Green Bean Casserole (aka, Green Beans Au Gratin)

I made this to go with lamb chops. I've never made green bean casserole, but this was good, pretty much the classic recipe. I liked that the green beans were whole, but they were a little crisp still, so next time I may cook them a few more minutes beforehand.

Ingredients:
1 lb. raw green beans
1/2-1 c. bread crumbs
1 recipe cream sauce

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400

Remove stems from green beans and boil or steam for 3-5 minutes
 
Butter a casserole and toss green beans with cream sauce, making sure they're well coated.
 
Sprinkle bread crumbs over the top
 
Bake about 20 minutes until sauce is bubbly

Pasta with Zucchini Pesto

Notice how I cook in trends? For a while it's ham, then it's rice, then it's pasta...Really, it's just because I look at a recipe and then see some right next to it that look good, so I mark them and while they're fresh in my mind, I come back to them.
 
Anyhoo, my husband asked for spaghetti one night, so I started looking through the pasta section of Fannie Farmer. This recipe was perfect because it uses a lot of zucchini, and I'm drowning in the stuff, and cream cheese, which I just made. Since I'm all proud of my cream cheese, of course I'm looking for ways to use it! Unfortunately, I didn't have fresh basil for this. Fannie Farmer doesn't call it pesto, she just calls it 'pasta with zucchini,' but from the strong basil flavor, even using dried basil, I would call it a pesto even though it is technically just basil sauce.
 

Cooking in pan.

For this, I used:
1/2-3/4 lb. whole wheat spaghetti
3 tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 c. grated zucchini
4 oz. cream cheese
1/2 c. whole milk
1/2 c. fresh basil (or about 1/4 c. dried)
salt & pepper to taste

Put your pasta on to cook and make the sauce as follows:

• Put olive oil in sauce pan or skillet and heat, then add garlic and cook for about 1 minute on medium heat.
• Add zucchini and cook another 3-5 minutes.
• Add milk and cream cheese and cook until cream cheese melts and sauce bubbles.
• Stir in salt & pepper & basil.
• Drain pasta and toss or top with sauce.

 This was pretty tasty. If I made it again, I'd have to have fresh basil, though. And the sauce was a bit thin, so I think I'd like it better if it had more milk and was a creamier sauce. But otherwise, it was tasty and super quick and easy. A good vegetarian meal.

Creamed Chicken (with Peas)

This recipe was both simple and time consuming. We had some chicken to use up, so I looked through The Fannie Farmer Cookbook until I found a recipe that only used a little chicken. Vegetables were optional, so I used about a half cup of peas we had thawed the day before and hadn't used.

Creamed chicken:
2 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. flour
1 1/2 c. cooked chicken (I only had 1 c. shredded, so that's what I used)
1 c. chicken broth
1/3 c. cream (I used whole milk)
salt and pepper


I actually used a double boiler, possibly for the first time ever. We've had one for years, but I usually just use it as a pan or for storing leftovers. So I thought I'd used it as it is supposed to be used.

Melt butter in double boiler.
Mix in flour until completely blended.
Gradually add chicken broth (or 1 c. milk) stirring constantly
Stir over low heat until thick.
Bring to boiling for 2 minutes.
Add cream, chicken, and salt and pepper to taste
Heat at least 1/2 hr in double boiler so chicken absorbs moisture and sauce.
If it gets too thick, add more liquid. I had to add more chicken broth and more milk.
Serve on biscuits, waffles, or rice.
Decorate with bacon, parsley, watercress, pimiento, or paprika.

Optional add-ins: mushrooms, peas, ham, celery, or hard-boiled egg (weird, right?)

I added peas into it. It tasted much like the inside of a chicken pot pie. The sauce was thick but not too thick, and it tasted very good. I served it with Parsley Rice (recipe tomorrow), so I didn't garnish the chicken with parsley. I sprinkled paprika over it, and it was pretty okay. My son, the picky eater, loved it and asked for more (instead of the parsley rice, which I thought he would love) even though it was not the most photogenic, beautiful food I've ever made.

Overall, this is an okay recipe that is a good way to use up leftover chicken, but I don't know that I would go out of my way to make it again. Maybe if I have some chicken on hand again, I'll try one of the other creamed chicken recipes Fannie Farmer offers.

Cream Sauce, or Basic White Sauce

I made this sauce to go on Bubble & Squeak, a recipe you can find in this post. This is for a basic cream sauce, which can be used on any number of things. So make sure to mark it if you use cream sauce. This one is delicious, and simple enough that even a kitchen klutz like me can make it. Here is the recipe from my mother's edition: The All New Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking School Cookbook. I love the little pictures of utensils in her tattered old edition.




I did not use a double boiler, as I do not have one. I just used a sauce pan. Of course I messed it up a little, as the pan was already too hot when I added the butter, so it immediately started to brown *facepalm*.  Also, my Fannie Farmer (as we call the cookbook around our house) calls for using warm milk if you're a beginner, which of course I did. It didn't turn out half bad. I was a bit proud of myself afterwards, I admit, since it turned out good despite the browned butter fiasco.

I was so stressed while making this that I didn't take any pictures, but since it's a staple and basic anyway, I'm going to go ahead and add it to the blog. It's a must for anyone wanting to move on to more complicated dishes. One day, I will master it (use Dracula-esque voice here, and feel free to add an evil laugh at the end).

Pictures in my mom's Fannie Farmer.

Bubble and Squeak (cabbage and sausage or ground beef)

This dish is one I've been eating since I was a little kid, and the one that made me finally decide to make this blog, which I had considered before. I'd decided it was too large an undertaking, and I'd gone back to looking up recipes on Pinterest.

One of my childhood favorites.

When my garden started bearing, I was as excited as any first-year gardener. Bursting with excitement to cook my very first head of homegrown cabbage, I headed to Pinterest and looked up bubble and squeak, only to find many recipes that said to cook this in a frying pan, and not one called for cream sauce. I didn't want to make their recipe, though. I wanted to make the one my dad used to make us as kids. So I went to my trusty Fannie Farmer Cookbook, and there it was.



Bubble-and-Squeak
Put in layers in a casserole:
1 lb. cooked sausage meat (*if using ground beef, see seasoning note below)
2 cups chopped cabbage (I used raw, but will try cooking it first next time)
Pour over the top 2 cups cream sauce (this recipe makes one cup, so double it)
Optional: Top with bread crumbs.
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Edges browning in the cast iron dutch oven.

My sister adds potatoes to hers, and it does add some substance, so if you're not paleo, you might try a layer of cooked potatoes at the bottom of the dish. I cooked mine a little too long, so they were more like mashed potatoes, but you could cook them until they are just getting soft, since they will cook some in the casserole. My oldest sister suggested steaming the potatoes along with the cabbage for a few minutes before putting it all together. I might try that next time, as the cabbage was a bit crunchy (or squeaky) when ours finished cooking.

After coming out of oven.

*I did not have sausage, so I used ground beef, which I fried along with 1/2 onion, adding a bit of italian seasoning and a pinch of fennel seeds to give it the sausage flavor, and I thought it turned out fine (although my mother, the purist, was horrified at the thought of using ground beef OR potatoes, and said that wasn't real bubble and squeak). Still, if you've never made this before and you don't have sausage, ground beef is just fine, and I don't think it made much difference TBH.