America's Home Cooking: Easy Recipes for Thrifty Cooking

(light acoustic country music) Hi, folks.

I'm Chris Fennimore.

- And I'm Nancy Polinsky.

- You know, we could have done a show just about easy cooking, and we could have done a show just about thrifty cooking.

But we decided to bring it all together and put together a program and a brand new cookbook that features recipes that are easy to make and are really easy on your budget.

Thrifty cooking for, you know, these frugal times.

- Absolutely.

And when you break these recipes down, you will find that they are, literally, in some cases, pennies per serving, and at most, a few dollars per serving.

- Well, actually, most of the ones that we're gonna be making here are less than $1 a serving.

- Oh, my gosh.

- So that's a great way to economize in the kitchen and provide your family with delicious food, and you don't have to spend days and weeks in the kitchen.

And we've gathered these recipes from our mothers' and grandmothers' wisdom.

They're the folks who really always had to put meals on the table for bigger families than we even have now, and they had to make them delicious and hearty and filling, and they did.

- It was almost like second nature to them.

It was the only way they thought.

(glass clinking) - Whoop!

And that wisdom is here in this cookbook.

And so I wanna start with a recipe that my mother used to make.

One of her many recipes that started with one pound of ground round.

- Oh, how many recipes begin with that?

- Yeah, so here it is.

This is exactly one pound of ground round.

I'm gonna put it into a pan to brown off.

And while this is... You can just break that up.

I'm gonna put it on nice and high.

And I wanna tell you that (chuckles) here's my memory of it.

My mother would say, "Christy, go up to Fort Hamilton Parkway, go to Benny the butcher, and get me one pound of ground round.

Tell him to make it extra lean and cut it twice."

- "Cut it twice."

- And so, he had to put it through the machine twice.

I don't know, somehow she thought maybe that spread it out even further.

But with this one pound of ground round, there's so many of her recipes that she would make we used to have eight people at dinner.

So she had to figure out a way that this would serve eight people, along with a salad and something else.

But it was a matter of getting some nice, deep flavoring and adding things to it.

And this meat, you didn't all have hamburgers.

- Right.

- You spread this around in ways that were actually much tastier and much better for you, 'cause they included more ingredients than just having a slab of meat.

And I'm gonna... Another thing that was always in Mom's larder was some nice onions.

- [Nancy] Oh, sure.

I think that holds true today.

Everybody's got onions sitting around.

- [Chris] So we're gonna put a little bit of this chopped onion in here.

(pan sizzling) (Nancy hissing) So just get that going.

- You haven't told us what we're making yet.

Or is this a big secret that's to be revealed?

- Well, it's one pound of ground round, so this is gonna turn into what we called shepherd's pie.

And shepherd's pie can be made with ground beef or it could be made with ground turkey, or it can be made with ground lamb.

- Lamb.

In fact, can I share something I learned?

- Sure.

- This is not to correct you, this is just to share some information.

I was reading up on shepherd's pie, and traditionally speaking, if it's made with lamb, it's called shepherd's pie, ostensibly because it was the shepherds who guarded the sheep and the lamb that enjoyed this dish.

If it's made with beef, it's traditionally called cottage pie.

- Oh!

- I never knew that.

I'm sharing it for what it's worth.

But I also read it's often interchanged, but that's just traditionally how those two dishes are known.

- I'm gonna season this with a little bit of salt.

And if you would put in just a little bit of Worcestershire sauce.

- [Nancy] Worcestershire.

- I don't know if this is traditional in shepherd's or cottage pie, but this is what one of the flavorings that Mom would use.

- And you know what?

Because this traditionally comes from Northern England and Scotland, and I assume Worcestershire sauce does come from England, as well, it would make sense to throw that in.

Is that enough, or do you like more?

- Worcestershire sauce.

No, that's about it.

Usually, about a tablespoon, you know, to get some- - [Nancy] Oh, yeah, I'm smelling it.

It's in there.

Mm, it smells good.

- [Chris] Okay.

- [Nancy] Mm, mm, mm!

- Got that?

All right.

The other thing that Mom would use this... You know, when would this dish show up on our menu?

You know, when it showed up?

When we had leftover mashed potatoes.

- Ah, 'cause potatoes are important to this.

- Right.

And so, you know, waste not, want not.

Mom would... She'd have some mashed potatoes from the night before, she'd go, "Oh, I know what I'm gonna make tonight.

"I'm gonna make shepherd's pie."

(laughs) We can pour all of that in 'cause I want the juice too.

