Casseroles and Bakes #2

[Gaelen]

Index to Casseroles and Bakes #2

Pizza (from cmcole)
Low-Carb Lasagna Recipe Using Spaghetti Squash for Noodles (from Kevinpa) -- 35g protein, 8g ecc per serving
No Noodle Lasagne (from cmcole) -- 6g ECC per serving
Zucchini-Tomato Hot Dish (from SuziW) -- 12g protein, 4g ECC

Make sure to check out Casseroles and Bakes #1 (http://www.proteinpower.com/forum/showthread.php?t=33), which contains recipes for:
Aunt Sadie's Shepherd's Pie, Cauliflower and Ham Casserole, Chicken Spiedie Pie, Eggplant 'Lasagne', Ham and Vegetable Gratin, Italian Casserole (link), Meatza (from Karen Barnaby's cooking class), Noodle Kugel, Parmigiana di Melanzane, Ranch Ham 'n Cabbage Bake, Spaghetti Squash "Carbonara" Style (from Karen Barnaby's cooking class), Three-Layer Savory Ricotta "Pie", Tofu Shred & Cheese

[Gaelen]

Note from Gaelen: This recipe was moved to this forum from the Chips, Crackers and Tortillas (http://www.proteinpower.com/forum/showthread.php?t=54) thread. It was originally posted by C.M.Cole. Check Crusts, sweet and savory (http://www.proteinpower.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2469#post2469) for more pizza crust variations.

Pizza

4-oz cream cheese
3 eggs
⅓ cup cream
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
½ tsp oregano
¼ tsp garlic powder
2 cups mixed Italian cheese
½ cup low carb pizza sauce (Walmart has sugar free pizza sauce)
1 cup of mozzarella cheese

pizza toppings of your choice:
pepperoni
ham
onion
green pepper
mushrooms
bacon
browned sausage or seasoned ground beef
additional parmesan cheese for topping

Preheat oven to 375. Beat together cream cheese and eggs until smooth. Add cream, Parmesan cheese, and spices and mix again. Spray oblong casserole dish with PAM. Sprinkle 2 cups Italian cheeses into dish and pour egg mixture over it. Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes. Spread on pizza sauce, sprinkle 1 cup of mozzarella cheese and pile with your favorite toppings. (I used browned hamburger, pepperoni, sliced mushrooms, green pepper and onions.) Then sprinkle with more Parmesan cheese. Return to oven and bake until bubbly and browning. Allow to stand 10 minutes before cutting.

[cmcole]

No Noodle Lasagna


2 pounds lean ground beef, browned in olive oil
½ small onion, diced
½ red or green bell pepper, diced
15-16 ounces ricotta cheese
2 eggs, beaten slightly
8 ounces tomato sauce
½ small can tomato paste
½ cup dry red wine
2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
½ teaspoon fennel seed
fresh chopped parsley
5 large mushrooms, sliced thin
2 medium zucchini, sliced lengthwise
1 pound spinach, steamed
salt and pepper to taste
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
8 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
½ cup Parmesan cheese, shredded

Brown the meat in about 2 Tablespoons olive oil. When meat is nearly done, add the onions and bell pepper and sauté until the onions just begin to soften. Add garlic and continue cooking until onions are transparent. Add tomato sauce and tomato paste along with the red wine. Mix well; add seasonings and simmer until quite thick. Beat the eggs and ricotta together with some fresh chopped parsley, salt and pepper.
Preheat oven to 325°F. Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with olive oil or butter flavor Pam. Spread ½ of the meat mixture in the bottom of the pan. Top with sliced zucchini. Spread zucchini with the ricotta mixture, and top with spinach and mushroom slices. Top that layer with half of the cheeses. Cover with remaining meat mixture, top with remaining cheese. Bake at 325°F until the cheese is bubbly and starting to get golden (about 35 to 45 minutes.)

Serves 8. 6 carbs per serving.

[kevinpa]

Low-Carb Lasagna Recipe Using Spaghetti Squash for Noodles
Yield: Assuming 12 servings
Each will have: 520 calories; 38 G fat; 35 G protein; 8 ecc.

Ingredients:
1 medium spaghetti squash
Italian seasoning
1 pound ground chuck
1 pound ground pork
Salt and pepper
1 26-ounce jar spaghetti sauce
24 oz. ricotta cheese
24 oz. grated mozzarella cheese
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese


Prepare squash by puncturing with thin fork about 10 time all around and microwave for about 11 min on high.
Then cut in half and remove and discard seeds.
Then scoop the spaghetti like pulp from skin and put in bowl and Sprinkle with Italian seasoning and set aside.



