Crazy For Casseroles

As I mentioned earlier, Harry Lowe, gifted me with the worlds best casserole dish and I have been vigorously using it. There are few food things that Southerner's know better than a good casserole. So naturally one should turn to fellow Southerner, James Villas for tips on that classic. It is said that every great Southern hostess has several casseroles carefully frozen in the freezer just in case someone were to die and a quick funeral dish was needed.

As Villas points out, the 1970's were not kind to casseroles. (Frankly, I am not so sure that the 1970's were kind to much of anything, but I digress...) Some canned soup and crumbled cereal do not a casserole make. In Crazy for Casseroles, Villas gives the reader a staggering 275 casserole options. That is a lot of casserole action. Many of the casseroles will be familiar, many of them are derived from friends and family. Villas has a lot of friends and it is amazing how many of them have a fave casserole. This one was inspired by a casserole from David Page's restaurant, Home.

David’s Chicken, Ham, Artichoke, and Pasta Casserole

1/4 cup olive oil
2 medium-size onions, minced
2 large celery ribs, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 cups milk
1 cup diced cooked ham
4 cups shredded cooked chicken
4 large artichoke hearts (cooked fresh or bottled), quartered
1/2 cup sour cream
1 pound rigatoni, cooked according to package directions and drained
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup soft bread crumbs
2 tablespoons butter, melted

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 3- to 3 ½ -quart casserole.

2. In a large heavy pot, heat the oil over low heat, add the onions, celery, garlic, and nutmeg, and
stir till softened, about 7 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the top and stir 2 minutes longer. Add the
wine, increase the heat to moderate, and cook for 3 minutes. Add the milk and stir till thickened,
about 3 minutes. Add the ham, chicken, artichoke hearts, and sour cream and cook for 3 minutes.
Add the pasta and cheese and toss till everything is well blended.

3. Transfer to the casserole, sprinkle the crumbs evenly over the top, drizzle the melted butter
over the crumbs, and bake till bubbly, about 30 minutes.

I say, stick that tuna casserole in the freezer for your next funeral and serve this one up in a festive celebration.

Cooking for Many

Most cookbooks offer up recipes for serving two or four or six, but few cookbooks provide recipes for large events. Longtime cookbook author, Charlotte Turgeon, filled to void of a cookbook to feed larger crowds from 10 to 200 in her book Cooking for Many.

Cooking for Many is divided up in the way you might think it would be, in menus for special occasions such as Christmas and weddings. Each menu features a nifty shopping list, so when you out and about trying to make casseroles for 200 you won’t forget to pick up the bay leaves or sherry.

Since the recipes call for large amounts, many of the recipes transpire over several days or take on an interesting approach of diving the recipe into a “sooner” and “later” division of time for such involved undertakings.

This is an offering for a church gathering. I can remember eating a lot of turkey tetrazinni or “tetrazzone” at many a church gathering, though I am quite sure that it was never made in such a large quantity. But if I ever need to whip up a batch for 200, I know just what to do.

Turkey Tetrazzone

2 20-pound turkeys
1 bunch celery
1 pound carrots, sliced
6 large onions (1 1/2 pounds)
12 cloves
3 tablespoons salt
12 peppercorns
4 bay leaves 1 teaspoon thyme
20 pounds egg noodles

Sauce:

2 1/2 pounds margarine
3 pounds (12 cups) flour
2 gallons turkey broth
2 gallons milk
1 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
6 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons white pepper
3 cups sherry
10 8-ounce cans sliced mushrooms
1 pound grated Parmesan cheese
large bunch parsley

First Day: Place each bird, which has been quartered by the butcher, into a large kettle. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil, skimming off any matter that comes to the surface. Divide the seasoning between the two kettles, sticking the cloves in the onions. Poach the turkeys for 3 hours or until tender but not over-cooked. Remove to large pans. Peel off the skin and put it back in the kettles, and boil down the stock until there is a little more than a gallon in each kettle. Strain into one large kettle. Cool and refrigerate the broth and the turkey overnight.

Second day: Skim off the coagulated fat from the top of the broth and heat the broth along with the milk in a large kettle. Heat margarine in another kettle but do not let it brown. Remove from the fire and stir in the flour. When well mixed, add I gallon of the hot liquid and stir until well blended.
Add the seasonings and sherry. Simmer over low heat for thirty minutes. Taste for seasoning.

Using as many kettles as feasible, cook the noodles – not more than 2 pounds at a time in one kettle – in large amounts of boiling salted water for 6 minutes. Run cold water over the cooked noodles.

During these procedures, the cook’s assistant should be boning the turkey and cutting the meat into thin strips.

Drain the mushrooms.

Arrange 20 2-quart casseroles on the working counter. Into each casserole put a 2-inch layer of noodles. Cover with a layer of turkey and pour 2 cups of sauce over it. Repeat. Spread a thin layer of mushrooms on the last layer of sauce, cover with a film of sauce, and sprinkle with cheese. Cover and store overnight in the refrigerator.

Serving day: Bake each casserole for 1 hour at 375 F. Reduce the heat to 200 if the casseroles need to be kept warm. Garnish each with a small bouquet of parsley before serving.

If you are planning to feed a big crowd for the Super Bowl, this should help you out. But you need to start today or you won't have it on the table by Sunday.

The Southern Plantations Cook

The Southern Plantations Cook features recipes from shooting plantations all around the South. For those of you who don't kill your own food, a shooting plantation is like a bed and breakfast with ammo. You go there to stay surrounded by old world charm and in the morning you go out into the fields and hunt things...deer, quail, boar, turkey, whatever might be roaming in the woods. Then you bring your catch back to the plantation and they cook it up with tasty side dishes.

This is not everyone's cup of tea, but I am sure there is a Motel-6 down the road if you are uninclined. The Southern Plantations Cook has a large number of quail recipes and I thing quail is often overlooked bird. The good news about quail is that most anyone can find them frozen in larger grocery stores eliminating the need trudge around in the filed to shoot them.

As for Southern side dishes, well The Southern Plantations Cook has a couple that are truly unique. Recently I heard two well known cooks discuss their favorite casseroles tucked inside Southern church cookbooks. This is definitely a one for the church social.

Hot Pineapple Casserole

1 large can crushed pineapple in natural juices
1/2 cup butter, melted
4 slices bread, torn in bite sized pieces
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon four

Spread pineapple in a grease casserole dish. Top with butter and bread pieces. Mix to combine. Add sugar, eggs and flour and mix again.

Bake, uncovered, in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes. Do not brown.

You have come this far, don't shy away now. The more I read this recipe, the more I believed that would be quite improved by using ACTUAL pineapple. Again, in a large grocery store, one can find fresh pineapple all dressed and ready to go. Turn those bread slices into a nice crumb and Hot Pineapple Casserole is a fine accompaniment to almost any fowl.

And, I'll bet no one you know has made this for guest. Go ahead, you know you want to.