This is not why I have high cholesterol
Mar. 1st, 2009 09:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calzephyr...but it certainly can't help it ;-) The secret ingredient for tonight's dinner was...are you sitting down for it? A whole block of cream cheese.
I'll back up a bit and say that for years we've been taking the beautiful one hour drive out to the small town of Linden just for a restaurant called Country Cousins. It's real good, down home Mennonite cuisine. The dishes are delicious and the prevailing theory seems to be "more cream makes everything better". The first time I ate there I was extremely sleepy afterward and couldn't stay awake on the ride home. The last time I was there I bought The Christian Home Cook Book, an impressive yet simple tome that held all their culinary secrets!
Although I wanted to try a lot of the recipes, they also terrified me. Would mushroom and tomato soup really be a good combination? What about the Cherry Coke Jello? Hmm! About two-thirds of the book is made up of breads, cakes, cookies and other sweets by the way. I noticed that most of the casseroles relied on pasta and hamburger, so to get my Mission 101 goal to make five recipes from it, I finally just picked one called
The Christian Home Cook Book was first published in 1966, so I had to make some modern adjustments to the recipe and it had a few omissions as well. For example, it didn't say how long to beat the dairy ingredients for and at what speed. Until smooth? Slightly lumpy? What the heck is a medium sized noodle anyway? Another thing was the sheer calorificness that had to go!
Ingredients
1 lb extra lean hamburger
8 oz package of medium noodles (I used whole wheat fusili)
3 tbsp butter or oleo (oleo is margarine; you can use cooking spray instead)
2 8 oz cans of tomato sauce
1 cup cottage cheese (go 1% or fat free if you can)
8 oz package of cream cheese (essentially a whole brick - go light!)
1/2 cup of chopped green onions
1 cup cream, sour or sweet (I used 5% light sour cream)
2 tbsp melted butter
1. Cook noodles according to the package and drain.
2. While noodles are cooking, combine cottage cheese, cream cheese and cream in a deep bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on high for about 5 minutes until smooth.
3. Brown ground beef in 3 tbsp of butter (or cooking spray) until no pink remains.
4. When beef is thoroughly cooked, drain and stir in tomato sauce.
5. Pre-heat oven to 350 C.
6. Combine all ingredients together in a large bowl and stir until mixed well.*
7. Place mixture in a two quart casserole or baking dish.
8. Pour 2 tbsp melted butter over top and bake for 30 minutes
I ended up omitting that last step and covering the dish with foil as I thought it might get spattery.
The casserole turned out great, although it lacked some oomph. I think next time I would stir in some Mrs. Dash or make one of the cans of tomato sauce a spicier spaghetti sauce instead. It's such a creamy dish that you don't need much to fill you up.
I don't know what recipe I'll try next. Maybe the Cherry Coke Jello isn't that bad at all!
* Trust me, you will need a large, large, large bowl that can hold at least three quarts. I had to mix everything together in batches because my largest bowl wasn't large enough.
I'll back up a bit and say that for years we've been taking the beautiful one hour drive out to the small town of Linden just for a restaurant called Country Cousins. It's real good, down home Mennonite cuisine. The dishes are delicious and the prevailing theory seems to be "more cream makes everything better". The first time I ate there I was extremely sleepy afterward and couldn't stay awake on the ride home. The last time I was there I bought The Christian Home Cook Book, an impressive yet simple tome that held all their culinary secrets!
Although I wanted to try a lot of the recipes, they also terrified me. Would mushroom and tomato soup really be a good combination? What about the Cherry Coke Jello? Hmm! About two-thirds of the book is made up of breads, cakes, cookies and other sweets by the way. I noticed that most of the casseroles relied on pasta and hamburger, so to get my Mission 101 goal to make five recipes from it, I finally just picked one called
The Christian Home Cook Book was first published in 1966, so I had to make some modern adjustments to the recipe and it had a few omissions as well. For example, it didn't say how long to beat the dairy ingredients for and at what speed. Until smooth? Slightly lumpy? What the heck is a medium sized noodle anyway? Another thing was the sheer calorificness that had to go!
Ingredients
1 lb extra lean hamburger
8 oz package of medium noodles (I used whole wheat fusili)
3 tbsp butter or oleo (oleo is margarine; you can use cooking spray instead)
2 8 oz cans of tomato sauce
1 cup cottage cheese (go 1% or fat free if you can)
8 oz package of cream cheese (essentially a whole brick - go light!)
1/2 cup of chopped green onions
1 cup cream, sour or sweet (I used 5% light sour cream)
2 tbsp melted butter
1. Cook noodles according to the package and drain.
2. While noodles are cooking, combine cottage cheese, cream cheese and cream in a deep bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on high for about 5 minutes until smooth.
3. Brown ground beef in 3 tbsp of butter (or cooking spray) until no pink remains.
4. When beef is thoroughly cooked, drain and stir in tomato sauce.
5. Pre-heat oven to 350 C.
6. Combine all ingredients together in a large bowl and stir until mixed well.*
7. Place mixture in a two quart casserole or baking dish.
8. Pour 2 tbsp melted butter over top and bake for 30 minutes
I ended up omitting that last step and covering the dish with foil as I thought it might get spattery.
The casserole turned out great, although it lacked some oomph. I think next time I would stir in some Mrs. Dash or make one of the cans of tomato sauce a spicier spaghetti sauce instead. It's such a creamy dish that you don't need much to fill you up.
I don't know what recipe I'll try next. Maybe the Cherry Coke Jello isn't that bad at all!
* Trust me, you will need a large, large, large bowl that can hold at least three quarts. I had to mix everything together in batches because my largest bowl wasn't large enough.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-03 06:37 am (UTC)Sounds like this restaurant would be worth checking out someday as well. Which direction from Calgary is Linden anyway? The name is familiar, but I can't quite place it.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-03 04:19 pm (UTC)Wolf's parents are Mennonites...oh my goodness, can his mom ever make good food!