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Comfort casseroles for fall days

All-in-one comfort food is the word in casual dining


Eric Akis , Times Colonist

Source: Canada.com


With summer giving way to cooler autumn days, comfort food will soon be in season. A casserole certainly fits into this heart-warming category of foods, and the term has two logical meanings.
A casserole is an ovenproof dish that traditionally comes with a tight-fitting lid. The word is derived from the French term for "stew pan." Casserole is also the word for the dish created in the pan, of which there are countless variations.
Indeed, while some recipes require a strict discipline to make them, such as a hot and puffed souffl or beef tenderloin roast you want cooked a perfect medium rare, a casserole in turn is a much more casual dish open to all sort of interpretations. Anything you can bake in a pan in the oven in a stick-to-your-ribs kind of way seems to qualify as a casserole. For fun, I looked at some of my older cookbooks and found a dizzying array of them, some of which were served as a side dish, while others were served as a main course.

Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie is sauced with a vegetable-laced tomato mixture and topped with mashed potatoes.

John McKay, Times Colonist

In All Occasions Cooking, published in 1980 as a fundraiser for Epilepsy Ontario, I found a rich-sounding casserole of broccoli sauced with cream of chicken soup enhanced with sour cream, carrot and onion, all topped with packaged stuffing mix dotted with melted butter.
In Margo Oliver's Weekend Magazine Cookbook, the author has more than a dozen casserole recipes, including one called chicken and macaroni bake, where stewed, cut up chicken is layered with the noodles, olives and pimento, sauced with thickened chicken stock and topped with cheddar cheese.
In the American Woman's Cookbook you'll find a simple casserole of sausage and corn. To make it, cooked Vienna-style sausages are sliced and mixed in the casserole with canned corn, diced green pepper and white sauce, before being topped with buttered cracker crumbs and baked.
These are just three of the hundreds of casserole recipes I came across, and most had three key things in common. First, they were moist and saucy, which is why they qualify as comfort food. Second, they were usually topped with something, such as crumbs or cheese, that helped to create a golden crust and seal in the moisture of the saucy creation below. And third, many used a convenience item such as prepared sauce to make them quick and easy to prepare.
I took that approach with the recipes I cooked up for today. The vegetarian shepherd's pie, made with a soy-based product called veggie ground round, is sauced with a vegetable-laced tomato mixture and topped with mashed potatoes, which turn beautifully golden when baked.
The ravioli casserole sees store-bought fresh ravioli and pasta sauce layered with fresh spinach and grated mozzarella cheese. After baking it, you end up with a delicious, bubbling lasagna-like creation that is much quicker to make than that dish.
The salmon and vegetable casserole uses frozen corn kernels as one of the vegetables, and doesn't have a crust per se, but was deliciously drizzled with melted butter, stock, garlic, paprika and tarragon, which richly moistened and coated the fish and vegetables as they baked.
If you're only feeding one or two, the shepherd's pie and ravioli could be divided among smaller casseroles. One could be baked now and the other(s) could be frozen, unbaked, for another meal. Thaw in the fridge overnight before baking.
My main tip for making any casserole is not to overcook the ingredients, such as cooked noodles or blanched vegetables. They will be cooked some more when baked in the casserole and if overdone before they make it into the pan they will be mushy and unappealing by the time they come out of the oven.
Eric Akis's columns appear in the Life section Wednesday and Sunday. The author of the Everyone Can Cook series of books can be reached at ericakis@shaw.ca
VEGETARIAN SHEPHERD'S PIE
Here's a hearty, meatless casserole that would deliciously fill the tummy of even the hardest-working shepherd.
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 40-45 minutes
Makes: 8 servings
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, grated
1-2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 340-gram pkgs. Yves Veggie Ground Round (see Note)
2 Tbsp flour
1 tsp ground sage
2 14 oz. cans tomato sauce
1/2 cup vegetable stock
3 lbs. russet or Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 cup frozen peas
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 Tbsp melted butter
3/4 cup milk
Place the oil in a large, wide skillet or shallow pot and set over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot and garlic and cook 3-4 minutes. Stir in the veggie ground round, flour and sage. Add the tomato sauce and stock. Bring to a simmer and simmer the mixture about 10 minutes, or until the tomato sauce reduces and forms a fairly thick sauce around the veggie ground round. While this occurs, boil the potatoes in lightly salted water until very tender. Preheat the oven to 350* F.
When the veggie ground round mixture has thickened, remove from the heat and stir in the corn, peas, salt and pepper. Spoon and spread the mixture into a 9- x 13-inch casserole. When potatoes are tender, drain them well and thoroughly mash. Whip in 2 Tbsp of the butter, milk and salt and pepper to taste. Spread the potatoes over the veggie ground round mixture. Drizzle the potatoes with the remaining butter. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until golden and bubbly.
Note: Yves Veggie Ground Round is a pre-cooked soy-based crumble that can replace cooked ground meat in recipes. It's sold at most supermarkets.
RAVIOLI CASSEROLE WITH SPINACH AND MOZZARELLA CHEESE
This satisfying dish is made like lasagna, featuring layers of noodles, cheese, sauce and spinach.
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 40-45 minutes
Makes: 4 servings
1 350-gram pkg. fresh cheese-filled ravioli (see Note)
1 700 ml jar tomato-based pasta sauce
2 cups grated mozzarella cheese
2 cups baby spinach
Cook the ravioli in a generous amount of lightly salted water for 3 minutes, or until firm/tender. Scoop out the ravioli with a slotted spoon into a large bowl of ice-cold water. When chilled, drain the ravioli well. Preheat the oven to 350F. Spoon 1/4 of the pasta sauce into the bottom of 8-inch square baking dish. Layer 1/3 of the ravioli on top of the sauce. Top the ravioli with 1/2 the spinach leaves. Top the spinach with 1/3 of the cheese. Top the cheese with 1/4 more of the sauce, 1/3 more of the ravioli, the rest of the spinach and 1/3 more of the cheese. Top the cheese with 1/4 more of the sauce and the remaining ravioli. Top the ravioli with the remaining sauce and cheese. Loosely cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake 10-15 minutes, or until golden and bubbly.
Note: Fresh, cheese-filled ravioli is available at most supermarkets. The brand I used was Olivieri.
SALMON AND VEGETABLE CASSEROLE FOR TWO
Dinner for two cooked in under 20 minutes
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 15-18 minutes
Makes: 2 servings
3 Tbsp melted butter
2-3 medium white-skinned potatoes, cut into wedges
16-20 green beans, trimmed
3 Tbsp melted butter
2 5-oz. salmon fillets
1/2 cup corn kernels
1/3 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
- pinch dried tarragon
- splash hot pepper sauce
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 lemon wedges, for garnish
Preheat the oven to 425 F. Brush a shallow, medium-sized baking dish with 1 Tbsp of the melted butter. Place the potatoes in a pot and cover with a generous amount of lightly salted water. Boil until firm/tender, about 5 minutes. Add the beans to the water and boil one minute more, and then drain the vegetables well. Place the salmon in the baking dish. Arrange the potatoes, beans and corn around the fish. Combine the remaining 2 Tbsp butter, stock, lemon juice, garlic, tarragon and hot pepper sauce in a small bowl. Spoon the mixture of the fish and vegetables; season all with salt and pepper. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the salmon is cooked through.