This episode is a good one! Arlene and Patti are together in the kitchen, cooking up a buffet of dinner casseroles, and each one uses a single pound of ground beef. It’s a great way to stretch your ingredients and make something tasty.
Along with cooking up good recipes, the two friends make good conversation, chatting and laughing while the work. Episodes like this leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling, along with some good ideas for dinner! Recipes include a hearty, cheesy pepperoni casserole, a classic shepperd’s pie, an “inside out ravioli” casserole, and a big old-fashioned Italian salad. It’s a meal fit for a big group of family and friends.
Inside-Out Ravioli Casserole
Ingredients
- 1 package frozen spinach, thawed (10 oz)
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1/2 cup chopped onion
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 quart jar pasta sauce (mushroom flavor, or your favorite)
- 2 cups shell macaroni, cooked and drained
- 1/2 cup shredded cheddar or mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1/4 cup olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil a 13-x-9-inch baking dish. Set aside. In a skillet, over medium heat, brown ground meat with onions. Drain, if necessary. Add spaghetti sauce, garlic powder, salt and pepper.
- In a colander or kitchen towel, squeeze excess moisture out of thawed spinach. In a bowl, combine drained spinach, eggs and oil and mix well. Combine cooked pasta, spinach mixture, the cheeses and bread crumbs well and spread into prepared baking dish.
- Top with the meat sauce and cover with foil. Place in a preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes, or until hot and bubbly. Allow to set for 10 minutes before cutting. Makes 8 to 10 servings.
Pepperoni Casserole
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 1 large jar spaghetti sauce (24 oz, use your favorite kind)
- 1 small block mozzarella cheese (4-6 oz)
- 1 package shredded mozzarella cheese (about 2 cups)
- 1 stick pepperoni (8 oz)
- 1 pound medium-sized pasta shells
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook pasta shells according to package directions, but stop cooking a minute or two early, and drain. Set aside. (They'll continue to cook in the casserole, and you don't want to overcook them.
- In a large skillet, brown ground meat and onion; drain. Cut pepperoni into slices and then cut slices into 4 pieces. Cut brick of mozzarella cheese into chunks.
- In a large bowl, mix everything together and place into a baking dish. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven until bubbly. Sprinkle some shredded mozzarella cheese on top and bake until melted. Makes 10 to 12 servings. Kids and adults will both love it! Enjoy!
Beef Shepherd’s Pie
Ingredients
- 4 cups mashed potatoes
- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1 Tbsp finely chopped scallions (green onions)
- 1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese (separate)
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 bag frozen peas and carrots (10-12 oz)
- 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1/2 tsp garlic salt
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp seasoning salt
- 1/2 tsp dried parsley
- 2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 3 Tbsp flour
- 1/4 cup ketchup
- 1 cup beef broth
- paprika (for garnish)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix butter, finely chopped scallion and 1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese into the mashed potatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste; set aside.
- Heat oil in a large frying pan. Add onion and cook until dear. Add grcmnd beef and cook until well browned. Pour off excess fat, then stir in flour and cook 1 minute. Add ketchup and beef broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
- Spread the ground beef in an even layer on the bottom of a 2 quart casserole dish. Next, spread a layer of frozen peas and carrots. Top with the mashed potato mixture and sprinkle with remaining shredded cheese. Sprinkle paprika over top.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve immediately. Makes 8 servings. Enjoy!
Arlene’s Creamy Italian Dressing
Ingredients
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 small onion,
- 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1 Tbsp white sugar
- 3/4 tsp Italian seasoning (dried herbs)
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp ground black pepper
Instructions
- In a blender or food processor, combine mayonnaise, onion, vinegar, and sugar. Add Italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Blend until smooth.
- Makes 1-1/2 cups of delicious dressing. Keep refrigerated until time to use. Serve on a big Italian-style salad, including things like romaine and iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, radicchio or purple cabbage, shaved carrots, or whatever your favorite veggies are. Enjoy!
