Christmas Dinner Idea: Broccoli Cheese Casserole

Christmas is quickly approaching, and unfortunately I've fallen behind in my plans to share some dishes that have found a regular place on my family's holiday menu. But just like everything else involved in getting ready for Christmas, better late than never, right? So here goes.

One Christmas a couple decades ago my Aunt Rose Mary introduced us to this recipe. I don't know how often she's made it since, but there's rarely been a holiday dinner since on my side of the family that didn't include Broccoli Cheese Casserole. It's delicious, easy to make and even looks festive with its colors of red, green and gold.

Try it out at your holiday table, and you won't be disappointed. Even folks who are not big broccoli fans usually like it!

Ingredients20 oz. Frozen chopped broccoli

1 can cheddar cheese soup

1 can Italian recipe stewed tomatoes

2 eggs

2 cups Cheddar cheese – shredded, divided

Directions

Cook broccoli until tender and drain.

Beat eggs. Add to soup and tomatoes and mix together. Add broccoli and half of cheese, and mix together. Put mixture into a casserole dish coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle rest of cheese on top. Bake in a pre-heated 350-degree oven for 30 minutes.

By the way, you can use low fat cheese and soup to make this a little healthier. It tastes just as good.

Veggie & Turkey Sausage Lasagna

I know, I've been very slack lately posting recipes, but I'm gonna try to do better with several in the can, as we say in TV.

This recipe is another lesson in Italian cooking, as I long ago promised, but an intermediary step. It is lasagna, but not traditional in a couple of senses. One way is the ingredient. The other is a short-cut in the cooking.

This is something I came up with kind of on the fly. We were looking for a big family dinner with leftovers that had some nutritional value. So I lasagna took care of the first part. Vegetables took care of the second. This is also another of those recipes you can tweak for whatever your taste.

Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil1 lb turkey sausage (removed from casings and crumbled)
1 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic chopped
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup broccoli florets
1 zucchini sliced
1 cup sliced mushrooms
Handful fresh basil
2 jars tomato sauce (whatever kind or kinds you like)
1 box no-cook lasagna noodles
1 lb ricotta
1 lb shredded cheese (I believe I used one bag of Italian recipe and one Taco blend)

Directions
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet or wok (a wok is actually ideal for later). Brown sausage. When it's about done, add onion, garlic, carrots and broccoli, and cook until they start to get soft. Add zucchini, mushrooms and basil, and cook until they start to get soft. Add a little sauce and the ricotta. Cook until the whole mixture is well mixed and starts to get a little bubbly.

Spread some sauce in bottom of a large roasting pan (aka lasagna pan). Place a third of the lasagna noodles (no need to cook these) on top of the sauce. Spread some more sauce on top of noodles. Spread half of the sausage/veggie/cheese mixture, and sprinkle with some of a third of the shredded cheese. Top with another third of noodles, then more sauce, then the rest of the mixture, a third of the shredded cheese, last of noodles, more sauce, last of shredded cheese. Sprinkle some Italian herbs on top if you'd like, and yes, I like!

Cover pan with foil and bake at 375 for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 15 minutes until the whole thing is bubbly and melty. Yes, those are technical culinary terms.

Congratulations. You have made lasagna. Eventually we'll get to the real deal, but like I said at the top, this is a great intermediary step to learn some of the basics.

Serve this up with salad, garlic bread and the rest of the sauce heated.

We fed four adults and a child, and still had about half to put in the freezer for another day plus a couple servings for lunch at work the next day. I originally planned to make it with much less of the sausage, but I'm glad I used it all. It added a great flavor! You could make it without meat at all, but again, I think you'd lose a lot of flavor.