One way Arlene’s show was unique was that she often cooked recipes ideas that viewers sent her! This show from way back in 1992 features three great dishes: Louise’s creamy beef and noodle casserole, peach crisp, and Italian green beans. Plus, the show starts with a lesson on how to set the table for a fancy dinner. Enjoy!
Creamy Ground Beef Noodle Casserole
Packed with cheese, noodles, and beef, this is one hearty dinner!
Ingredients
- 1 lb wide noodles
- 1 container creamed cottage cheese (24 ounces)
- 1 container sour cream (16 ounces)
- 1 cup chopped green onions
- 2 lbs ground beef
- 1/2 tsp salt and pepper (each)
- 1 tsp garlic salt
- 2 cups spaghetti sauce
- 1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Cook noodles according to package instructions. Drain and set aside.
- In a bowl combine cottage cheese, sour cream and green onions. Set aside.
- In a skillet, over medium heat, brown the ground beef breaking it up with a spoon. When browned, drain any accumulated fat. Add salt, pepper, garlic salt and spaghetti sauce to meat. Blend and cook until hot and bubbly.
- Layer noodles in a deep 9 x 13-inch ovenproof dish. Cover with cream mixture, then with meat mixture. Top with grated cheeses and bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes until hot and bubbly. Makes 6 to 8 servings. Enjoy!
Italian Green Beans
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1/4 cup onion, chopped
- 2 cans cut green beans (16 oz, each), well drained
- 1/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs
- 2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- In a preheated skillet, place olive oil and butter. Add onion and saute briefly.
- Add beans and let cook until they begin to fry and brown. Stir occasionally.
- Sprinkle bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese over the beans and season to taste. Stir until beans are evenly coated with crumbs and cheese has melted. Makes 6 servings. Enjoy!
Peach Crisp
Ingredients
- 4 medium peaches, sliced (about 3 cups) or 2 (16oz) cans sliced peaches, drained
- 3/4 cup Bisquick baking mix
- 1/2 cup quick cooking oats
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
- 3 Tbsp butter or margarine, softened
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Arrange peaches in an 8x8x2 in baking dish.
- Mix remaining ingredients together until crumbly. Spoon over peaches evenly.
- Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until peaches are tender. Serve with ice cream. Makes 6 to 8 servings. Enjoy!
- Note: May be made in the microwave. Microwave, uncovered, on high (100%) for 6 minutes; rotates dish 1/2 turn. Microwave, uncovered, until peaches are tender, 4 to 6 additional minutes.
Transcript
- Hi there, we’re glad you joined us today on “At Home”. I thought before we got started today that maybe we would go ahead and set the table, so that we’d be ready when the meals prepared to serve it. I like to keep my linens nice and crisp and clean always. As soon as you use your linens get them laundered and pack them away or put them in the drawer or hang them over a hanger, but keep them crisp and take care of those stains on them immediately because if they soak in there they’ll stay there for a long time. Okay, I like to cover if I’m using a square table cloth on a round table let the points come where the legs are because it just kinds looks more decorative like that. Place that first and then is just gonna be kind of a nice romantic, two-person meal that we’re making and these are my “At Home” dishes. I think they’re so pretty and see you can mix patterns now, mix patterns and colors, you almost can mix hues you have to pay attention to hues more than colors now because everything kind of goes together. All right now the next thing we’re going to be adding is our saucer and our cup it always goes to the right of the main dinner plate, okay and our silverware and our glasses. The glass goes right above that little nook, that little cranny there is made just for the glass to fit there between the cup and saucer and the dish and when you put your silverware down you place the knife always pointed toward the plate and you put your spoon if you had a soup spoon if you were serving something for a soup spoon it would go next and then the small teaspoon and then the fork here and if you had a salad you’d put the smaller fork next to it on the outside of the dinner fork. Again we put the fork, forks always on the left and let me see if I can fit that in there, there we go, little hard to move around there, but you want to line them up nice and straight so it looks pretty, okay. And then we’re gonna take our napkins and splurge on some little napkin rings, I think these were like four for a dollar and you can get them all colors. Look around for them you can find them. Now there’s lots of ways to do a napkin, you can just have it like this, fold it and place it by the fork or under the fork or you can place it on the plate like that or you can get really there’s lots of fancy ways to do this some people fold them like