Sour Cream Noodle Bake
A nasty encounter with a stomach virus last week left me without an appetite for days, but when I finally thought about eating again, I wanted comfort food.
I turned to this
Sour Cream Noodle Bake that I recently found on the Pioneer Woman's website.
It looked perfect because it wasn't loaded down with cheese and a heavy cream sauce, which wouldn't sit well with my delicate stomach. Also, I thought my family would enjoy it.
Like many, I've read the Pioneer Woman blog for years and enjoy the detailed stories and photographs she posts with her recipes. Plus her no-nonsense, get-dinner-on-the-table attitude is one I can respect.
Unfortunately, the results were not universally embraced in my household. I changed a few things while I was making the recipe and enjoyed the casserole. My husband -- casserole-lover that he is -- can't wait for me to make it again. But neither daughter thought it was anything special.
Sour Cream Noodle Bake 1¼ pound ground chuck
1 can 15-ounces tomato sauce
½ teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
8 ounces egg noodles
½ cup sour cream
1¼ cup small curd cottage cheese
½ cup sliced green onions (less to taste)
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Brown ground chuck in a large skillet. Drain fat, then add tomato sauce, ½ teaspoon salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Stir, then simmer while you prepare the other ingredients.
Cook egg noodles until al dente. Drain and set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine sour cream and cottage cheese. Add plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Add to noodles and stir. Add green onions and stir.
To assemble, add half of the noodles to a baking dish. Top with half the meat mixture, then sprinkle on half the grated cheddar. Repeat with noodles, meat, then a final layer of cheese. Bake for 20 minutes, or until all cheese is melted.
Note: When I made the casserole, I sauteed chopped garlic and onions in a little bit of oil before adding the meat. After draining the meat, I added Cavender's Greek Seasoning -- a favorite in my house -- along with the salt and pepper. I left out the green onions. I had similar results with another Pioneer Woman recipe I tried recently,
Orange-Vanilla Monkey Bread. I decided to make it for breakfast on a morning when both my daughters had friends sleep over. Who wouldn't like to greet the day with a sweet, ooey-gooey monkey bread?
While my husband and I loved it, the girls were not fans.
Orange Vanilla Monkey Bread 3 cans (7.5 ounces each) buttermilk biscuits (not the flaky kind), cold
1 cup sugar
2 whole oranges, zested
1 dash salt
2 sticks salted butter
¾ cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
First, make sure all the biscuit cans are very cold.
Open all the cans of biscuits and cut the biscuits into quarters. Fill a large Ziplock bag with the granulated sugar, the orange zest, and the dash of salt. Seal the bag and shake it around until the zest and the sugar are totally combined. Add the biscuit pieces to the bag, seal it and shake/toss it around until all the biscuit pieces are coated in the orange sugar. Pour the pieces into a Bundt or tube pan and set it aside.
In a medium pan over medium heat, melt the butter then stir in the brown sugar and vanilla until just barely combined. Pour the mixture all over the biscuit pieces, scraping the pan to get all the butter/brown sugar out of there. Let it settle for a second, then place the Bundt pan in the oven.
Bake for 25 minutes, or until the top of the biscuits are golden brown. Remove the pan from the oven and set it on a rack. Let the pan sit for at least 10 minutes (but no more than 15), then turn the cake out of the pan onto a cake plate. Wait a few minutes after turning it out before serving.
Maybe my daughters are at a place where they don't want new foods. I have been in a cooking rut lately, but I hope it hasn't rubbed off on them.
Here's a recipe for a casserole that my whole family enjoys. I've made it for years, and it never fails to please. I found the recipe a decade ago in a Quick Cooking magazine.
Salmon Macaroni Bake1 14-ounce package Velveta Shells & Cheese
1 can cream of broccoli or cream of celery soup
½ cup milk
1 6-ounce can skinless, boneless salmon, drained
½ small onion, diced
½ cup dried breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons margarine or butter
Cook macaroni according to package directions. Drain and stir in cheese mix, soup, milk, salmon and onion.
Transfer to a greased 1½-quart baking dish. Top with breadcrumbs and dot on margarine or butter. Bake uncovered at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until heated through.
Serves four, but recipe easily doubles.
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