In a skillet, brown ground chuck and ground pork until crumbly.
Drain excess fat and season with salt and pepper.
Stir in spaghetti sauce.

In a 9" x 13" baking pan (pan must be at least 2" deep) spread a thin layer of the meat sauce.

Top with a layer of spaghetti squash.
Top with 1/3 of the ricotta cheese.
Top that with 1/3of the mozzarella cheese.
Top with 1/3 of the meat sauce.
Top with 1/3of the Parmesan cheese.
Repeat layering 2 more times ending with Parmesan cheese.

Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F for about 45 minutes or until brown and bubbly.

Cool about 10 minutes before cutting into squares to serve.
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e352/kevinpa/PP%20recipes/spaghettiSquashLasagna.jpg

[SuzieW]

ZUCCHINI-TOMATO Hot Dish

2 c. chopped zucchini
1 c. chopped seeded tomato, fresh
1/2 c. chopped onion
1/3 c. grated Parmesan cheese
¾ c. heavy cream
1/2 c. water
8 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 10 inch quiche dish or pie plate 10 x 1 1/2 inches. Sprinkle zucchini, tomato, onion, and cheese in plate. Beat remaining ingredients until smooth, 15 seconds in blender on high, or 1 minute with hand beater. Pour into plate. Bake until knife inserted in center comes out clean - about 40 minutes. Cool 5 minutes before cutting and serving. 6 servings.

Lynn on Low Carb Recipes calculated the information below using MasterCook.

Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 239 Calories; 19g Fat (71.6% calories from fat); 12g Protein; 5g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 327mg Cholesterol; 370mg Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Grain(Starch); 1 1/2 Lean Meat; 1/2 Vegetable; 0 Non-Fat Milk; 3 Fat.

[SuzieW]

Next time I make this I'm going to add some crisp bacon or cooked sausage, to add a little zip. But I liked it just the way it was.

It did "weep" a little, so after I removed the first slice I folded a paper towel and placed in the pan to soak up the excess. I stored the left overs in individual dishes in the frig and I had some of the lfor breakfast this morning. If any thing it was better the second day.

[Billie]

Oh man does this sound delish! Thanks for sharing!

[SuzieW]

Tis the season for both here. I stopped at a produce stand coming home from my last camping trip of the year. Still haven't made anything out of the apples. LOL

[Ammy]

Did you ever eat Goopy chicken growing up?
Casserole dish, rice on bottom, chicken on top, covered in cream of something soup?

Well, I made a low carb version last night...Mmmm

Amy's Goopy Chicken:
1 large head cauliflower (steamed and chopped small)
8 pieces chicken - or whole cut up chicken (with our without skin)
1 can cream of celery
1 c cheddar cheese
1 c grated parmesean
salt, pepper, garlic, other spices as you want

Steam cauliflower, then put on the bottom of a 9x12 casserole dish.
Place raw chicken on top. (if you have skin on chicken, you may want to brown the skin first, but you don't have to cook the chicken)
Pour can of soup over the top fo chicken/cauliflower.

Cover with aluminum foil, bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Uncover and put cheddar and parm on top.
Bake another 30 minutes or until chicken is done.

Voila...Yummy comfort food.

You can use whatever chicken you want, but when figuring the counts, I used 8 3oz chicken breasts:

8 servings
Pro: 36
Ecc: 6
Fat: 17
Cal: 334

[Gaelen]

Oh, yeah, Ammy...but we called it 'Chicken and Rice.' Imagine my surprise when I had real arroz con pollo later in life. ;)

I've done it with spaghetti squash, too...awesome!

[LisaS]

we did it with pork chops, browned first, and used chicken with rice soup rather than one of the cream-of-something ones. Cooked in the electric skillet. mmm.

[Ammy]

We were not so "technical" with our food titles...:razz:
GOOPY CHICKEN was such a perfect description for the quick and easy casserole!

After eating it last night...I'm going to continue to call it goopy chicken...cause it was just SOOOO gooopy!!!
MMmmmmm

Perfect!!

And living in Minnesota..."casseroles" are my specialty!!! I can find four ingredients and throw them in a pan and bake it...and come up with some pretty interesting things.

Another recent creation...

