Tender bites of broccoli are the star of this creamy, easy to make casserole.  Topped with a crispy layer of cheese and bread crumbs, this hearty dish is comfort food at its best.  Cheesy broccoli rice casserole is a classic side dish that’s great with a weeknight meal or even suitable for your holiday buffet.

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Cheesy Broccoli Rice Casserole

An easy to make hearty casserole loaded with tender broccoli and a creamy cheese sauce. Perfect side dish for any meal.

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American, Retro

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 35 minutes minutes

Total Time 50 minutes minutes

Servings 12 servings

Author Christoph

Ingredients

• 6 cups fresh broccoli cut into bite sized pieces
• 2 cups cooked white rice
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 1 small onion diced
• 1 carrot diced
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 1½ cups milk
• 1/4 teaspoon each garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard powder
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese divided
• 1 cup panko or cracker crumbs
• Olive oil for drizzling

Instructions

• Position rack in the center of oven and heat to 350F degrees.
• Lightly grease a 9”x 9” baking dish.
• Heat a pan over medium heat. Cook onion and carrot in butter until softened.
• Stir in soup and milk. Heat until almost boiling and soup begins to thicken.
• Add spices and stir to mix.
• Add 1 cup of the cheese and stir to melt.
• Blanch broccoli in boiling water for about 2 minutes. It will continue to cook in the oven.
• Combine rice, broccoli and cheesy mixture. Pour into prepared baking dish.
• Top with remaining cheese and panko crumbs. Drizzle lightly with olive oil.
• Bake for about 35 minutes or until bubbly and top is lightly browned.

Notes

Add chicken to make this casserole a complete meal!

Looking back, I never knew how lucky I was to have experienced growing up on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Waking up on quiet mornings where the only sound was that of the meadow lark calling to his mate, or the buzzing of the locusts as darkness filled the evening sky.

Many of the ways of daily rural life I took for granted. My mother baking our bread every few days, collecting fresh eggs in the nesting boxes for breakfast, or going out to the garden to select what was desired for dinner. Little did I know at the time that these day-to-day ways of living would later become the popular trends now known as natural foods, organic produce, and free range chicken and eggs.

I also recall one of my favorite meals my mother would prepare, chicken pot pie. Made with vegetables picked straight from the garden, a freshly butchered chicken, and home-made biscuits, this was truly a pan of goodness. Country living at its best. I still love to make a version of the chicken pot pie. I am sad to say I don’t have a garden to pick from, or a yard to go catch a hen in, but I do have the cast iron skillet that cradled the dish I so fondly remember.

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Chicken Pot Pie

Home cooking at its best.  Tender bites of chicken and vegetables in a country gravy topped with biscuits.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Home Cooking

Prep Time 1 hour hour 20 minutes minutes

Servings 8

Ingredients

• 1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast or thigh
• ½ cup onion diced
• ½ cup mushrooms sliced or quartered
• ¼ cup celery sliced
• ¼ cup red pepper chopped
• 2 cloves garlic finely chopped
• 1 cup frozen mixed vegetables thawed
• ½ cup white wine
• 2 cups medium béchamel sauce
• ¼ cup parmesan cheese grated
• 2 tablespoons dill or parsley rough chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tube Pillsbury Grands or similar feel free to make your own if you like

Instructions

• Begin by heating oven to 350°F.
• Cut chicken into 1″ cubes and lightly brown in a skillet over medium high heat. When golden, remove from pan and reserve.
• In the same skillet sauté together onion, celery, and pepper until onion becomes translucent. Add garlic and mushrooms and cook for one minute.
• Reduce the heat to low and add the white wine to the skillet of onions, scraping the bottom to deglaze the pan.
• In a separate sauce pan, make 2 cups of medium thick béchamel sauce. When thickened add to the onion mixture.
• Add the thawed mixed vegetables. Simmer until thick and bubbling.
• Add cheese and herbs, mixing well. Remove from heat.
• Cut biscuits into quarters and arrange on the top of the pan starting in the center and working out.
• Place skillet on a sheet pan (can bubble over) and bake for 25 – 30 minutes or until top is golden brown. Skillet will be heavy and hot, use caution when removing from oven.
• Allow dish to cool for 5 to10 minutes before digging in.

Notes

This is a one skillet dish. Use a cast iron skillet or an oven proof pan suitable for baking. Feel free to add, substitute or delete and items you like to make this dish yours.

Since we live in Denver, we also sometimes refer to this dish as the DIA bake (Denver International Airport).

Nothing evokes the thought of home cooking and comfort food more than that of a diner, the place where you find classic meals just like Mom used to make. It’s hard to describe the delight felt upon finding one’s favorite dish hand written on a chalkboard being featured as the lunch special.