Transcript
- Hello, family! We’re so glad you’re here with us today. It’s a great day. You know what, you were able to get out of bed this morning, put your feet on the floor and get up and walk around and go down and wash your face in the, you know, go to the restroom and wash your face and function, it’s a good day, a lot of people can’t. Be thankful in everything, for this is the will of God concerning you and me. It is a great day. Today on “At Home,” we’re gonna do some, some unusual casseroles and the common thread between these three casseroles is that you start out with one pound of ground meat, and you can feed a lot of people with one pound of ground meat. So this is an economical way to feed a crowd, if you have to. These are just great, you know, these are great dishes you go to when you just don’t know what to fix for supper, and you don’t wanna do the meat and potatoes, and the vegetable and the salad and all that. So you put a casserole together. I love casseroles, and I really like them the next day also. So you’re gonna enjoy this. The other thing I wanna talk to you about today before we get started is, you know, this whole year we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of “At Home.” Twenty years ago this year, in 1991, we began the journey together, me getting to know you, and you getting to know me. And we’re celebrating that in a very unusual way. We’re gonna have events throughout the year. But one thing I’m asking everyone, if you would just kindly think about it. If we have been a blessing to you in any way, shape or form, if you’ve enjoyed us, if you’ve watched, some of you tell me, “I’ve watched you from the very beginning,” and I appreciate that. But I’m asking each one to do a one time only gift of $20 to celebrate our 20th anniversary. That would be so great. All you would have to do is send it to the regular “At Home” address, which is on the bottom of your screen. And you’re able to go and send it there and just say, “This is for ‘At Home’ “in celebration of her 20th anniversary.” And I’m telling you, that will mean so much. And it will give us an indication that you really enjoy the program and you want it to continue. That will help us. I thank you in advance for doing it, because I know you’re family, and you will do that. You’re a great, great group of people and we love you dearly. And we thank you for it. Well, we’re gonna have our hint, and then we’re coming back and we’re gonna make those casseroles just for you. Here’s today’s At Home Hint. Here’s today’s At Home Hint. When baking a cake, never open the oven door during the first 15 minutes of baking time. The batter will fall and the cake will not rise. Wait those first minutes then open to add or adjust, but be careful even then so you don’t bump the pan. You want a cake, not a pancake. If you’ve got a helpful hint, we wanna hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints, Cornerstone Television, Wall, Pennsylvania 15148-1499. Well, here we are. Patti, what are you doing, cleaning up over there?
- Cleaning up, yes.
- We’re making these one pound awesome casseroles. And you’re gonna make one that’s called inside out ravioli. And I don’t know if you remember Jeff and Olympia Harry that’s been on the program. She said, “Arlene, I’ve got this really good casserole “and it’s called inside out ravioli.” Easier than making the other kind.
- Heck, yeah, where you have to roll ’em all out, right.
- Okay, so tell us what we’re doing here.
- Okay, right now I already browned the ground meat with the onion.
- Okay.
- Okay. And then we just let that. Then I add the spaghetti sauce, which is nice.
- Like one quart of your favorite spaghetti sauce, whatever kind you like. Can be all cheese. It could be mushroom, whatever kind you really, really like.
- And then your seasonings, which is salt, pepper and garlic powder.
- Okay, and you just put those together.
- Throw that in there. Give it a little stir. And then you let this set aside while you mix the rest of it up.
- Okay, and you have a casserole dish, the baking dish that you have oiled?
- Yes.
- Okay. Tell us what else you have here. You have some cooked shells.
- [Patti] I have noodles, right. And the eggs, Parmesan cheese, cheddar cheese, breadcrumbs, a little oil, and spinach.
- Spinach that you really have to let thaw and then squeeze it until it’s really dry, and it has to be.
- And then you paper towel it too.
- It has to be very dry, or it’ll make your filling really not good. Okay, so you’re just gonna assemble that, right?
- Right, and all you do is assemble it.