1.5lb ground beef
1.5 cups alfredo sauce (Ragu classic is pretty low carb)
2 servings (4oz) dreamfields

ground beef
cook noodles
add all ingredients in pan, cover with 1/2c parmesean
Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Viola...
Beef alfredo-lash!!
(that's alfredo goulash)

Servings 7 (to reach 30-ish grams protein)
Pro: 29
Ecc: 5
Fat: 33
Cal: 488

It's so much lower carb than red-sauce goulash, plus I prefer white sauce to red...

[Mal Lady]

That sounds like a pretty good recipe to me. I will have to try it. I usually make my own alfredo sauce with heavy cream. Which noodles did you use with the chicken? I have browned the chicken or pork chops and used cream of chicken over either of them. but, I have never tried any of this with ground beef. I will need to try that!:D

[Ammy]

I use dreamfields noodles.

and I've made my goulash with 95% beef and with 75% beef...I MUCH prefer the 75%beef. But the type of beef you choose will vary your protein counts, so be sure to take that into consideration!

[maxlharris]

*sigh* Midwesterners. Goopy Chicken. Dump Cake. 3 Can Casserole. Hot Dish. The world looks on and sighs.

PS- Alfredo is so EASY to make from scratch, and SO much better, I cannot see buying it again.

Here is the "famed" Olive Garden version:
http://www.recipetrove.com/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,145/Itemid,26/
It's 5 ingredients, including the pasta. I make mine with Heavy cream, parm reg and pepper, all to taste. In KC, I got this stuff called Panna da Cucina (http://www.salumeriaitaliana.com/acb/showdetl.cfm?CatID=6&DID=10&Product_ID=25438) (Kitchen Cream) that came in a box and was somewhere between cream cheese and sour cream, toothpaste consistency at room temp, that made the most divine alfredo base. Much better than anything ever eaten at the Olive Garden. There really are two Americas. The one that thinks the Olive Garden is a special occasion and the one that knows better.

[Missy]

YUM...I'm going to have to experiment! Thanks for the link Max.

[Ammy]

Hey, Max...better be careful...you are SOON TO BE a MIDWESTERNER!!!!! :evil::nod::lol:

[Missy]

Hey, Max...better be careful...you are SOON TO BE a MIDWESTERNER!!!!!


YEAH....and havin' US over for dinner! :evil: I don't know about you Amy...my expectations are SKY HIGH too! :razz::D:suspicious:

[maxlharris]

I may be moving to the Midwest, but I will always be bicoastal. Born to boy to manchild in New York, manchild to man in Los Angeles. Bicoastal. 4 years of St. Louis didn't undo that.

[Ammy]

great...so Max is going to be another "I'm better than you Lutefisk eating 'midwesterners'"...
Great...like we need another one of THOSE here!!:razz:

[maxlharris]

I love the things about the Midwest that make it so midwestern. Dump cake. gooey Butter Cake (that might be a St. Louis thing), and various hot dish (that's a MN thing). On the flip side, you think about all the fast food joints and such... almost all of them came out of the MidWest.
Industry Leaders:
Mcdonalds - Illinois
Burger King - Florida
Wendy's - Ohio
Dunkin' Donuts - Massachusetts
Starbucks - Washington
KFC - Kentucky (most early growth was through Midwestern truck stops)
Domino's - MI (Ypsilanti!)
Pizza Hut - WI
Little Caesar's - MI

I think it's about 1/3 FF chains started in the Midwest. Probably about 1/5 in the south. The only one of the top pizza chains not from the Midwest in Papa John's, from KY, which is a very midwestern part of the south, in my experience. Something about plains must say, LET'S HAVE PIZZA!

Very odd.

[Ammy]

Ah...I see you don't have, what I consider, the CARBIEST fast food joints listed...
well, KFC isn't exactly good but...

Subway CONNECTICUT
Quizno's COLORADO
Blimpie ARIZONA

[maxlharris]

Subway should be listed. Blimpie is a speck. Quizno's is bad, carb wise. KFC can be worked a lot easier than some. OTOH, if you're a salad eater, you can do Subway, Quizno or Blimpie pretty easily in LC. KFC hard to do to induction.

McD is imho, the worst. Aside from general lack of easy LC items (their salad dressings are like pure sugar if you're into that), they drive the industry to bad practices (of course, the drive through was invented by Wendy's in OHIO). Really bad practices.

[Ammy]

True about McD's...dont' they use that Paul somebodies sugar-laden dressings?
Oh yeah...Newman...??

Subway salads suck...to me.
Quizno's salads are fantastic, but remember to say NO FLATBREAD
Q's will toast the meat/cheese if you request...and you should request
I've never been to a Blimpies.

