Vegetable Rice Pie

Since I never give recipes star ratings, it would be pointless to say this is a five-star recipe; you have nothing with which to compare it. So let me just say this to illustrate how delicious vegetable rice pie is: I'm famished just remembering the name of the recipe!

I found the recipe on AllRecipes, home to many rare and scrumptious vegan ideas. One of the best, and most underused, cooking ideas is to create a pie with a rice crust, in lieu of a traditional pie crust. For veggie dishes, you should definitely try this out; I promise, the taste of your dish immediately will increase.

Although the recipe called for a pie pan, I fortunately chose to make it in a larger casserole dish. Once I had all the ingredients ready, I realized there was just too much food to fit into a pie pan. So for those of you who do want to serve it in a pie pan, go light on everything, especially the rice. More advice: do use fresh vegetables, as the recipe suggests! I know it is convenient and easy to use frozen vegetables in your cooking, but this recipe is definitely worth the freshness. I find that frozen vegetables often lack the taste and flavor of fresh produce, so therefore I usually must compensate with a heavy amount of seasoning. However, this time, I added just a dash of "herbs de provence" and let the onion and cheese carry the recipe into its savory self!

However, I did make one major alteration: I made a top shell for the dish using mozzarella cheese, which I would definitely do again. Mozzarella provides a yummy contrast to the Parmesan and is a good coating for broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. Vegetable rice pie is definitely in my top five favorite recipes. Make it tonight for dinner; I guarantee you'll eat every bite!

Herb-Glazed Carrots

Ever complete a new cooking project and think, "Why haven't I been doing things this way for years?"

"Herbed-Glazed Carrots" is actually a small after-note under "Brown Sugar-Glazed Carrots" in Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book: Celebrating the Promise, Limited Edition, a recipe that has you stir brown sugar and butter with boiled baby carrots. The herb glaze option involves coating cooked carrots with butter, honey, and thyme. Thinking this might be somewhat bland, I added herbs de provence--but I must say, Better Homes and Gardens knew what they were talking about. The herbs de provence actually tasted unnecessary. (And for me to say seasoning was unnecessary is huge; I'm known for overusing my spice rack.) Thyme and honey are such excellent accents to softened, cooked carrots, and it's a scrumptious side for any winter meal, especially one with soup, potatoes, or other home-cooked delights.

After eating herb-glazed carrots two dinners in a row, though, I had to wonder, why did I ever serve myself carrots at dinnertime prepared any other way? Thyme-sprinkled, honey-glazed, buttered carrots are too yummy to modify. Eating these carrots reminded me of the home-cooked meals I enjoyed as a kid growing up in Robards, Ky., where all the veggies were grown by my father and cooked to perfection by my mother. There's something to be said about warm, hearty food like cooked carrots on the dinner table--and delightful culinary twists like thyme and honey to make that home-cooked experience even more enjoyable.

Squash & Carrot Casserole

So, am I in violation of any copyright laws if I tell you this dish is really, really, really fricking "mmmm mmmm good"?

Same old story: I had some produce--squash, in this case--that needed to be thrown into a pot and cooked; I did an Internet search and found a recipe that would suffice on About.com's "Southern Food" section. Suffice? Suffice? How about completely exceed my taste buds' expectations?

Seriously. The recipe I found was called "Summer Squash Casserole." If the title reminds you of my recent blogs' discussion of summer dishes versus winter dishes, keep in mind it's only called a "summer" casserole because the yellow squash it uses traditionally could not be stored until winter. In actuality, it's a very warm casserole that I think would best be served during a Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.

I only had two crookneck squash ready to cook, so I actually abridged all the ingredient amounts and made a "mini"-casserole, which I put in a 9" pie pan. I replaced the recipe's call for cream of chicken soup with a can of cream of celery soup, and added in 1/4 cup of sliced mushrooms. I actually upped the amount of butter and onion, and seasoned the filling with Italian seasoning, pepper, and a hint of garlic powder. The recipe also calls for just one half of a stuffing mix, but I used a whole box of Kraft's "Savory Herbs" Stovetop stuffing mix, and in my pie pan, it was a good amount. Also, I feel that any casserole is just naked without cheese, so I sprinkled sliced mozzarella on top of the last layer and then added grated Parmesan.

So after altering the recipe so drastically, did I regret it? Not at all. In fact, I can honestly say I wouldn't change a thing. I was curious as to what the uncooked stuffing mix would be like, and it was the perfect seasoned crust to a soft, gooey, warm casserole filling. I definitely almost ate half of this sweet dish in one sitting, after questioning if I'd even like it!

This is also, by the way, my favorite squash recipe to date. If I had to choose between this and the stuffed squash previously featured in this blog, I would hands-down choose squash and carrot casserole.

When making this, be generous with your seasoning, your grated carrots (seriously, they get muffled in the sauce), and add that cheese!! Mushrooms optional--I thought they tasted great, but, after looking on the Internet, I didn't find any other squash/carrot combo that featured mushrooms, so maybe those are just my own weird tastebuds...

Also, my apologies for how blurry the picture is. I took it on my phone, and didn't realize until after the casserole was 75% devoured that the camera hadn't been still enough to get a good shot! Guess it smelled too good for me to pause...