Whatever's On Sale Casserole

This is one of my staples at school, but I haven't made it since I got home because my mother has a thing against boxed macaroni & cheese. But the boxed stuff is cheap, quick, and does not require me to buy cheese that will inevitably sit around in my fridge getting moldy. (My fridge at school has been terribly unorganized because I shared it with three other people. I could lose food in there for months. My fridge at home is very organized, because there's no food in it.)

The basic recipe involves a box of macaroni & cheese (whatever's on sale), frozen veggies (whatever's on sale, or whatever I've dug up from the depths of my freezer--things get lost for months in there, too), and some form of protein (baked beans, canned tuna, ground beef). If I'm feeling hungry I'll just eat that out of the pot, but if I'm feeling particularly effortudious I'll make it classy--by which I mean, stick it in the oven with some onions on top.

This version involves an onion, frozen spinach, breadcrumbs, a box of $.99 shells & alfredo, butter and plain yogurt (which I forgot to stick in the photo) and two leftover seitan cutlets.

Seitan is one of my favorite things. It's taken me a while to perfect the technique for making it, which mostly involves not letting the water boil, ever, even a little bubble, or your seitan will turn to sponge. But made properly they have a very dense, juicy, meaty texture. And you can buy a 6.5 lb. bulk package of wheat gluten for $20.11 from Amazon.com, which ends up making more than 6.5 lbs. of seitan and it also great to add to your homemade bread dough. Even with the cost of the additional ingredients, I'm pretty sure it's cheaper than chicken breast.

Peel and thinly slice the onion. Make sure it's a big one, since it cooks down quite a bit.

Melt 3 tbsp. of butter in a pan on medium to medium-high heat, then add your onions. Stir them occasionally while you get the other stuff ready. These take about half an hour, but caramelized onions are among the greatest foods in the world. Besides, it means the casserole has two vegetables.

That's what the seitan cutlets look like. Delicious, no?

Cut them up. Sneak a few pieces while you're at it. Also, put a big pot of water on to boil.

The onions have been cooking for about 10 minutes, and they're nice and soft.

Around this time I like to add a little red wine and/or balsamic vinegar, if I have it around, to give it a little flavor and some nice color, but it's not important.

Add the pasta and spinach to the boiling water. My spinach got soggy because I put it in at the beginning instead of waiting until the pasta was almost done. Don't be like me.

God, I love caramelized onions.

Drain the spinach & pasta very well, then add it back to the pot with the cheese packet, 1/4 cup plain yogurt, and the chopped seitan. Decide it could use an extra spoonful of yogurt. You could use milk and butter if you want, but I think yogurt gives it a nice tang.

Dump it in a nice big pan and top with breadcrumbs and the onions. See, I told you to use a big one. That's hardly enough to cover the surface.

I should add that my mother made those breadcrumbs by throwing a few slices of stale wheat bread in the food processor. Waste not, want not, and so on.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

You could do the dishes while you're waiting, or you could cook up some butterscotch pudding. Guess which one I did.

Start serving it before you realize you forgot to take a picture. Then finish serving up a big bowl for your lunch.

Yeah, the $.99 shells & alfredo? Not that great. Maybe I should stick with Kraft, even if my mother doesn't approve.

(Originally posted to Cheap Cooking on July 2, 2008.)