My Favourite Pasta Casserole

Few years ago I made this pasta casserole with my sisters. We were all starving when it finally was ready and it tasted like the best food I had ever eaten. After that I made it at home, but it didn’t taste that super awesome, since I was just hungry and not starving. But it’s still my favourite pasta casserole. The recipe is my sister’s and it’s so great that I want to share it with everyone. More traditional pasta casserole recipe is here.

Pasta Casserole with Soy Curls

2 handfuls (=about 100 g) soy curls
vegetable broth for cooking
oil
1 onion
4-5 garlic cloves
7 dl vegetable broth or water + 1-2 bouillon cubes
4 tbsp tomato puré
2 tbsp wheat flour
2 dl oat (or soy) cream
pepper, pinch of chili, herbs (lovage, basil, parsley)
salt if needed
uncooked pasta (I recommend small pasta shapes like elbow macaroni, small shells or even farfalle)

Cook the soy curls in vegetable broth according the instructions on the package. Drain, but save the broth. Chop onion and garlic. Heat the oil in a pan and fry soy curls, onion and garlic until nicely browned. Add 5,5 dl broth and tomato puré, bring to boil. Mix 1,5 dl cold water of broth and wheat flour together. Slowly pour to the pan constantly stirring. Add herbs, pepper and chili. Slowly boil 5 minutes. Add the cream. Taste and add salt if needed. Grease an oven proof dish. Put some pasta and the so curl sauce in it, about 50/50. Carefully mix. Bake 45-60 minutes in 200 Celsius degrees.

Potato And Soy Casserole

In Finland every child and high school student gets a free lunch at school. In the 80′s when I was on the first grade one of my favourite lunches was Mashed Potato and Minced Meat Casserole. Most of the kids loved it and we called it “Hot Food”, because it was always served extremely hot and the real name was so long. Mashed Potato And Minced Meat Casserole is similar to Shepherd’s Pie and here’s my vegan version.

Mashed Potato And Soy Casserole

1,5 kg floury potatoes
water and salt
4 tbsp margarine
5-6 dl soy milk

2,5 dl textured soy protein
1 tsp each salt, pepper, smoked paprika and garlic powder
1 tbsp sweet soy sauce (reduce salt if you use regular soy sauce)
hot water
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp oregano

more margarine

Peel the potatoes and boil them in water with salt until soft. You can half or cube the potatoes to make them cook faster. Drain. Mash the potatoes and add margarine and soy milk. The result should be a bit thinner than regular mashed potatoes.

Mix textured soy protein, salt, pepper, smoked paprika and garlic powder in a bowl. Add some hot water and soy sauce and mix well. Let sit until soy is soft. Add more water if the soy has absorbed everything and isn’t quite soft yet. Peel and chop onion and garlic. Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the onion, garlic, soy protein and oregano until onion is soft and excess water from soy has evaporated.

Grease a wide dish with margarine. Spread half of the mashed potatoes on the bottom of the dish. Spread the soy protein on the mashed potatoes, spread the rest of the mashed potatoes on it and put dollops of margarine on top. Bake in 200-225 Celsius degrees 30-45 minutes or until golden brown.

Tofu And Potato Casserole

In case you haven’t noticed yet, casseroles, breads and pies are important part of Finnish cuisine. Last weekend I posted a recipe for Sweetened Potato Casserole in which the potatoes were mashed. Another way to use potatoes in casseroles is slicing them.

Sliced potatoes baked with pork or Baltic herring is a common dinner. (Or at least it still was couple of decades ago, I’m not that aware what omnis eat nowadays.) Vegan version is made with tofu, and we had it with sauerkraut.

Tofu and Potato Casserole

250 g plain, smoked or marinaded tofu

marinade for plain tofu:
5 tbsp oil
3 tbsp water
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsp smoked paprika

8-10 potatoes
1 small/medium onion (optional)
black pepper
0,5 l water
margarine

Slice the tofu thinly. Put the slices between towels and press gently to remove some water. Mix marinade ingredients together and marinade tofu slices overnight or at least couple of hours.

Peel and slice potatoes and onion. Grease a dish with margarine. Put a layer of potatoes to the dish, half of the tofu slices, some onion slices and sprinkle with pepper. Then again potatoes, tofu, onion, pepper and finally potatoes on top. Pour the marinade and water to the dish. If you bought marinaded or smoked tofu, put dollops of margarine on top. Bake covered 1,5-2 hours in 200 Celsius degrees.

Sweetened Potato Casserole

The traditional Finnish Yule dinner is based on casseroles. Carrot, rutabaga and sweetened potato casseroles are the usual, but macaroni casserole can also be served and some people even have liver casserole. Of course the casseroles can be eaten any time, and I think people should eat them more often. They’re healthy, easy and cheap side dishes, although making them is rather time consuming, mostly because long baking time. Especially the potato casserole is slow food, since you have to start making it day before serving, but most of the time isn’t active cooking.

