Potato Casserole

I'm not entirely certain why I keep turning on the oven as the weather heats up. I'll just blame it on the fact that we've got too much ground beef sitting around.

Anyway. I was actually hoping for something similar to what my cousin brings to almost every family xmas dinner, but this substantially different, mostly because I needed a main dish, and not a side. It's like a shepherd's pie, but with layers of scalloped potatoes, kinda.


Ingredients:
2 cups ground beef
0.5 tsp ginger paste
0.5 lbs mushrooms, sliced
1 red pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
3 large potatoes, thinly sliced
4 cups shredded cheese
250 mL cream, mixed with 125 mL milk
seasonings


Method:
Brown beef with ginger. Drain away the fat.
Add mushrooms and lightly sautee.
Turn off heat and mix in onions and pepper.
Season as you wish. (We used garlic powder, pepper, oregano, basil, paprika)

Preheat oven to 425F.
Assemble the casserole. If you have a large casserole dish, great. We had a round 3L and a deep square 2L, I think.
Layer like so: potatoes, meat mix, sprinke some cheese, potatoe, meat mix, cheese. Use your judgement for how thick the layers should be. Leave room so the liquid doesn't boil over.
Pour in the cream/milk.
Cover and bake for 35 minutes.
Reduce heat to 400F, uncover, and bake for another 30 minutes, until top is brown.
Let stand 10 minutes before serving.


Comments:
The red pepper made this tex-mexy. I felt like I needed salsa.

The original recipe called for mixing the seasonings with the cream and then pouring it on. I found this caused uneven distribution of taste.

Some potatoes were still semi-crunchy, but letting stand took care of it.

The v-slicer rocks! We used it for all except the mushrooms.


Verdict:
Good, but not really a stand-alone dish.

Beef Stroganoff

After realizing that I'd need lunch, and that Will would be left to his own devices for dinner while I worked an evening shift, something relatively quick was needed. (Will sometimes has this college mentality where chips and pop is considered a meal. I didn't want to risk it.)

Ingredients (probably makes 4-6 servings; it's hard to tell, since we haven't eaten it yet):
1 pkg egg noodles
2 cups frozen peas
2 cups (about 0.5 lb) ground beef
1 tsp ginger paste
1 onion, diced
2 cups (or so) mushrooms, sliced
1 cup stock (beef/chicken/veg), seasoned with Worcestershire and Maggi
1 small tub (250ml) sour cream


Method:
Cook the noodles with some oil. Near the end, add in the peas. Drain and set aside.
In a 4L pot, brown the beef with ginger.
Add in onions and saute.
Add mushrooms and cook.
Add stock and noodles and heat through.
Turn off the heat and stir in sour cream.
Enjoy!


Comments:
The addition of Maggi really makes it Chinese-y. Don't ask; it just reminds me of Chinese dishes.

The ginger is optional, but I find it cuts out that heavy beefy smell.

We buy ground beef in large amounts when it is on sale and portion them into 4 2-cup ziploc tubs, hence the odd measurement in the recipes. I think one tray of beef is about 1kg, so 1 tub would be about 250g. I could be completely off, though.

The mushrooms release a lot of water, which helps to create the sauce. If you don't use mushrooms, you'll need to add in more stock.

I used lean ground beef and 7% sour cream. Regular sour cream is 14%, and there's also fat-free, if you're worried about that.

I was going for quick and easy, so no other veggies. Otherwise, I would've added zucchini, celery, and maybe eggplant. (... maybe not, since Will doesn't like eggplant).

Stroganoff's supposed to have more sauce. I purposely made it a bit drier because it's mostly going to serve as lunch, and I didn't want mushy noodles.

Verdict:

The taste test was good. Will have to see how well it holds up through a reheat cycle.

Lasagna

Yesterday was my first half day in a long time, so I thought I'd make something.

Ingredients (Makes 6 servings, though Will ate 2 in one go)
9 lasagna noodles, cooked, rinsed and drained
250g or so of ground beef
1 tsp of ginger paste (optional)
1 bottle/can of pasta sauce
1 carrot, chopped
1 zucchini, halved lengthwise, then thinly sliced
1 orange pepper, diced
1 lb mushrooms, thinly sliced
Seasonings (oregano, sugar, salt, pepper, cayenne)
1 package frozen spinach, thawed, and squeezed of excess water
1 tub cottage cheese (500g)
340g mozzarella, shredded


Method:
In a large bowl, mix together cottage cheese and spinach.

In a large pot, brown the beef with ginger.
Add mushrooms, carrots and pepper.
If the mushrooms release a lot of moisture, drain, and add pasta sauce and zucchini.
Cook the sauce and season as you wish.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Assemble the lasagna:
Put a small amount of sauce on the bottom of a rectangular pyrex dish.
Layer like so:
Noodles. Trim the noodles to fit and use the trimmings to fill in gaps.
Sauce. Sprinkle with a bit of mozza.
Noodles.
Spinach and cottage cheese mix.
Noodles.
Sauce with some mozza.
Noodles.
Sauce and top with the rest of the mozza.

Bake until the cheese is bubbly. Then broil at 400F to brown the top.

Enjoy!


Comments:
This filled my pyrex to the very brim and there was still sauce leftover. A large Corning casserole dish could probably hold more, and the noodles would probably fit better too, with each layer having 3 noodles, instead of a length of just short of 1 noodle, and a width of just more than 2. (Provided, of course, that the noodles come in standard sizes). Oh, and it was a lot of cottage cheese for that size dish.

I don't like that beefy smell, so hence the ginger.

Things probably would've gone faster if I had used the v-slicer.

This is a bit blurry, but there are the layers.

Verdict:
A bit of work, but worth it! Cheaper and waaaaaay healthier than the frozen stuff.

Spinach Gomae

I've always loved this, but really only ate it at all-you-can eat places because only then could I eat to my heart's content. A simple, refreshing recipe for the coming summer.

Ingredients:
1 bunch spinach
0.5 tsp sugar
4 tbs white sesame seeds, toasted and ground
1 tbs soy sauce


Method:
Dissolve sugar in soy sauce. Add more sugar if you like it sweeter.
Mix with sesame. Add more soy sauce to taste, if desired. Set aside.
Wash spinach and cut into 3 cm pieces.
Boil spinach and rinse with cold water.
Drain well, gently squeezing out excess water.
Mix with sesame sauce.
Cover and chill until serving. This step also allows the water to creep out and thin the sauce. Serve immediately if you want the sauce to stay chunky.


Comments:
It is tastier to toast the sesame yourself. Just heat it in a pan, stirring to prevent burning, until fragrant and golden.

I also ground the sesame myself, using the dry mill of my bamix hand blender.



Verdict:
We used two bunches and ate it all in one go, one bunch for each of us ^^