OH, forgot to mention Jimmy John's (http://www.jimmyjohns.com/)...sandwich delivery...
It's still just a yucky sourdough ball of bread around some meat and cheese.
THey do offer a wheat bread instead of the bun, but it's still SO yeasty...sticks in your gutt for days.

How's this for a sandwich description??
JJ Gargantuan:
This sandwich was invented by Jimmy John's brother Huey. It's huge enough to feed the hungriest of all humans! Tons of genoa salami, sliced smoked ham, capicola, roast beef, turkey & provolone, jammed into one of our homemade French buns then smothered with onions, mayo, lettuce, tomato, & our homemade Italian dressing.
Nutrition
Calories: 1008
Fat: 54.6
Cholesterol: 180
Sodium: 3782
Carbs: 59.53
Fiber: (thank goodness we can subtract something) 0.88:rolleyes:
Protein: 66.89


I'm not much of a sandwich fan, never have been...

[Ammy]

HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS!!!!
JIMMY JOHN'S NOW HAS LOW CARB OPTIONS!!!!
wHAT????\

http://www.jimmyjohns.com/menu/nutrition.aspx
scroll down on the left

[maxlharris]

Loved Jimmy John's back in my sandwich eating days. Could have Subway Dieted there, except it was probably a lot closer than Jared's Subway.

PS- Their first shop: John's garage: Charleston, ILLINOIS. MiddleWest!



The DC local sandwich shop, PotBellies, offers a low carb option where they remove 1/3rd of the bread. It's not low carb by my definition, but it's probably better than scarfing a 12" italian roll too.

http://www.potbelly.com/nutrition/Calculator.aspx
Regular wheat bread "A Wreck" sandwich: 51 -4 fiber
Skinny wheat bread "A Wreck" sandwich: 45 -3 fiber

Not a great option. JJ's Unwich is definitely a better option.

[Ammy]

Don't care for Potbellies either. They just hit it big here, in all the malls that have been "newly remodeled"...I just don't choose sandwiches...unless there's GROUND BEEF inside :D

[maxlharris]

Back to the thread at hand: From Today's Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/chi-casserole-cookbook-bookshelfmay07,0,7698112.story?track=rss
What it is: A collection of more than 250 casserole recipes ranges from updated '50s comfort food to sophisticated international specialties. Wright peppers the text with useful tips and historic references. It's such a well-rounded and compelling package, we almost didn't miss the lack of photos.

Praise (and quibbles): This book is bound to add interesting and authentic dishes to your casserole repertoire. We appreciated how Wright has updated many old-fashioned recipes with fresh and/or international ingredients. Here you'll find creme fraiche, not canned soup, as an ingredient in one of the book's two tuna casseroles; the other stuffs a tuna and ricotta mixture into rigatoni tubes. And a chicken recipe that calls for bread recommends that the cook use a loaf from an artisanal bakery because "the dish hinges on the quality of your bread in the first place."



The recipes call for too many different-sized pans—Wright admits that he owns 16 different ones. Many use a size that the author calls his "workhorse," a 12-by-9-inch pan. Odd, because most cooks' go-to casserole dish measures 13-by-9 inches. We made the Swiss chard and chickpea recipe in a 13-by-9-inch pan instead. The casserole came out of the oven slightly flat but lightly browned and tasty. Most of the casserole recipes should be equally forgiving.

Why we think you'll like it: Both novice and seasoned home cooks will find this book an indispensable resource, with recipes that are straightforward and informative.

dpierce@tribune.com (https://mail.google.com/mail?view=cm&tf=0&ui=1&to=dpierce@tribune.com)


"Bake Until Bubbly: The Ultimate Casserole Cookbook"

By Clifford A. Wright

(Wiley, $22.95)

[maxlharris]

On the quibble, there may be 16 different pans used for 250 casseroles, but... if you have a nice pan equivalency chart, you can probably cut that by half.

[Ammy]

With Casseroles, my biggest struggle was that they use "filler" then you eat JUST THE CASSEROLE.

So, when I first started trying for low carb casseroles (by the way, I make casseroles because I don't have time to cook during the week, so I make a casserole to eat all week long), I had to up the protein and reduce the "filler" and then (my biggest struggle) meteing out SMALLER portions.
For lunch, I just ate turkey fredo-lash casserole, but the portion was only the size of a thin pork chop. Then I had a 1/2 head of romaine and a cucumber.
I kept looking at the portion and thinking there is no way it will fill me up...but I'm done eating, and I'm full. All new concept for me.