- Okay, while you’re doing that, I’m making one that’s called pepperoni casserole. This was submitted by Wendy Urseny from North Huntington, PA. She says, “I got this recipe from a dear friend of mine, “Elaine Berlin. “And now it’s one of my family’s classic favorites.” Thank you. If you’ve got a helpful, you know, recipe that you like, or a hint, send it to us, ’cause we like to do it. And maybe we’ll make one of your casseroles someday. Anyway, this is another pound of ground meat, which we have right here. And it has been cooked with some onion and then drained. You always wanna drain off any grease. If you get a good grade of ground beef though, you shouldn’t have that problem. Okay, and then what we’re gonna do here, we took one stick of pepperoni, one stick like this. We took off the casing of it and then we cut it in slices. And then we cut each of the slices into four. So you have little pieces like this, okay? Just like little quarters. And what we’re gonna do is mix that in with the meat, more meat with the meat.
- [Patti] I love pepperoni and stuff like that.
- What are you making? Oh, that’s your filling.
- That’s my filling stuff. There’s eggs and there’s spinach.
- [Arlene] That’s your ravioli.
- Inside out ravioli, yep.
- Okay, and then we took a block, for this one, of Brick cheese, and just cut it into little chunks, like that. That goes in there too. Go ahead, you do what you’re…
- [Patti] What I’m doing. I’m looking at it.
- As you go, huh?
- Yeah.
- And I’m gonna take my jar of sauce. Now this is just plain meatless sauce. I’m gonna put that right in.
- And what’s nice about these too is that you don’t need a ton of time to do it. Something you can make…
- Quick and easy. You also wanna make sure that your oven’s on 350 degrees ’cause they have to bake for…
- [Patti] About a half hour, which is still nice, you know what I mean? Doesn’t take you long to assemble and…
- Exactly. By the time you got all the kids together and the husband, he’s home, you have it ready.
- It’s all ready to go.
- Right. Okay. You know what a stickler I am for getting every little bit of juice outta there. So I’m gonna keep going here.
- [Patti] And look how good this filling looks.
- [Arlene] Oh, it looks wonderful. Looks just like ravioli, doesn’t it? Yummy. And then you got that to go with it too.
- Right, so this goes on the bottom and then that goes over top of it.
- Wow. Now, okay, I have that all mixed together. Now I’m gonna do my one box of medium shells that have been cooked not quite done. They’re like al dente, because this goes in here now. And…come on, baby. There you go. Finally. And we just mix, you wanna thoroughly mix all of this. Then we’re gonna sprinkle some more mozzarella on the top. You wanna spray your baking dish too.
- Makes easy clean up that way.
- Yeah, for sure.
- Otherwise you’re scrubbing for a week.
- I can see where this would be something that you’d wanna make, it’s so easy. It’s assembling, really, after you’ve cook that little bit of…
- I Know it’s something my kids would go crazy over.
- Oh, yeah. Almost it’s like a kind of a modified pizza.
- [Patti] We do a lot of dinners at my dad’s and that would be a nice thing to take up for everybody, ’cause it feeds a lot.
- Well this would be great for any kind of a covered dish that you go to your church, or your friends, or take it to somebody’s house, or maybe somebody’s had a death in their family. This would be a great thing to take to their house.
- Oh, heck yeah.
- Why not? Okay. Now this goes into our dish. Like so. Baby’s big and full. Just wanna pour all of that in there. Spread it around. And really all you do with this one is you put it in that oven and you only leave it in until it gets hot and bubbly, which could be 15, 20 minutes. You wanna keep an eye on it though. You wanna make sure that you spread it one corner to the other. Now what did you do over there?
- I just took that meat mixture and put it on top of the…
- [Arlene] You didn’t mix it together with the…
- [Patti] No, you layer it on top.
- [Arlene] On top, okay. Do you put cheese or anything on top of that?
- Nope.
- Nothing?
- Nope.
- So your raviolis are on the inside.
- On the inside, right, ’cause it’s inside out.
- Great. Okay.
- Yep. This looks really good too.
- And easy.
- Oh yeah.
- Okay, there’s mine. Now all I’m gonna do with this is do the mozzarella on the top.
- [Patti] And then this hides that spinach, so when the kids eat it…
- Yeah, they don’t know.
