Casserole

This is an excerpt from Craig LaBan's online chat.   Craig: I did a fair bit of casserole-dish cooking these last couple of weeks, including one of my favorite dishes for leftover brisket: shepherd's pie. All I do is crumble about 1-2 pounds of leftover brisket into a sauté pan with carrots, parsnips, leeks, peas, and garlic. Add half a can of tomato paste, a cup of white wine (or more, just to moisten), then layer into a casserole pan below some fresh mashed potatoes (about 2 pounds worth)

Just out of curiosity, we checked the indexes of a variety of cookbooks in search of the word casserole. We found fewer than five entries. This state of affairs is probably best summed up by Michael McLaughlin, author of The Back of the Box Cookbook (Simon & Schuster), who says that most people "greet the casserole with suspicion. " Perhaps it is the image of a goopy mass of who-knows-what lying beneath a steaming surface that causes cookbook authors and others to eschew the name casserole.

The next few weeks will be busy for many people so put your freezer to good use; get a head start on family meals as well as food for special occasions. The freezer can also preserve leftovers after a holiday meal. If you're preparing family favorites such as chili, spaghetti sauce, stews or soups, double the recipes and freeze the extra. Cook the food until nearly done so it will have a good texture when it is thawed and reheated. There are a couple of caveats. Garlic gets stronger during freezing, especially if it is raw. Onion tends to lose flavor; saute it before adding to dish helps the problem.

Timing is everything, and cookbook author Beatrice Ojakangas might have the best in the business. Her latest cookbook - her 26th, an astounding record - could not have landed in bookstores at a more opportune moment. After all, when the economy slows down, out comes the Pyrex. In The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever (Chronicle, $24.95), Ojakangas has found all kinds of ingenious ways - more than 500, actually - to say "baked-in-a-dish" and still mean casserole: Gratin. Strada.

Is there anyone who doesn't love pasta? And is there anyone who doesn't hate to slave over a hot stove when the temperatures are nudging 90? With a microwave oven, you can whip up pasta casseroles and salads in almost no time, and certainly without any sweat or swelter. We're not recommending that you actually boil pasta in a microwave oven, mind you. That's a quick job best done on top of the stove. But once the pasta's cooked, it can be stirred into a casserole that microwaves to perfection.

Serving a meal with a south-of-the-border accent captures a sense of celebration - sensual, colorful and bursting with flavor. The richness of Mexican cuisine has developed over centuries. It is a dramatic blend of the original Indian fare and the strong influences of the Spanish. The preeminent agricultural contribution that the early natives called maize, and we know as corn, still plays a significant role. Grains, as well as legumes, are staples, with meat used sparingly.

Ratatouille, an aromatic casserole of eggplant, zucchini, peppers, onions and tomatoes, is a classic that has withstood the test of time. Originally from Nice on the French Riviera, this luscious vegetable stew is often made at home in France and is popular in restaurants and charcuteries throughout the country. Vegetarians make a meal of ratatouille with bread, rice or pasta, or roll it in a crepe. Meat-eaters serve it with grilled or roast chicken, lamb, beef or veal. It seems to have a place for every taste.

For fiber, complex carbohydrates, protein and minerals, beans can't be beat. And even if you don't have the time to cook beans from scratch, most supermarkets now feature shelves of canned cooked beans that can be stirred into soups, marinated for quick salads, or added to salsas for extra nutrition. Each variety of bean has its own character. Some beans retain their shape when cooked, making them candidates for salads and salsas; others become soft and mushy, flavoring and thickening soups and stews.

You know who I always hoped to meet on the Internet? The woman in the black capri pants who smoked and drank her way through suburbia in the '50s. A stock character in novels from the time, she was either the object of a teen girl's fascination - there was something intriguing about the town's bad mom - or she might be the heroine's wise-cracking girlfriend. Whatever, she was the "other," the one woman who wouldn't join the PTA and liked sex. Usually, by book's end, she'd had a breakdown or killed herself.

Sometimes a can can't do the job. For example, it can't preserve freshness (a canned peach is no more like a fresh peach than chipped beef is like steak). And it can't compete with homemade (most canned soups don't even resemble their namesakes). But sometimes a can can. It can provide us with food so convenient that it wipes out all cultural memory of the food as it existed before it came in the can, making the canned product seem more natural to us than the food itself. Such is the case with tuna.