Sweetened Potato Casserole

2 kg floury potatoes (Rosamunda for example)
water
4 tbsp wheat flour
50 g melted margarine or oil
about 8 dl oat or soy milk
2 tsp salt

Cook the potatoes in water until soft. Peel and mash when they’re still hot. Stir in flour. Cover and keep in warm place at least 6 hours, but over night is better. Room temperature isn’t warm enough, so if you have a fireplace or other warm thing you can put the potato dish close to it. If not, keep in oven in 50 Celsius degrees.*

Next day the potatoes should be softer and easier to stir and they should taste sweet. If your potatoes didn’t sweeten well, you can add some syrup. Add rest of the ingredients and mix well. It should look like thin porridge or thick soup at this point. If you want to freeze half of your casserole, you should freeze it before baking. Grease an oven proof dish with margarine and pour some potato mixture in it. Fill the dish only half way or 2/3, otherwise the casserole easily boils over in the oven. Bake in 150-175 Celsius degrees 2-3 hours.

*If the potatoes don’t sweeten, the most likely reason is wrong temperature. I couldn’t make good Sweetened Potato Casserole until I found out that I have to keep in the oven during the sweetening. But I also know some people (like my mum) who sweeten their potatoes in room temperature and still their casseroles turn out great.

Rutabaga Casserole Recipe

A lot of people have come to our blog with search “rutabaga casserole”. I have mentioned rutabaga casserole in one post, but there’s no recipe in it. So I’m posting one now. It’s translated from The Vegan Society of Finland and it’s in Finnish here. I only changed the oat milk into oat cream, because it tastes better that way.

Rutabaga casserole is a traditional Finnish Yule dish, and so are carrot casserole and sweetened potato casserole. Some people also have macaroni casserole and liver casserole. Also ham, beet salad (called rosolli), mushroom salad and fish in some form are nearly always served. Families can have their own Yule dinner traditions too, like in my family we always have Italian salad and in nomad’s family the dinner starts with a small amount of vodka. I’m going to make two or three of nut loafs (my mum told me to make a lot of nut loaf for the dinner of Dec. 24th) and couple of seitan roasts this year. I think we’re going to have awesome dinners during the holidays.

Rutabaga Casserole

1 kg rutabagas
3-4 dl water for boiling
1 tsp salt
1 dl dry bread crumbs (+ more to sprinkle on the surface)
2-3 tbsp molasses (dark syrup)
2 dl oat cream
½ tsp ginger
½ tsp white pepper
½ tsp nutmeg

margarine or oil for greasing the dish

Peel the rutabagas and cut them in smaller pieces. Boil in salted water with lid on until they’re soft. The boiling time depends on the size of your rutabaga chunks. Combine the oat cream and bread crumbs and let sit while you boil the rutabagas. Drain, but save the water. Puree the rutabagas with blended or potato masher. Add cream and bread crumb mixture, molasses and 1-2dl saved boiling water and mix together. Season with ginger, white pepper and nutmeg. Grease an oven proof dish, pour the mixture in it. You can make the surface wavy with a spoon, or leave it flat. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top and bake in 175 Celsius degrees 1-1,5 hours.

Special Macaroni Casserole

It’s handy to have some food in the freezer for days you don’t have time to cook or if you don’t have any leftovers to take with you to work. Today we made loads of macaroni casserole so we could have it for dinner and have leftovers to freeze.

Two Macaroni Casseroles

400g macaroni
3 big carrots
2 medium/small onions
1 celery stalk
1 can white beans in tomato sauce
salt, pepper, oregano
vegetable broth
half bell pepper
3 dl green beans cut in shorter pieces
2 garlic cloves
5 dl coconut milk
scant 1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garam masala
pinch of cayenne
1 tsp lovage

Cook the macaroni according to instructions on the package. Peel and coarsely grate the carrots. Peel and chop the onions. Take two oven proof dishes and divide macaroni, carrots and onions in them. If one is bigger than the other, put 2/3 to it and 1/3 to the other (like we did). Slice the celery stalk and put it and white beans to one dish. Sprinkle salt, pepper and oregano on top and pour enough vegetable broth to barely cover other ingredients. Dice bell pepper and mince the garlic cloves. Put them and green beans to the other dish. Combine coconut, cumin, garam masala, cayenne, lovage and some salt in a bowl and mix them with macaroni mix. Cover both dishes with lid or aluminium foil and bake in 200 Celsius degrees for 45-60 minutes. Remove lid/foil from the first dish after 20-30 minutes and from coconutty dish 5-10 minutes before it’s done.

Casseroles Are Autumn Food

I have noticed, that when the weather turns colder and days get darker I want to eat casseroles and soups. Today we made a casserole using things we had at home. It was quite nice, especially with hot sauce. But I think diced bell pepper, garlic and maybe olives could have made it better.