- They don’t realize, and they’re like, “Boy, this is good.” They don’t know they’re eating spinach.
- [Arlene] Okay. I have such a little bit left, should I put it on?
- Put it all on. Go for it.
- ‘Cause you know what happens to these little bags, they get pushed in the back of the fridge. And then you dig them out and you say, “Huh, what’s that green in there?” It’s called cheese.
- Lot’s of the green cheese.
- Yes. Basically, that’s it. That’s all there is to it. In the oven. When we come back, we’ve got more. Stay tuned. Be right back. Here you go, Patti. All right, we have the two, we have inside out ravioli and we have my pepperoni casserole. They’re baking in the oven, 350. Yours bakes how long?
- About a half hour.
- About a half hour. And then she’s gonna bring it out.
- Right.
- And it’ll be ready.
- Be ready to go.
- Oh, yeah. Now she’s gonna make something, this is one of my favorites, and this is great if you have leftover mashed potatoes, leftover meat, whatever. This is called shepherd’s pie. This is so simple, so easy. Just go real quickly through what we’re gonna do here.
- Okay. First you brown up your ground meat and onion like we did for the other one.
- One pound of ground meat.
- [Patti] Right, and some onion. And then we mix in some flour, I drained it, yeah. Yeah, we did it. And then we drain…we add our flour.
- Yes, ’cause that’s gonna act as a thickening agent. That’s gonna thicken the sauce up that’s gonna go on this.
- [Patti] Yeah. We add our flour and our broth.
- [Arlene] Okay.
- [Patti] It’ll make it nice.
- [Arlene] And your ketchup too. You want that flour to cook there for, you want to get that floury taste out of it.
- [Patti] That’s cooking up real nice. And then our ketchup, which is just like a quarter cup of ketchup.
- [Arlene] Just to give it a little bit of a tomato flavor. Just adds a dimension to it.
- [Patti] I always like ketchup in with the ground meat. I always put it my meatloaf too.
- [Arlene] I do too.
- [Patti] And then a little bit of the Worcester sauce.
- [Arlene] You need to let that cook and reduce just a little bit for like four or five minutes. So while that’s cooking for a minute, talk to us about the potatoes.
- The potatoes, I just used instant mashed potatoes.
- If you have leftover, it’s four cups. If you have leftover use those, if not, make instant mashed potatoes, but make them a little creamier.
- [Patti] We added a lot of milk and butter.
- Extra milk, yeah. Now you’re gonna flavor those though with cheese and stuff, aren’t you?
- Right, cheese and butter, we add to them. So just like a quarter cup of cheese.
- That would be the cheddar cheese.
- [Patti] Right. And then a tablespoon of butter.
- [Arlene] Okay, now do you mix that around?
- [Patti] Sure.
- [Arlene] Okay.
- Mix it all up.
- Okay, that’s good. Because that’s gonna go on the top. This is a layered shepherd’s pie. The first layer is your meat layer, which is cooking. And then the second is a vegetable layer, which we need the carrots and peas, right?
- Right.
- And we’re using, if you have leftover ’cause you use those as a vegetable, you can use those, but if not, we’re gonna use the frozen. And we have a bag of frozen, just mysteriously appears in my hand. It’s amazing, you know, I just love what’s going on. I love when I can talk with my eyes and people understand what I’m saying, like, “Where’s the peas and carrots?”
- Oh, this is thickening up real nice.
- Good. Okay. And then you’re gonna add the other stuff to it, right?
- [Patti] Right.
- [Arlene] Now you…okay.
- [Patti] Worcester sauce, which is also, it gives it such a nice beefy flavor, I love it.
- Do you know what it’s made out of?
- No, I really don’t. What’s it made out of?
- Anchovies!
- No, it isn’t. Really?
- Yep. Okay, there’s your peas and carrots.
- And that’s the one thing everybody says they don’t want on their pizza.
- They don’t like it, but everybody, you know what, Joe DeNardo made a tomato sauce with it and he started with frying up those anchovies and you never, they fry up till you don’t even know that they’re there. I mean, that’s awesome. Okay, now what are we doing over there?
