Leftoverture

I know, another casserole. I just finished the last leftovers of the last one and here I am at it.



This time, I was gifted with about two pounds of fresh asparagus. I love asparagus, but I’ve been craving casserole so much lately, I started looking for asparagus casserole recipes.



None in the Joy of Cooking.

So I made one up.



I sautéed some onions and garlic in olive oil to translucency. I didn’t have enough white onion, so I made up the difference with red. The reason not to cook with red onion is it’s already sweet, and cooking is what makes white onions turn sweet. Red onions are best saved for raw applications, but I wasn’t going to the store for another white onion.



I boiled a pound of rigatoni and simmered about two pounds of chicken breast in a can of chicken broth while I cut up the asparagus in to two or three inch strips.

After rinsing the noodles in cold water to arrest cooking, I heated a can of Cream of Mushroom and a can of Cream of Mushroom and Chicken with a pint of skim milk and. When it was hot, I added the remainder of the stock from the now diced chicken breast and started stirring in cheese. 15 oz of Ricotta, about a cup of shredded parmesan and a pound and a half or so of shredded mozzarella.



I added quite a bit of freshly ground black pepper and probably a tablespoon or a little more of crushed red pepper. Season to taste, of course, but with a large recipe (this is like a gallon of casserole), a lot goes a little ways.

After stirring in the asparagus, chicken, sautéed onions and rigatoni and getting it all hot enough to steam, I transferred it to my baby-cooker sized casserole dish. And found I needed more space. So I broke out a smaller casserole dish for the remainder, then sprinkled some more shredded mozzarella over the top.

I forgot to get French Onions, too. Or croutons, croutons would rock on the top of this, I’ll bet.



I think next I’ll take a stab at lasagna. Last time I tried that, I used hot Italian sausage in lieu of hamburger, and I don’t think anyone would have dubbed the result lasagna. It was good, but it was no way lasagna-ish.