Casserole is a blank canvas for your imagination — and pretty much anything in a can.
Cheese, cream of mushroom soup, fresh or canned veggies, eggs, tuna, pasta, potatoes, French’s crispy fried onions. Throw your desired ingredients in a casserole dish and boom: You’ve got breakfast, lunch or dinner (and most of your food groups) in one meal.
The possibilities of this one-pot wonder are endless: From Midwest classics like hotdish topped with tater tots, to American chop suey and kugel, a classic Ashkenazi Jewish casserole with plenty of butter, sugar and — dare I say — raisins.
Last week’s recipe: History’s ‘most delicious’ raisin drop cookies
The following casserole, called “Tolerini”, is the first reader recipe I received for the recently-revived Forum.
Reader Kathi Savage said her mom found it in a magazine in the ‘60s “that quickly became a family favorite.”
“It was my dad’s favorite, became my husband’s favorite, and it’s what I took to my son’s family the night they came home from having their first child,” Savage wrote.
Her mom was a cook by day, so she didn’t want to spend more time in the kitchen than was necessary. Tolerini became an easy and dependable way to feed her family of eight.
There is no salt or pepper listed in the recipe, so add to your taste.
Tolerini
Ingredients
1 pound hamburger
1 15 ounce can creamed corn
1 15 ounce can tomato sauce
1 large can of black olives, sliced
2 cups dry wide egg noodles
Shredded cheddar cheese
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Brown the hamburger and drain. Stir in creamed corn, tomato sauce and sliced black olives. Keep warm while separately boiling the noodles for about 7 minutes; drain.
Stir noodles into the hamburger mixture and put in a casserole dish. Cover with as much shredded cheddar cheese as you like and bake in oven until it bubbles and the cheese is melted, about 30 minutes.
Note: This can easily be cut in half using the small cans of corn, tomato sauce and olives. Then reduce hamburger to a half pound and egg noodles to one cup.
Share your favorite recipe with food and restaurant reporter Taylor Goebel at taylor.goebel@heraldnet.com or call 425-339-3046. Twitter: @TaylorGoebel. Join The Herald’s food-centered Facebook page, SnohomDish.
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