this and they stand them up by the plate. What I like if I have the napkin rings you take it you open it out, you take the center of it, you just grab it place your hand over it and pull through and then what I like to do with them make sure that none of the underside is showing. I like to just place this right in the center ’cause it kinda picks up the tablecloth and brings it to the center so that the color is there. Okay, again we’ll do it for our second setting and you can just kinda shape it anyway you want to. Permanent press is wonderful, absolutely wonderful because you don’t have to iron them. Now if you have some fancy Irish linens they’re a lot of work, but boy are they beautiful my grandmother used to do that all the time, crisp, crisp linens and then you would add your salt, your pepper and your other condiments and things that you’re going to be using for the meal. If you think that it’s too expensive and you just can’t afford to buy tablecloths and napkins you can buy a flat sheet and make part of it your tablecloth, just do a hem around the edges and then cut the rest of it into napkin sized squares, hem them on all four corners, they’re permanent press and for about $10 you can have a lot of napkins and a nice tablecloth. Well we have to get on with what we’re cooking today and today I’m putting myself in your position because what I’m about to cook I’ve never cooked before, but it was submitted by one of our viewers and I thought I’m gonna put myself in the same position that our viewers are in I’m gonna try something cold turkey. No, it doesn’t have turkey in it, it’s got ground beef in it, so come right back after this message we’ll get things started. See you there. Here’s today’s “At Home” hint, to rid plastic containers of foul odors, place crumpled up newspaper into the container. Cover it tightly and leave overnight. If you’ve got a helpful hint that you’d like to share with us, we want to hear from you. Send your hint to “At Home Hints” CTV Wall, PA 15148-1499. We’re gonna begin this program and the preparations for this dinner by making the dessert first, so we can get it into the oven and baking. What I’ve placed in my baking dish is two one pound cans of peaches that have been drained and I’ve just placed them there and make sure that they cover the bottom very well. Okay, now we’re gonna make a topping for that and basically it’s about 3/4 cup of Bisquick ’cause we like Bisquick and a half a cup of quick cooking oats, make sure they’re the quick cooking type. Okay, and one half cup of brown sugar. Okay, make sure that you get that crumbly. Okay, sometimes the brown sugar will harden up on you and somebody told me if you put a piece of apple in the box with the brown sugar that it keeps it moist. That’s a good little tip there. All right and then we’re gonna take three tablespoons of softened butter, basically what we’re making is peach crisp and of course this is the topping for it and then we use a half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon and a 1/4 of a teaspoon of ground nutmeg. You can see the difference in the color of the two of them there and I like to mix those together and we’ll sprinkle that on, okay. And I’m gonna put a little touch of vanilla in because I like the flavor of vanilla in with this, but not a lot just barely in there, all right. And I’m gonna take a fork and we’re gonna crumb this mixture together, get all the butter off the spoon ’cause that’s what makes it good and we’re gonna mix it together. The butter in it we’re cutting it into the Crisco and the brown sugar and the oats. Now this is similar to one of the recipes that my husband just loves and I make them at Christmas time and that’s a date nut bar and it has a base with oats in it too and I used to think oh oats that sounds like something you give the horse, but actually it’s very good and it’s very good for you and there are other ways to eat oats beside your breakfast, you know there really are. So we’re going to mash the brown sugar down, actually my brown sugar got a little lumpy, so it’s taking a little longer if you have some brown sugar that doesn’t lump up you’re in better shape and I didn’t have a piece of apple in this and it really did lump up so, but if you keep working it it will work out. Okay, so we’re gonna clean that off and then basically what you do we’re just going to place this over top of our peaches. We’ll spoon the crumb mixture over top of the peaches. This can also be done in the microwave, which saves a lot of time, but today I’m gonna do it in the oven. I like the microwave, I guess I just have never worked a lot with it ’cause I’ve always been used to using the conventional oven. But just use it all up put it all over the peaches. It’s so nice if you have fresh peaches you could use those too, but of course if you don’t you can use the can, but be sure to drain them very well. Now what we’ll do with this we’re going to put this in the oven, a 375 oven and it’s gonna bake for about 30 to 35 minutes. Okay? Make sure you always have your oven