“Casserole Crazy” Available Today

My book, my book!

Hey everybody, it’s Tuesday, October 7. Do you know what that means? It means my contemporary casserole cookbook, “Casserole Crazy: Hot Stuff for Your Oven” is officially available wherever books are sold. I hope you’ll buy it, and try a few of the recipes that seem appealing, maybe even a few that don’t. It’s a great engagement or holiday gift, especially when paired with a vintage Pyrex dish.

I’ll tell you what I say in the introduction: this is a book for people who love to eat. It is not a book for people who like to make elaborate culinary presentations or impress dinner guests with knowledge of exotic vegetables or cuts of meat. This book is about taking ingredients that you know, that you love, that you can find, and baking those ingredients into one dish you can share with friends over an expensive bottle of wine or live off of for a week when you’re waiting for your next paycheck. And I’m not going to lie: the recipes are damn good.

If you doubt my culinary abilities (which you have every right to, but should not when it comes to casseroles), the book is full of recipes from friends, family and even a few celebrity chefs, including Bobby Flay, Paula Deen and Donatella Arpaia. The foreword is by Julie Powell—my friend and the author of Julie & Julia—who tells the story of how I stalked her.

If you’re still not convinced, check out all the great press I’ve gotten so far. And then buy my book!

Kugel with Apples and Goat Cheese

Saturday, my friend Lacey and I entered The Brooklyn Kitchen‘s Anything But Apple Pie cooking competition, the goal being to cook with apples, making anything but apple pie, natch. The event, which was a great way to ring in the fall, was a benefit for the Greenpoint Dutch Reform Church’s Wednesday Soup kitchen (which I’ve cooked for in the past).

At first, we had the idea to deep fry apple slices and bake them with fontina and gruyere, making an apple parm kind-of dish, but considering neither of us has extra money to toss around, we opted instead to use what I already had on hand which happened to be egg noodles, shallots from the green market and about five ounces of goat cheese. I also had eggs and five medium green apples, making a noodle kugel the obvious choice. Other than picking up some extra goat cheese (more on that later) and Lacey having to run out at the last minute to get vegetable broth—she’s a vegetarian and all I had was chicken broth—we used only ingredients that were already in my kitchen.

The dish was wonderful; we couldn’t help picking at it before we left the house. I even garnished it with some green apple skin. I was sure we’d win. But when we got there, we quickly realized the competition—even though we only had three competitors—was fierce. One entrant had made apple turnovers (close to a pie, yes, but absolutely delicious) one had made a turkey meatball and apple soup and another made pulled pork, Memphis style (with slaw on top) with apple slaw. Anyone who knows me outside of this blog knows that pulled pork, Memphis style, on a sesame bun is my favorite thing in the entire world to eat. You also know that I believe the apple is the most perfect fruit in the world.

Well, the judges didn’t agree with me, on either count. Their top two favorites were the turnovers and the soup—both wonderful, I’ll admit. They loved our kugel, and said it was everything a kugel should be, but that the goat cheese overpowered the apple. But hell, we’d gone out to get more goat cheese, because as far as Lacey and I are concerned, there’s no such thing as too much cheese—especially goat cheese.

If you agree, try our Apple and Goat Cheese Kugel, after the jump.