This is an excerpt from Craig LaBan's online chat.   Craig: I did a fair bit of casserole-dish cooking these last couple of weeks, including one of my favorite dishes for leftover brisket: shepherd's pie. All I do is crumble about 1-2 pounds of leftover brisket into a sauté pan with carrots, parsnips, leeks, peas, and garlic. Add half a can of tomato paste, a cup of white wine (or more, just to moisten), then layer into a casserole pan below some fresh mashed potatoes (about 2 pounds worth)

Cheese of the Month I'm usually a purist when it comes to my monthly fromage, but Shellbark Hollow Farm's fresh goat has become such a splendid canvas for local chefs, I couldn't resist this casserole from Southwark's Sheri Waide. It's an easy holiday hit. Waide creams a quarter-pound each of Shellbark's fresh and aged goat cheeses, then adds a custard of 8 eggs blended with a quart of heavy cream and 2 tablespoons of chopped herbs (parsley, thyme, rosemary, tarragon, and chives)

Here's a recipe for boeuf bourguignon inspired by Julia Child and her classic book, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," from the Web site www.recipezaar.com . BOEUF BOURGUIGNON A LA JULIA CHILD For the stew: 6 ounces bacon, solid chunk 1 tablespoon olive oil 3 pounds lean stewing beef, cut into 2-inch cubes 1 carrot, peeled and sliced 1 onion, peeled and sliced 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper, freshly ground 2 tablespoons flour 3 cups red wine (a full-bodied wine like Bordeaux, Burgundy or Chianti)

It was tough convincing a handful of city kids to grow their own fruits and vegetables in a farm at a West Oak Lane high school. But after months of pulling weeds and sowing seeds, once-reluctant teens have become proud farmers eager to feed a community with their yield, said Chris Bolden-Newsome, a farmer with the nonprofit education group Foundations. "Deprogramming" the teens was the hardest part, he said yesterday outisde Martin Luther King High School, where about 70 people gathered on meals prepared by the student farmers.

IN THIS struggling economy, many of us are finding ways to stretch our food budgets further. When I lost my job about six weeks ago, I had to take a hard look at how much I was spending on groceries and make some cutbacks. But I was determined to keep eating healthy meals, so I needed to create some new recipes that were nutritious, filling and inexpensive. Today I'm sharing one of my favorite new creations - taco casserole. I still use extra-lean ground beef, which is more costly than other choices, but I make it stretch by using just half a pound of beef in this recipe and adding some beans to pump up the protein.

Timing is everything, and cookbook author Beatrice Ojakangas might have the best in the business. Her latest cookbook - her 26th, an astounding record - could not have landed in bookstores at a more opportune moment. After all, when the economy slows down, out comes the Pyrex. In The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever (Chronicle, $24.95), Ojakangas has found all kinds of ingenious ways - more than 500, actually - to say "baked-in-a-dish" and still mean casserole: Gratin. Strada.

TUNA CASSEROLE certainly isn't a gourmet dish, but it's a homestyle favorite that can save money and put dinner on the table in a hurry. I took a typical recipe for this casserole and made some healthy changes. Using multi-grain pasta adds fiber and extra protein without altering the taste. Leaving out the cheddar cheese while stirring in reduced-fat cream of mushroom soup and fat-free milk cuts more calories. Instead of topping things off with crushed potato chips, I make my own fresh breadcrumbs with wheat bread and a little light butter.

Q: I would like some casserole recipes that I can make and freeze. My aunt and uncle are elderly and do not do a good job of eating balanced, complete meals. I don't know which foods take well to freezing, but I know they would be excited to try any recipes that include pasta. My aunt and uncle aren't disabled and could complete some of the finishing steps of the recipes. I would prefer to give them casseroles that basically just need to be cooked. They both enjoy watching your show.

Look for Nancy Viau's snapshot of the Shore each Friday. In response to the articles - dripping with nostalgia - about Wildwood, let me tell you the other side of the story. My Wildwood goes back 70 years, when Wildwood was really wild wood. My parents inherited a three-story, ramshackle rooming/apartment house on Poplar Avenue, next to North Wildwood. My summer began when we loaded our car and set off to get the place in order. You haven't smelled real mustiness until you have opened the door of a seashore house that has been closed during the winter.

If the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, does knowing his appetites help you understand the inner man? More to the point this fall, do discerning taste buds make for a more insightful president? Or could Iron Chef knife skills create a more sure-handed leader? For too long, magazines have put the culinary burden on the candidates' wives: Who has the better cookie recipe, Laura or Teresa? Who cares? I say, let's see what their men can do in the kitchen.