volume was.  This creates something like a gel, which has an intense and wonderful flavor.  I use this for my base in lots of things that other people might use bouillon. 

Pies- the pies would probably be more flavorful with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, and other sweet spices – however I am now reacting to cinnamon and clove.  L  However, if this is not the case for you, go for it!

There are no crusts on the pies because I am cooking for myself and several family members so I am working around multiple food restrictions.  If I were making this just for myself, I would use ground nuts, honey, bean flour, and butter to make a crust.

Still to make – grain-free bread which will then be made into stuffing.  Roast.  Wild Turkey.  Devilled Eggs.  Sweet Tea.  Mashed potatoes. 

I think the cooking is my favorite part of ANY holiday!

Roasted taters and cheese. Beeswax lip & Hand balm - 2 recipes

Roasted Taters and Cheese
Last night, I was hungry, but really did not want to do much cooking and DEFINITELY did not want to do many dishes.  So, I thought about some sort of twist on a baked potato.  This is what I ended up with:

2 large (baking) potatoes - scrubbed clean.
8 ounces mozzarella (or any other) cheese
1 tablespoon butter

I sliced the scrubbed baking potatoes into rounds that were 1/4 inch thick.  It is important to get all rounds about the same thickness.

I put down a layer of potato rounds in the bottom of a glass casserole dish.  I then laid out a second layer on top of the first, offsetting the potatoes so the second layer lay over the edges of the potatoes below it.

I dotted the entire top layer with very thin slices of butter.

I put this into a cold oven and turned it onto 400 degrees fahrenheit, let it bake for 20 minutes.

At 20 minutes, I took the potatoes out of the oven and topped with thinly sliced mozzarella cheese (could use shredded cheese, but why bother with the work of shredding it when slices work just as well??).  I put the potatoes back into the oven for another 15-20 minutes.  When the cheese was toasty browned on top and crispy, I took them out of the oven.

It was a lovely meal to eat with salmon and green peas.  And, the amount of dishes - 1 casserole dish and 1 knife (I sliced the cheese in the casserole dish before layering on potatoes so I did not have to dirty a cutting board).

AWESOME!




BEESWAX LIP/HAND BALM

2 ounces of beeswax
1/2 cup castor oil
1/4 cup apricot kernel oil.

Put all ingredients in a double boiler (or if you don't have one as I do not, make one by sticking a smaller pot suspended in a bigger pot and fill the bigger pot so water covers the bottom 1/3 of the smaller pot's depth).

Heat OVER LOW HEAT (takes about 30-45 minutes) to melt the beeswax.  Stir frequently.  Time to completely melt beeswax is reduced if you chop the beeswax into thin chunks/slices prior to heating.

Once completely melted, turn out into glass dish with sides or into containers.  Once cool, use sharp, oiled knife to cut into small squares.  Wrap in waxed paper and then in foil.  Tie a little bow on it.  Give as gifts for hands/lips over winter.

Potato Fritatta - Recipe

Cooking fun for the day - Made a fritatta, but used potatoes instead of my typical squash.  Turned out pretty good.

2 large potatoes sliced thinly and evenly (If you slice them different thicknesses some will cook and others will still be crunchy)
4 eggs
2 cups milk
4 ounces colby jack cheese
2 ounces feta cheese

Slice potatoes very thin and set aside.  Mix eggs and milk and whisk well.  Set aside.  Crumble feta cheese into small crumbs.  Set aside.  Shred cheese.  Split into two bowls, 1 with about 1/2 cup of shredded cheese, the other with the rest.  Reserve the 1/2 cup of cheese to sprinkle on top of everything.

Once all ingredients are ready, oil a glass 9x12 baking dish (think cake pan size).  Layer potatoes, sprinkle of colby jack, potatoes, sprinkle of feta and repeat until out of ingredients.  When everything layered, slowly pour egg/milk mixture over the fritatta.  Sprinkle reserved cheese over the top.  Place uncovered in oven.  Turn on oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.  Turn oven down to 300 and bake another 30 minutes.

NOTE - I do not preheat the oven when using glass baking dishes, so this recipe is assuming you put the fritatta into a cold oven.