Our romance with the diner goes way back. The first diner was started in Providence, Rhode Island in 1872 as a horse-drawn wagon offering meals to night workers. In 1887 Thomas Buckley created a successful business building and selling fully equipped wagons, and secured the first patent on his diner in 1891. These “fancy night cafés” were widely popular until the early 1900’s when retired railroad dining cars began to appear.  These long narrow cafés were found parked beside train stations offering cheap food.

The diner concept was well received and prefabricated mobile home like diners were moved onto foundations in busy urban settings. These restaurants were best known for their narrow long style, a counter with stools, and late night hours.  During the Depression and the World War that followed, the diner became a popular place among third shift workers and lonely folks to gather.  Usually offering a blue plate special with drink included, a person could get a very inexpensive home cooked meal and some camaraderie. The diners of the 1920’s – 1940’s featured Art Deco or Streamline Moderne elements, many with stainless exteriors intended to copy the appearance of a rail car. During the 1950’s the diner’s look was updated to include glass blocks, terrazzo floors, and neon trim signs.

Today the term diner is used to describe a variety of restaurants, some with large glass windows overlooking busy streets, others in old houses. Characterized by offering a wide range of foods, typically American, a casual atmosphere, a counter, a lunch special, and late operating hours, the diner is truly an American classic.

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Bacon Topped Meatloaf

A stepped up version of an American classic.

Course Main Course

Cuisine American

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 50 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 5 minutes minutes

Servings 12

Ingredients

Meatloaf

• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1 pound hot sausage
• 1 medium onion finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic minced
• 1 large egg
• ¼ cup milk
• ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley

Topping

• Thick cut bacon
• 3 tablespoons ketchup or chili sauce
• 1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 scant teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

Instructions

• Heat oven to 375° F.

Meatloaf

• Combine ingredients in a large bowl. Mix well, do not be afraid to use your hands.
• Form mixture into loaf shape in the middle of a large glass baking dish. I prefer this method over packing the loaf into a bread pan, this allows the meatloaf to caramelize on all sides.

Topping

• Cover top of meatloaf with strips of bacon, overlapping the strips slightly.
• Mix ketchup, mustard, sugar, and seasonings together.
• Spread sauce evenly over the top of the bacon covered loaf.

Bake

• Place in oven and bake for about 50 minutes, until top is browned, or internal temperature reaches 160° F.
• Lift from pan and tent with foil allowing meat to rest about 10 minutes before serving.

Notes

There are hundreds of variations of Meatloaf, here is yet another. This recipe is intended to be used as a “road map” in making this dish. Feel free to add or adjust any ingredients you like. I prefer not to use bread crumbs or other fillers in my meatloaf, but I know many people do. I will however suggest the bacon wrap treatment if you have not tried this before, because after all, what’s not better with bacon.

A special thanks to sister Jennifer for snapping the “on location” shots with her new little Green Elph.

Popular in grade school cafeterias throughout the Midwest during the 1960’s, the Tater Tot casserole has in my opinion, unfairly received a bad rap.  Many consider this dish nothing more than “trailer trash” food……………….. well if that’s the case……………then rent me a double-wide.

For me this gooey delight is a comfort food.  We all have them, widely differing for each of us, many of these favorites are based on where we grew up, or a favorite family recipe.  A meal that makes us feel good, like wearing a big fuzzy old sweater.  So on this snowy day what seemed appropriate was for me to make something in the oven that would not only toast up the house, but that I could easily enjoy wrapped up in my blanket watching a move.

The Tater Tot was created in 1956 by the Ore-Ida company in an attempt to find a way to use the left over slivers of potatoes from their other products.  They added some flour and spice to the chopped up remains, and pushed the mash through holes slicing pieces as they came out.  Originally the Tots were very inexpensive and sold poorly due to low perceived value, so the company raised the prices and the Tots began sell. Many companies now offer a similar product, Ore-Ida alone produces about 70 million pounds of these little nuggets each year.

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Tater Tot Casserole

A retro school lunch type casserole of made with ground meat and vegetables in a creamy gravy, topped with crisp tater-tots.

Course Main Course

Cuisine American, Retro

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes

Servings 10

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground sausage
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 1½ cups frozen mixed vegetables
• 1 10.75 oz can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup with roasted garlic
• ¼ cup chicken stock
• 2 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons of ketchup
• ½ cup of shredded cheddar cheese divided
• 3 cups frozen Tater-Tots

Instructions

• Cook sausage and onion in a skillet over medium-high heat until sausage is well browned, stirring to crumble the meat.
• Pour off any excess oil.
• Stir soup, ketchup and Worcestershire into skillet and add vegetables mixing well. Resist adding salt, the Worcestershire will offer plenty.
• Spoon the mixture into shallow baking dish. Sprinkle with half the cheese.
• Cover with tater-tots and remaining cheese and a grind of black pepper.
• Drizzle with olive oil and bake at 425 degrees F for 25 minutes or until potatoes are golden brown.
• Allow casserole to stand for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

French version of the Tater Tot called the Croquette.