Edit: We had a lot of leftovers, and I added bell pepper and pickled cucumber before reheating. They made the casserole better, and I’ve added them to the recipe too.

Barley and Lentil Casserole

1,5 l water + 1 tsp salt
2,5 dl broken barley
2,5 dl green lentils
1 parsnip (150-200g)
1 onion
1 small bell pepper
1 pickled cucumber (2 small)
100g chopped nettle or frozen spinach
3 dl oat or soy milk
salt an pepper
1 tsp marjoram
0,5 tsp thyme
0,5 tsp lovage
1 tsp paprika

Bring the water to boil, add salt, barley and lentils, simmer covered on low heat for 20-25 minutes and drain. Peel and grate the parsnip, chop the onion, dice the bell pepper and pickled cucumber. Mix barley, lentils, parsnip, onion, bell pepper, pickle and nettle/spinach in a oven proof dish. Mix oat milk and spices in a bowl and pour on other ingredients. Stir, cover with lid or aluminium foil and bake 30-40 minutes in 200 Celsius degrees.

Beets and Nuts

I’m a big fan of beets. I love boiled beets, pickled beets, beet patties, borsch etc. Beets and nuts go together very well, and that was the base of this casserole. We had it with salad, but it could be served as a side dish too. I’d love to try to add some grated blue sheese next time, I think that would make the casserole even better.

Beet and Walnut Casserole

5 medium/big beets
1 small onion
3 handfuls of walnuts (about 4-5dl)
0,5 tsp ground allspice
0,5 tsp cinnamon
0,25 tsp ground cloves
0,5 tsp parsley
0,5 tsp chervil
salt
2 dl oat cream
oil or margarine for greasing the dish

Peel and grate the beets coarsely. Chop the onion. Chop the walnuts coarsely. Grease an oven proof dish. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and transfer to greased dish. Cover and bake 1-1,5 hours in 175 celsius degrees.

Carrot Casserole

I have always liked carrots. The only carrot food I didn’t like as a child was carrot casserole. I was 20 or something when I started to think it was edible. I still prefer rutabaga, but nowadays I think carrot casserole is good too. I even make it sometimes. Usually carrot casserole is made with rice or barley porridge (leftovers), but semolina can be used too. I followed vegaaniliitto’s recipe to make this casserole and translated in English below.

Carrot Casserole

1,5 kg carrots +  water for boiling
4 dl semolina grains
2 tsp molasses
1½ tbsp salt
½ tsp ground white pepper
1 tsp dry ginger
½ tsp nutmeg
4 dl oat or soy milk
1 dl carrot cooking water
bread crumbs

Peel the carrots and cut them smaller. Cook them in boiling water until they are soft. Save 1 dl water from cooking and mash the carrots. Combine all the ingredients except bread crumbs. Grease an oven proof dish and pour the mixture in it. Sprinkle bread crumbs on top and make a pattern the surface with spoon or fork. Bake 1,5-2 hours in 175 celsius degrees.

Childhood Memories

Back in the 80′s, when we were kids, all the kids loved macaroni casserole. Don’t know if they still love it, I haven’t talked about food with kids for years.

Usually macaroni casserole is made with eggs, milk and minced meat. Or just eggs and milk, if it’s served as side dish. In many vegan recipes soy flour is used instead of egg, but I don’t recommend that unless you want your casserole taste like soy flour. Here’s my version, I used bechamel sauce to make a firm casserole.

Vegan Macaroni Casserole

350 g macaroni
water and salt for cooking
3 dl textured soy protein
salt, pepper, garlic powder
1 onion, chopped
oil
some herbs if you like

Bechamel sauce

2 tbsp margarine
3 tbsp wheat flour
5 dl soy milk
salt, pepper
nutmeg

optional: grated carrot, chopped celery, frozen corn or peas or any other vegetables.

Cook the macaroni in the salted water. Soak the soy protein in hot water, spiced with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the onion couple of minutes. Add the textured soy protein and fry until the exess liquid is gone. Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed, and add herbs if you want to.

Making the sauce: Melt the margarine in a sauce pan and stir in flour. Add 0,5-1dl milk, stir well, add more milk, stir etc. until all the milk is gone. Bring to boil (remember to stir often!) and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Grease an oven proof dish and put half of the cooked macaroni on the bottom. Put the textured soy protein mix and vegetables (if you use them) on it and rest of the macaroni on top. Or mix everything together. Last pour the sauce on. Put the dish to a cold oven, turn it on 125 celsius degrees and go to the library. When you come back, the food is ready. Or if you want to stay at home, bake the dish in 175 degrees about an hour.

Serve with ketchup and something simple, like grated carrots, cucumber slices or pickled beets.