good and hot. It’s important to do that because if you had put that in a cold oven it would take that much longer and the heat in the oven is what cooks the food to the right quickness, I guess is what I want to say, so if you start with a cold oven and you put food in a cold oven it will not be done at the right time and it will not respond properly. All right, now this is the recipe I told you I have never made before and we were at a councilor’s banquet one time, this is just a few months ago and CTV was there, it was our councilor’s get together and Bob Taylor our audio man he was there and you know we do a potluck when we do this and everybody’s bringing every kind of food you could imagine. So Bob was sitting at our table with some other people, myself and my husband and he said, “Arlene, did you taste that?” I said Bob there’s so much stuff out there, what do you mean? He said, “That stuff right there. “Here taste this.” and what I tasted was something called Noodle and Ground Beef Casserole and if you’re like me I like one dish meals, like casseroles that you can put them all together, put them in the oven and there’s not a lot of clean up and there’s not a lot of extra little dishes sitting around. So I asked the lady who is one of our councilors if she would give me the recipe and she did, so I want to thank Lois Mangese for giving this to me and I’m potluck just like you we’re trying it all together. This is the recipe we’re gonna take two pounds of ground meat, now I got the good ground round because that’s what I like to use ’cause there’s very little fat with it, okay. And I have that browning here. I have cooked thoroughly one pound of wide noodles and basically what this is there’s a layer of noodles and then there’s a layer of cheese and then there’s a layer of meat and sauce and then there’s cheese on the top. Now, first of all while this is browning I’m gonna get my noodles because I have them draining over here and the recipe says, that we place those, the whole one pound I’ve had them cooked and they’re draining like I said it’s good to do all of this ahead of time and we’re gonna place them into our casserole. Okay, that’s one pound, wow that’s a lot of noodles. I think that’s a lot of noodles, maybe she means a half a pound or maybe I don’t have a big enough dish. Okay, this is a way we all learn together. That’s one pound of noodles. She said to layer the noodles first, okay. Then we have to put a cheese layer on and this is the cheese layer, you combine one large cottage cheese and that’s a creamed cottage cheese, okay make sure you get it all and then she says you take one large sour cream and that’s what we have here. Whoa it really came out, all right. I’m gonna mix that together and in this she adds green onions, one cup of green onions. This is unusual there’s no other, no celery or anything like that in, but trust me Bob Taylor said, “Boy this is good” and it was good. He had a whole lot more on his dish then I had on mine just want to say that, but he was really impressed with it. And so you mix this together, okay. We’re mixing it together. Anything with green onions is very tasty anyway ’cause that’s a different flavor totally then just regular onion. Okay, so now we’re gonna put the cheese layer, okay I guess we’ll just spoon that over top of the noodles. Okay, this makes a lot, so you could really if you had company this would be an appropriate dish if you had a lot of people coming for dinner. And I think that once you make it there’s just once you get it done in the oven you don’t fool with it, you don’t do another thing with it you just eat it and enjoy it. Lois, I hope that I’m doing this properly and this is the way you make it because this is the recipe you gave me and I thank you again. I know the viewers and all my friends out there that are watching are gonna try it and see what we’ll do from there. Okay, so we have all our cheese and the onions and we’ll spread it on like that. Okay, that’s that one, now there’s another layer hold on. That’s where the meat comes in because in the meat now she says we add two pound of ground beef and you want to drain the grease off that ’cause you don’t want to use that. Let’s put some salt to taste. If you notice this is really wonderful ground meat very little fat on it, actually like I said it was ground round and the fresher it is the better it tastes, so ask the butcher you know just say I really would like even get a chuck roast and have them grind it for you, so that you can control the fat content if you don’t find any meat laying there that’s already ground that you think is what you want. Then we add some garlic salt, actually she doesn’t tell me how much, so I’m just gonna sprinkle a little bit here, okay ’cause I know the garlic salt isn’t as potent as the garlic powder, so we’ll just give it a light sprinkle and then on top of that she says you take two cups of Ragu. What would we do without Ragu? Let me see, I’m gonna measure two cups that’s about it, okay. And we combine that with the meat. This is