Your kitchen's more afraid of you than you are of it.

Monday, December 26, 2011

I'm Back!!! + Loaded Baked Potato Casserole

My God. This has been one of the most god-f*cking-awful years ever. I thought 2011 was going to mean big changes. Changes for the better. I got my changes alright, but it was not for the better. Without going into to9o much detail, let's just say that if life is an amusement park, this past year was the sketchiest, rickety-est wooden roller coaster at the back, the one where the line is really short because people would rather step on the active electrocuted floor of the bumper cars with bare feet than put their lives in the hands of an operator who's had one too many bong hits.

I'm on the job hunt hunt again. But this now leaves me with more time to return to the thing that kept me sane the last time around - blogging. I know that this will give me the motivation to keep my wits and my sanity. I'm going to tone it down from last time, with less expensive and more left over-friendly recipes.

I got this great magazine a few weeks ago that is just a bunch of recipes taken from a dozen other magazines. It's pretty awesome, and I've already cooked two recipes from it!

I've previously explained my dislike for the word casserole, but this time there is kind of no way around it. It truly is a casserole - but at least it sounds a hell of a lot better than any other casserole I've encountered. My friend Colleen suggested that instead of saying "casserole", I should start saying "pie". Which is a way, way, way better word. What the hell is better than pie?!

LOADED BAKED POTATO CASSEROLE PIE, courtesy of Campbell's
Makes 8 servings
1 (32 oz) bag southern-style hash browned potatoes, thawed (approx 7 1/2 cups)
1 (6 oz) can of French fried onions
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
4 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 (10 3/4 oz) cans of Campbell's regular or fat free cream of celery soup
1 cup milk

The return of mise-en-place
You will also need a 3-quart baking dish (about 9"x13").

Here's how you do it!

1. In a 3 quart shallow baking dish, combine potatoes, peas, cheese, bacon and 1 1/3 cup cups of the onions. In a medium bowl, combine soup and milk. Pour soup and mixture over potato mixture. Cover.


2. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes, or until heated through. Stir.


3. Sprinkle with the remaining onions. Bake for 5 minutes more, or until the onions are golden brown.

Pretty simple!

Can I just say that I LOVE microwaved bacon!!! It's the easiest thing in the world - 25 seconds and you can make crunchy, tasty bacon in the microwave. I really dislike making bacon the old-fashioned way. I'm too impatient.

However, I have a few issues with this recipe. While the bacon and French fried onions provided plenty of salt, there's not much by way of seasonings. I suppose the cream of celery soup provides some, but you know, it's kind of a misplaced flavor. I don't really care of the taste of cream of celery soup. Also, I thought it didn't have enough cheese. I ended up sprinkling extra cheese on top of my portion. Matt and Colleen also agreed that it also could have used a dollop of sour cream. I thought it tasted pretty good with ketchup too, but I think everything tastes better with ketchup.

Anyway, I thought this would be a good recipe to come back with considering that there's not a whole lot of effort involved and there are only 3 steps. It was easy, but I don't think I'll make it again. It just wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be.

I've done so many recipes between this entry and the last, ones I'm going to do again and post on here. Over the summer, we fell upon some hard financial times and I really learned how to squeeze blood from a stone. I need to kind of ease myself back into this, not throw myself in headfirst, so the entries are going to be slow-going at first. Just be patient, folks. I'm coming back! 

3 comments:

  1. YAY you're back!!

    I will be trying this one! Super easy!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, if it's a casserole, don't call it a pie.
    If you do, that's a lie. If you don't like a recipe because of it's name - don't cook it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm sorry if the replacement bothered you. I just don't like the word "casserole" in itself, so I replace it as a coping mechanism. It has nothing to do with the recipe itself, and I don't see how or why it should.

    ReplyDelete