A Quick, Easy Happy Family Casserole Your Family Will Adore

Recently, my son, once again, threw me under the bus with my husband. Here's how it played out:

My husband wants me to cook organic meals for the kids from scratch. Unfortunately, the kids don't want those meals – they want crap, like frozen pizza and microwaveable fried chicken. My daughter will settle for pasta (Kraft mac and cheese – as long as REAL cheese is not involved), but Junior is really picky. Half the stuff I make, he won't eat, yet, whenever Daddy's around, the kid becomes a martyr and wails, “Mom, I WANT nutritious food, Mom, but you never make it!!!” SUCH BULLSHIT!! So tonight, I came up with my easy:

Happy Family Casserole

Since it was made on the fly, measurements are approximate.  

Ingredients:

• 3 pounds of ground meat (turkey, beef – whatever the family will eat); I used lean ground turkey
• 2 cups of frozen or fresh veggies (again, whatever the hell they'll eat); I used chopped broccoli because I wanted there to be a lot of small pieces
• ¼ c of Worcestershire sauce
• salt and pepper (to taste)
• 1 cup of diced frozen or fresh onions (if they'll eat them)
• 2 cups of frozen hash brown potatoes
• ¼ cup of butter or margarine
• 1 package of shredded American cheese (again, if they like it)

Instructions:

1. Brown the meat and onions in a skillet and add the Worcestershire sauce.
2. Spray a lasagna pan (approximately 10x14) with non-stick spray.
3. Spoon the mixture into the bottom of the pan; add salt and pepper if you want.
4. Layer your vegetables over the meat and sprinkle with a handful or two of cheese.
5. Spread the two cups of frozen hash browns.
6. Using a teaspoon, drop teaspoons of the margarine over the hash browns and sprinkle the top liberally with the shredded cheese. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

What you have now looks like a pseudo-lasagna. Bake at 400 degrees until the potatoes are brown and the cheese on the top has melted.

That's it!

This dish was popular with the family for several reasons:

1. My husband liked it because it was nutritious.
2. The kids liked it because it involved meat and vegetables COVERED with cheese (always popular here).
3. I LOVED it because of its versatility. 
   
   

You can easily use shredded chicken and whatever veggies your kids will eat (or whatever you can hide among the meat).  In the future, I'll use black beans and some salsa, for a Southwest flavor. If your family is vegetarian, use soy crumbles or tofu. Got fresh veggies from your garden? Throw them in! This dish also freezes really well. 

The Happy Family Casserole will be on my list of go-to dishes and it looks nice enough to even serve company.

Try it and let me know                                  

what YOUR variations are!

Thanks for reading!

 

The Lazy Mom's BEST Ribollita (Bean) Soup EVER!

If you've been reading this blog, you KNOW that I cannot cook. I burn, I nuke (microwave), and make salads quite well, but cooking is not one of my talents. 

Still, many years ago before kids (BK), I traveled to Tuscany and experienced tried a food that changed my life.  It's called ribollita. 

For those who don't know, ribollita is a Tuscan bean soup. According to Wikipedia, the soup has peasant roots when it was originally made by reheating (or reboiling) leftover minestrone soup from the previous day. Some say the soup dates back to the Middle Ages when servants gathered up the bread from their lords' banquets and used it in their own dinners. Ribollita is made from leftover vegetables you have in your kitchen, beans, stock, perhaps some cheese, and old, crusty bread. It's one of those “throw together” suppers. The ribollita we had at a restaurant was so thick and hearty, you could eat it with a fork. 

Ribollita is a hearty, healthy soup!

Ever since then, I've been trying to re-create that original dish, but to no avail. Either my stock is off or the mix of vegetables isn't right. Until now. On the website Chewnibblenosh.com, they had a recipe adapted from Giada De Laurentis (find her original here). 

Yesterday, I modified the recipe even further to come up with THE BEST version of ribollita I've had since that original experience in Italy years ago!

Before I even list the ingredients, let me preface this by saying that MOST Italian food tastes better when it's had time to gel. By that I mean, make this either in the morning of the evening you're going to serve it, as I did, or the day before. In time, the flavors will coalesce, making it more flavorful the longer you leave it. This recipe supposedly serves 4 to 6 people, but my family had at least 6 servings of it yesterday, and we can easily get three more out of it. 

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

½ c extra-virgin olive oil

2 chopped onions (I used frozen chopped onions since I hate chopping them)

4 small carrots, chopped

4 to 6 ounces of chopped pancetta (I bought this in a package at the grocery store)

2 cloves of garlic, minced

½ teaspoon of salt & pepper (to taste)

1 6 oz. can of tomato paste

1 (14.5 oz.) can of diced tomatos, with the juice

1 (10 oz.) box of frozen, chopped spinach

2 cans of Cannelini beans

1 teaspoon each of dried thyme and rosemary

6 cups of low-sodium chicken broth

1 bay leaf

3 inch piece of Parmesan rind – save the rest of the cheese for grating on top

Any other veggies you might have lying around

1 cup of mozzarella cheese

½ loaf of leftover Italian or French bread (you can also use leftover bagels, matzoh, etc.)

Instructions:

1. In a large soup pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the carrots, onion, pancetta, garlic, salt & pepper. Cook about 10 minutes until the onion browns and the pancetta begins to crisp. Add the tomato paste and stir into the mixture. Then add the tomatos with the juice and the broth, stirring constantly.
2. Add the beans, spinach, thyme, rosemary, bay leaf, broth, leftover veggies, mozzarella, and the Parmesan rind. Break the bread into pieces and put it on top of the soup. Bring the soup to a low boil and keep it going for at least 25 minutes. I had it going until it boiled over, then just left it on the stove (sans heat) for a few hours.
3. Discard the bay leaf, stir the bread (which has absorbed the soup) into the ribollita, and spoon the soup into bowls. Serve with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
   
   
   
   

   

   I had three bowls of this ribollita and could EASILY have had more!

   
   

Ribollita  is a great dish during cold season and can easily be adapted depending on what vegetables the family likes.

It's nutritious and makes the house smell wonderful!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to grab another bowl before the family gets to it.  I LOVE this soup!  

Thanks for reading!!!