- [Nancy] Oh, the juice too?

Oh, I'm trying to avoid that.

- Oh, yeah.

Everything.

- No, no, no, no, no!

The juice is good!

This happened to have been some very lean beef, so- - So, I don't have to worry about it being too fatty if I put all that in.

- Right.

- Got it - And now I'm going to just pat that all down nice and tight.

Got a little piece left over here.

Okay.

There you go.

All right, now, (spatula tapping) the traditional topping of my mother's was- - Corn.

- Creamed corn.

- Oh, I love creamed corn.

I could just eat it by the can.

- [Chris] You know, I don't know that we ever ate creamed corn, other than in this.

And when she would make corn fritters, she would use creamed corn and make fritters out of it.

And you would just wanna make a nice layer out of this.

- [Nancy] Oh, even the smell of creamed corn just makes you feel like a kid again.

- All right.

And then we put some peas on here.

These happen to be frozen peas.

- [Nancy] I noticed that.

- Well, I wanna talk a little bit about that while we put these peas on here.

There are people who say, "Oh, you know, the least expensive way to buy vegetables is fresh."

- No, not always.

- Well, not always.

- [Nancy] It depends on the season.

- It depends upon the season.

If you buy vegetables out of season, they're gonna be really expensive.

Also, if you buy vegetables and you don't use them right away, and they go to waste, that wasn't very economical.

- I'm guilty of that.

- But if you buy things that are frozen, for the most part, these things are picked at the best time for them.

They are, you know, picked at the height of their season and they are flash-frozen and put into bags.

And then when you defrost them, it's just as if you have fresh product, and there's no waste involved.

So I like to keep some frozen vegetables in the freezer.

- Absolutely.

I always have frozen peas, green beans, and broccoli in my freezer, because you just never know when you're gonna need a vegetable for dessert, and you don't always have the fresh produce on hand.

Okay, excellent.

- I'm trying to make it pretty here.

- It is pretty.

It's very colorful.

- And now I'm gonna spoon these on.

This is some just leftover mashed potatoes.

- Yes.

Yes, when I was reading about the history of shepherd's and cottage pie, I learned that it didn't make its appearance in the world until potatoes became a common... People didn't always eat potatoes.

And they were introduced in the 1500s but they became really popular throughout Great Britain in the 1700s.

And the first recorded sign of shepherd's pie existing was in 1791.

So this dish goes way back.

- All it goes back to is 1950 in Brooklyn for me.

(Nancy laughing) I didn't know all of that.

- I wasn't suggesting you were eating it back in 1791, Chris.

- [Chris] (laughing) All right.

- [Nancy] So, you're just smearing...

This can be leftover mashed potatoes?

- Yes, leftover mashed potatoes.

And really, you know, it's not a perfect thing necessarily.

- Yeah!

- It's just like this.

And then what I do is I have some melted butter, and this is just gonna help it taste delicious.

- [Nancy] Right.

Who eats mashed potatoes without butter?

- And it's also going to help it get a nice brown topping on it- - [Nancy] Yeah.

- [Chris] As this cooks in the oven.

- [Nancy] Boy, is this easy?

Really, browning the meat's the toughest part.

- Now, when this cooks up, obviously, you know, you're gonna have servings of this that are gonna be hearty.

They're gonna have vegetables, they're gonna have meat.

That's really hot.

We have one that just came out of the oven.

- Ah-ha!

- I'll move this one out of the way.

- Look how the potatoes actually look like...

They look like a pie crust.

- Yeah.

- It's astonishing.

- Yeah, well, they sort of glazed over there, and the butter browns on the top.

We got some plates here.

- Oh, is that pretty.

- This time we got two plates.

- Two plates for two eaters.

(Chris laughs) Two plates for me and one for you.

(chuckles) - Although they call this pie, you're not gonna be able to cut wedges.

- No, it falls apart.

- It's gonna be- - It's spooned.

- A combination of things.

But I like to make sure that every serving has a little bit of everything.

A little bit of the potatoes, obviously, the meat mixture on the bottom.

- [Nancy] Well, that's not hard to do.

If you just dig down, you'll get everything.

- [Chris] Just gonna get underneath it like that.

- [Nancy] Oh, look at that.

It actually is kind of holding its pie wedge shape.

Looky there.

- [Chris] I don't know if you can see on the side there how...

I gotta get one for myself there, huh?

- I'm willing to share with you.

- No.

- No?

- Not today.

(both laughing) I want my own serving.