really smelling very good I want you to know. Really, really is. Okay, and you will need to let that get nice and hot ’cause I think the hotter it gets and the more bubbly it is the quicker it will cook when it will bake in the oven because that’s what we’re gonna do with this. Make sure that it gets completely coated, the meat gets completely coated. There’s so many varieties, you know it used to be just plain old Ragu that you could buy off the shelf, now they have the garden variety, they have this, they have… You could use your own sauce in this too by the way it doesn’t have to be just Ragu, but there’s so many to choose from now. There’s the original. There’s the ground ones you used to make. There’s the new choice kind. All these different kinds it’s hard almost to find the plain old Ragu. Then, let’s see I think that’s looking pretty good. I think I’m gonna let that just get a little bit warmer. I think it needs to get good and hot. Okay, then with this what we’re making today this meal I would like to put a vegetable because you have a starch, you have some cheese, you have your meat and I like to make Italian beans. Now this is my recipe. Lois didn’t submit this one. But I’ve made them for a long time because they’re a green bean and we had… Norma Bixer was here several weeks ago talking about green beans and all the mail came in kept talking about my family really likes green beans, so we thought well why don’t we make another kind of a green bean and this is one that has just plain old cans of green beans in it and I like to use olive oil. You need to get your skillet. You’re gonna do them in a skillet, so get the skillet hot, get the oil hot. Okay, that’s about enough. We’re gonna make two cans of green beans and what you want to do is make sure that you have them well drained because you don’t want a lot of moisture in it because that just waters down the flavor. So get your skillet hot and let’s see this is going pretty good maybe we’ll go ahead and finish this while that skillet’s getting hot. What she says then is just spoon this meat over top of the cheese. Boy it smells good, if smell has anything to do with it we’re in business. Isn’t it scary sometimes to make new recipes that you’ve never made before? ‘Cause I keep thinking well does it look like it’s supposed to look and I wonder is it gonna taste like it’s supposed to taste? You know this is very easy, this is very similar now that I see everything together, very similar to lasagna. You got your noodles, you got your cheese, you got the sauce, you got the meat and I’m sure it’s gonna taste very good. Okay, this is just the right pan for this too, nice and deep. Okay, spread it all out. Looks pretty good, doesn’t it? Okay, then she says you put cheese on the top. Now I’m gonna use Parmesan and some mozzarella. She didn’t specify too much about the cheese, so what I think I would do is put the Parmesan and some mozzarella. I tell ya, I think this might be a winner Lois. I remember it did taste good and I know that somebody upstairs who’s in the audio booth now is probably drooling all over the equipment saying, “Get it in the oven, “let’s have some.” You know our crew here they’re like the guinea pigs of CTV, they’ll eat anything. You can put anything out and they’ll try it. Never have to worry if something’s gonna be leftover and people ask me all the time, “Arlene, who eats all that food that you prepare?” Trust me it’s the crew. They’ll eat anything. They don’t ever bring lunches or seldom bring lunches on days when we’re doing production because they know they don’t have to bring a lunch we’re gonna eat. Okay, well our peaches are going to town. Now we’re gonna put our ground beef casserole in. I’ll tell you that’s a heavy dish because it’s full of goodies and we’re going to let that bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes. 25 to 30 minutes, okay? All right, our skillet is hot and what we’re gonna do now is take a little onion you can use purple onion or white onion and I just slice it. Don’t want it to get too brown. Maybe we’ll sit that off just a minute. It gets so hot so fast. Okay, and want to just keep… Not a whole lot of onion, but enough to give it a flavor. Okay, this is what brings out the taste because you’re gonna be amazed at what we’re gonna do with this. Remember olive oil, little bit of onion. Now we’re gonna put the green beans right in there before that onion gets too brown and it’s two cans like I said, two cans of green beans. You say I never saw anybody frying green beans. No, that’s why this is different because you probably haven’t seen this before, but trust me it’s very good. And you want to put this up so that they really fry, you don’t want them just to steam through they’re gonna fry because these are Italian beans and that’s part of it. After you leave them on there a good while to fry in that oil, sometimes you get these little stems in the beans you want to pull them all out. You could do this with fresh beans, okay. But these have to fry up. Now what else I would put with