- We are just cooking and stirring and adding all our stuff, and losing my peas.
- [Arlene] There goes the peas and carrots.
- [Patti] There goes the peas and carrots. I got my seasonings in.
- Now, in that, you have a casserole dish there, that’s probably a two quart casserole, would you say?
- Right. That’s what it says.
- Okay. Do you have to glu…eh, butter that?
- Glue it?
- Glue it, yeah.
- Yeah, we have to glue it. Yeah, you probably should. Otherwise it makes clean up a little easier.
- So is that done there, that you’re cooking?
- Yeah, I think it is.
- Okay. Do you have to put salt and stuff? I’m just asking because I wanna get going.
- [Patti] A little pepper. Go ahead, you can get going.
- [Arlene] Can I get going?
- [Patti] You can get going.
- Okay. I need a little spatula thing here. Maybe that would mysteriously appear too.
- [Patti] Woo-hoo-hoo, mysterious!
- Look at that, I’m just…no, that’s the wrong kind. Rubber, could we get a rubber spatula over here?
- Here, mysterious rubber spatula.
- Thank you. This is, I’m gonna make, we’re doing a huge salad to go with all these casseroles. And I am making my own creamy Italian. Paul loves creamy Italian dressing, likes Italian dressing, but the creamy Italian he really likes. So I thought, well, I’m gonna make him some, see how it works. And I think you’re gonna like this. Try it anyway. If you don’t like, if you don’t wanna use the proportions that I am to make a lot, then you can cut it in half or just make it smaller, okay? So first of all we do that and then we just chopped up a half of a small onion, just to add some flavor. Yeah, we’re gonna put it there instead of in the actual salad. And then we have some rice… I’m sorry, some red wine vinegar. And boy, I tell you, this is what I really, really like when it comes to making salads. I just think this adds such a dimension of good flavor. And this is just two tablespoons. This is gonna be a while. Hey, carry on, carry on.
- [Patti] I’m carrying on.
- This is gonna take a…
- It’s gonna be a while.
- Hel-lo! Well, there’s almost one, but hey, there’s one. That’s okay, go ahead. What are you doing over there?
- Okay. I’m just getting ready to assemble.
- This is gonna be an hour show before you know it, because we needed to get the wine vinegar out. Okay. Oh, there you go.
- [Patti] Doesn’t that look good?
- [Patti] That looks wonderful. Smells delicious.
- And it’s totally different than the other ones. Even though it’s made with similar stuff, it’s still totally different.
- Yeah. It’s different. It shows the versatility of a one pound of ground meat. I’m adding a bit of sugar, like a tablespoon or so, more or less to taste. Okay, now I have some Italian seasoning, which you wanna do about three-fourths of a teaspoon, which I’ll do in my hand. Remember, when you use dried herbs, there’s a secret to it. They’re dried. You wanna wake ’em up. So you rub them to, to get that reactivated in there.
- [Patti] I didn’t know that.
- Oh yeah, that wakes them up. And we’re gonna do some garlic, just a bit of garlic powder because I’m gonna add fresh garlic to this. So I’m gonna cut down on this. Just put a little bit. Then I have my fresh one clove of garlic that we have minced, okay? Let’s see. Now we need some black pepper. Can I borrow your pepper?
- [Patti] Yes, you can. Do you need salt too?
- I do.
- There’s some salt. Here to please.
- And we’re gonna do some salt. This is the course kosher salt.
- [Patti] And that’s supposed to be better for you too, isn’t it?
- [Arlene] It is. It’s not as pungent. Okay, she’s layering those potatoes over that she’d mix the cheese and the butter with.
- [Patti] And I got my veggies in there.
- [Arlene] And you wanna make sure that you load them really high, and as much as you have, just pile it on the top. That’ll be wonderful. Yummy, yummy.
- [Patti] And then you sprinkle it with cheese.
- [Arlene] And some paprika, because when you put that in the oven, that’ll get golden on the top and awesome. Wow. Look at that. Does that not look like a good creamy Italian?
