CABANA BOY COOKS: Dishes to use for Casseroles

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Dishes to use for Casseroles

Oval 2 qt. Casserole

The cookware, pan or dish that is used to hold a casserole recipe can be varied in size and shape.A casserole pan can be rectangle, square, round or oval. They all are usually with sides that measure between 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 inches in height. The dish is considered relatively shallow and this helps in keeping the baking time usually under one and a half hours.

8x8 Glass Casserole

Casserole pans are made from a variety of materials. The two materials that are the most popular are metal and glass. The metal pan works well for cakes as well as most casserole recipes. Glass casserole dishes are great for everything. In my opinion, glass casseroles work the best for marinating meats and vegetables for grilling. They also hold packages of frozen food that needs thawing in the refrigerator. My favorite thing about glass casseroles is the fact that you can see what the food is doing on the sides and bottom. Maybe the food is browning too fast or not fast enough. If you can see this, then you can adjust the temperature or time needed to make your dish its best.

9x13 Ceramic Casserole

This cookware is not limited to just metal and glass. You can find casserole pans made of stoneware, ceramic and enameled cast-iron. Some of these are nonstick dishes, like the Temp-tations Old World ceramic ones sold on QVC. The one pictured here is not the Temp-tations brand but is nonstick.

The most famous is a 9x13 casserole dish. The various shapes mentioned above include the following sizes; 1 qt., 1 1/2 qt., 2 qt., 8x8, 10x15 in addition to the famous 9x13 pan.. These are not the only sizes but are the most common. There are also individual casserole cookware. You see these used in many restaurants.

Famous 9x13 Metal Casserole

All this variety, and then some, in casserole cookware can be found at my favorite Kohl's store. Go check them out and see if they have what works for you and your kitchen.

Tomorrow is my recipe for "White Chicken Lasagna" and it has become my wife's favorite lasagna. Try it with a little salad and the garlic bread recipe from the blog on May 27th.

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About the Blog

Cabana Boy Cooks is a food blog that gives a little insight and help on Tuesdays. That is followed by recipes on Wednesdays and Thursdays each week. This blog is for all who enjoy cooking but is geared towards new & inexperienced cooks.

This food blog came about because I wrote a cookbook for new and inexperienced individuals wishing to learn their way around the kitchen. It is an extension of that cookbook and offers more than 600 recipes here. The cookbook has an additional 125 recipes plus helpful instruction and advise..

I try to offer recipes that cover all aspects of cooking. You'll see on the tabs above that the recipes are broke into categories. Gluten-Free and Vegetarian recipes are marked behind them with a (GF) or (V) sign. Many of the other recipes can be adopted to meet gluten-free or vegetarian by making minor changes.

Please, don't hesitate to contact me through the comments section of the blog with questions or concerns.

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Thank you for following my food blog and "Happy Cooking."

My Cookbook

More Than Your First Cookbook

Every year, thousands of young people graduate high school or college and find themselves on their own for the first time. Amid all the excitement and freedom that comes with this fresh start, many of these newly independent people will find themselves out of their comfort zone when it comes to one critically important area--food.

This cookbook helps those people establish a new comfort zone in the "Kitchen" and learn to enjoy being creative in their culinary pursuit.

The cookbook draws on all the years of my life to collect the recipes, tips, anecdotes and life advice that will help everyone. From safety and sanitation to menu planning and budgeting, I walk new cooks through all the basics of food preparation. A great gift for children or grandchildren just beginning to cook for themselves and a useful reference for more experienced cooks, this cookbook offers readers 125 mouthwatering recipes to match all tastes and abilities. I believe that cooking should be fun and personal, so all the recipes leave room for experimentation. There are even tips on how to make a few of the dishes fit into a vegetarian diet.

Breakfast, soups, salads, sandwiches, entrees, sides and desserts are all covered, along with a few odds and ends. Whether you're looking for the right way to set the table for a formal dinner, you want to take your grilling to the next level or you just want to figure out how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon, The cookbook will help you find the answer.

GLUTEN-FREE Recipes and Information

A few years ago, my granddaughter discovered she has Celiac and needs to be Gluten-Free. I started doing a special week of Gluten-Free information and recipes on this blog then and they appear every four (4) weeks. So if you happen to be on a Gluten-Free diet or know someone that could this help, please check it out.

There is a recipe tab above that holds all the GF recipes (in alphabetical order). It also holds the information posts in the order they have been posted.

All Gluten-Free recipes have this (GF) mark behind the titles. There are many other recipes on this blog that are or can be easily adapted to be Gluten-Free. So you may want to check other recipes too.

I also try and mark VEGETARIAN recipes with a (V) behind the titles as well. I hope these features help many of you that want or need these options for your lifestyle.

About the Blog's Author

I spend over 40 years in the food industry doing everything from pot scrubber/dishwasher to managing around 250 employees. In 2009 I retired from my career to start a new adventure. That adventure was to write and publish a cookbook for new and inexperienced cooks. Many of my years in the industry involved working in "Higher Education." I saw a need for such a cookbook as I watched college students move on to a life on their own. So it has become a mission of mine to help anyone that wants to improve their cooking skills and learn to enjoy being in the kitchen.

In April of 2011 I started my food blog "Cabana Boy Cooks" as a continuation of the cookbook. The blog covers many areas and topics. It also offers at least two (2) recipes a week not found in the cookbook. There is now over 200 recipes for you on this food blog.

Once a month, I write a food column under "Cabana Boy Cooks" in the weekly newspaper, Nodaway News Leader in Maryville, MO that includes a recipe. Some of the recipes are from this food blog and others come from my cookbook "More Than Your First Cookbook"