this meal, I tell you you really don’t need too much more it would be a tossed salad maybe a light tossed salad, nothing heavy not with a heavy dressing something with a very light dressing. We’re gonna give this the salt and pepper treatment. Okay, sometimes I add a little garlic salt just depends. Hardly ever make the same thing twice, the same way because I like to change the flavors ’cause I feel like your always looking for something new and different. Little bit of garlic salt, just a little. All right, now after these have browned and for the sake of time I don’t have the time to show you, but these will get brown like they’re fried, okay. Just like you’re frying something and they it gets brown, you’ll see that they’ll begin to brown and when they have browned and that oil has covered them very, very well that’s when you know that they’re frying and it’s time to do the next step. Now what the next step is… I was trying to find a little brown one there, so you could see what I mean. They kinda get like the skins are gonna separate from them when they’re brown, okay. And when that’s it what you take is some flavored bread crumb, okay, and all you do you can do as much or as little as you want. I hate those little stems in there. Okay, I just take them and pour bread crumb over top of the beans, now not a whole lot just do it sparingly because you can always add more. Now what happens is that bread crumb will begin to brown in the oil that’s in the bottom of that skillet. You have to keep your eye on it ’cause it coats the beans you see what I mean. The beans get coated with the bread crumb. Then as the last crowning touch I sprinkle a little Parmesan cheese over top of them, not a lot just a little. It doesn’t have to be too much, but all of the flavor that that brings out in the beans. Another way to get your kids to eat vegetables ’cause sometimes they just don’t want to and they don’t cooperate very well. But these I tell you Linda Wilson who’s the Associate Producer of this program, I made these for her one time and Kristi I think had them too and she loved them and she’s always, “Oh mom let’s have them, let’s have them.” Well these are favorites of kids and even grownups really like them too. You just keep moving them around, moving them around just like that, see and when all the oil is absorbed in the bottom you know you’ve got it. Don’t let the onion brown too much because it’ll have a burnt flavor, but just keep moving it around. You see how thick they are here? That’s what you’re looking for right there. When it gets to that point you’ve got the best Italian beans you’d ever want to try anywhere. Okay, we’ll be right back to show you the finished product in just a minute. Stay with us now. Here’s an important message.
- [Announcer] To receive the recipes presented on today’s program, plus many more great recipe ideas send your best donation and a stamped, self-addressed business-sized envelope to “At Home” CTV Wall, PA 15148-1499. You’ll receive Arlene’s heartwarming newsletter, “Enjoy!”, featuring an entire month of “At Home” recipes including today’s mouth watering dishes. Be sure to include the “Enjoy!” Issue number with your request.
- Well, we’re sitting at the table that we beautifully dressed just a few minutes ago and I have to tell you, Lois, you are a sweetheart because look at this Noodles and Ground Beef Casserole. It looks wonderful and I can’t wait to try it. Along with our green beans Italian that we’ve made, Italian green beans and I think you’re families gonna enjoy them and the peach crisp that we made with the crumb topping. Fit for something special at your house. All you need to do is just serve it up in a dish like that, we have some whipped cream that we’re gonna put over the top just lightly and that’s gonna melt down in there. You could serve that with some ice cream. You could serve with a just plain by itself if you’re family likes peaches trust me they’re gonna love that. And we love it every time you come to visit us. And we hope that you’ll send for the recipes ’cause it’s really important for you to mention that number that we give you all the time then you’ll get the exact recipe that you want. It’s always a pleasure when you come to visit. I feel like I’ve spent time with a good friend and I hope that you feel that way too. So until we see you the next time, please be sure to join us because really it won’t be the same without you here “At Home”, but you know you tell me that all the time. That home is not the same when I’m not here, so I’m telling it back to you it really wouldn’t be the same without you right here “At Home”. See you next time.
- [Announcer] Fresh produce provided by Jordan Banana, wholesalers of fresh fruit and vegetables in Dravosburg, PA. Cookware provided by Wholeys. Your favorite gourmet deserves the best for less as Wholey Balcony Cookware. Groceries provided by Foodland. Where the answer the answer is always “Yes!” Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.
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