- [Patti] Oh, that looks wonderful.
- [Arlene] Yes, sirree.
- [Patti] Like something you’d get in a fancy restaurant.
- Yeah. “At Home.” This is the fanciest it’s gonna get here “At Home.” All right, so we’ve got everything in there. And let me just push this to the side. I wanna show you what we’re going to be using for our salad. We have wonderful romaine. This is the best. The greener the leaf, the healthier it is for you. I know that the head lettuce is easy, but I’m telling you, you get started with this…
- [Patti] Oh, you will never go back. I love romaine.
- And I even like to mix them. If I like the crunchiness of the head lettuce, I always put some of this in too. Some of the outer ones you might wanna pull off because they don’t look so healthy or so good. Do that, but be sure that once you go further in, oh my goodness, it’s beautiful. It’s young and tender and delicious. We have a good cucumber we’re putting in. We have some tomatoes. We have a purple onion because it’s not as spicy and hot as a regular onion would be. It’s a little milder. We also are gonna put some black olives on that. And we have some croutons that we’re gonna put on that. So we’re gonna make a huge, nice big salad to go with our three different kinds of casseroles. Look how beautiful that looks. Yeah, we need to wipe that around the edge, though, Patti, so it doesn’t burn. Remember when you’re doing, when you’re doing that, you wanna wipe the edge of anything because when you bake it, it bakes on there and it doesn’t look nice when you serve it. Okay, I think we’re wrapping up. Hey, here’s how you can get all these recipes and even more. We’re gonna be in the dining room when we come back. Sorry, I don’t mean to point with that knife! But we’re gonna be over there when we come back. We’ll see you in just a minute. Well, I hope you’re going to write for those recipes, ’cause I’m telling you, the way this table looks and the smell is incredible and you’re not gonna wanna miss it. I’m telling you, you’re not. Down there in the front is our pepperoni casserole. I mean, look at that. Does that, I mean you just wanna take a spoon and jump right in there.
- [Patti] Oh yeah.
- [Arlene] And the smell is incredible. And remember, there’s chunks of pepperoni and mozzarella cheese all through that. Next to it, there’s our shepherd’s pie. Is that a beauty or what? And when it’s bubbling, that’s how you know that those potatoes and everything is really cooked well and that it’s time to serve it. Next to that is our inside out raviolis. Patti, just take a spoon and just dig in there just to show what it’s like. Remember, the bottom layer has the, look at that, the shells and the spinach. Aaw, with the cheese, yes! And then we decided to put a really large, big beautiful salad. And it goes with my creamy Italian dressing that we just decided to put together. And there’s nothing like a huge salad. This salad would go with everything that you have here today, any one of them, or all three of them. This would be a great buffet, if you had a bunch of friends over to play cards or to watch a game or whatever, and you could make these up ahead of time, pop them in the oven, make a salad. Hello! We just added some fresh fruit. This is a great way to, this is a good topping for this meal. And we did some biscuits, just popped those in the oven. Oh, they’re so good. I mean that finishes out the whole meal. What more could you possibly want? Well, as I always say, Patti, we’d like them to be sitting here with us, because it would be just great if you could. But I really want you to be sure to get the recipes ’cause it’s really important and you’re gonna wish you did. The smell is great, the taste is even better, and we want you to enjoy it too. So be sure to join us the next time because it just wouldn’t be the same without you, here “At Home.” We’ll see you then.
- [Announcer] Furnishings provided by Levin Furniture, featuring Lane’s Country Living Collection. Food provided by Jordan Banana Company, wholesalers of fresh food and vegetables in Dravosburg, Pennsylvania.
- [Announcer] Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers, whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.
Thank you ❤
I made the Inside-Out Ravioli and Arlene’s Creamy Italian Dressing. Both were very good and I would make again.
Thanks CTVN for continuing to show At Home with Arlene. It is always a joy to watch her shows.
Mmmmm… we’re so glad you liked them! And thank you for being part of our “At Home Family!”