- Very pretty.

- There we go.

Now, you can smell...

I mean, the meat has a wonderful fragrance from the... Oh, the Worcestershire, you can smell that and so on.

- Yes, yes.

- So, just have a taste.

- You bet!

I'm way ahead of you.

I've never had shepherd's pie.

- There it is.

- Mm!

I can't get over how easy that is.

- Yeah, that's real easy.

- Oh, my God, it's so good!

- And, you know, again, this is gonna have six to eight servings with one pound of ground round.

(light acoustic country music) I'm here with a friend, Lori Lang.

Lori, it's so nice to have you in the kitchen.

You know, we're gonna do a section on legumes.

I mean, I know I love beans, but Lori actually knows a lot more about why I should like beans because you're a nutritionist.

- Right.

- And I know that you love beans, as well, so it's a labor of love.

It's not something that we have to do, but it's something that if we do, not only is it economical, but it's really good for us.

- Terrific.

- And I have some onions already starting because I wanted to make beans and greens.

You know, we talked in the book about making beans, and then we're also gonna show how to then cook with the beans that we've made.

So I've made some cannellini beans, and now I'm just gonna start this in the pan 'cause it takes a while for these to get heated through.

This is some garlic that I'm just gonna crush down to get the most possible flavor from it.

- [Lori] You're the most amazing garlic crusher.

- Garlic crusher, and whatnot.

But, you know, we were trying to talk about thrifty recipes, but I also...

I'm gonna put a little salt on the board here.

- I love that.

- This is all the salt that I'm gonna put in the dish, so this is not gonna be a lot of salt, but...

I just wanna lower my heat a little bit.

I do want to get it into a fairly nice paste and put it in there 'cause then nobody gets a big glob of garlic in there.

- [Lori] No big chunks.

- No big chunks.

- It's really fragrant, the onions and the garlic smell wonderful.

- [Chris] Well, garlic is good for you too, isn't it?

- Absolutely!

- They always say that it has health benefits.

So why is it good for you?

What's in there?

- Well, you know, garlic and onions are actually in the same family.

They are sulfur-containing, so that there's some phytochemicals that they think are good for our hearts, that fight cancer.

And garlic, I think that we've talked about this before, garlic actually has some antiviral and antibacterial properties.

- [Chris] Mm!

- And, of course, then there's all that great stuff about garlic, like it keeps the vampires away.

- I know, I'm always happy for that benefit.

- Yeah, me too.

- I have some cannellini beans that I cooked up.

I call my Tuscan beans because they have some flavorings of a little... Cooked with a little bit of white wine and onions too.

But I'm gonna put it all in here.

- [Lori] And I can smell that.

I can little essence of white wine, which is such a nice addition.

- [Chris] Just a little bit of white wine in there.

- Beautiful.

- I'm gonna get these going.

So beans are something that I grew up with, and I'm gonna add a little bit of chicken stock to this, as well, and really get that going.

- Well, the wonderful thing about beans, beside the whole health thing that we'll talk about in a minute, is it's such an integral part of most cultural and ethnic foods.

There's so many different wonderful ways to eat them.

And one of the great things about beans that I talk about as a nutritionist is if I had to select just one food to optimally exist, not optimally exist, but to thrive on if everything else was gone, it would without a doubt be legumes because of the rich array of nutrients that they contain.

- Desert island?

- Yeah, desert island or post... (Chris laughs) Post-catastrophic something, something.

But, yeah.

- Beans'll get us through.

- Beans'll get us through, that's it.

- Because they are a protein source and they have all of these other things.

I have a nice display of beans down here.

- It's beautiful.

- And maybe you could talk about each one a little bit.

- Yeah.

- We have these.

These are one of my favorites for soups, and that's the yellow split pea.

Everybody has green split pea, but the yellow split pea has terrific flavor to it, and I think it has the same benefits as the other split peas.

- They do.

And it's interesting because even though these are all different and beautiful and slightly different from a nutritional perspective, they really share a lot of the same.

So, here, why don't you- - [Chris] Then the next one, these are lentils, but they're the dark green lentils.

- [Lori] And I think that these, in particular, are also called French lentils.

- Yes.

- And the beautiful thing about them is, you know, not only are they really small so that they cook more quickly, but these ones are really nice because they hold their shape and texture, instead of turning to mush like, you know, some regular old brown lentils do.

- Right.

- Yeah.

- Then we have chickpeas, which again, in Italian, they call them ceci there.

Garbanzos in Spanish, and chickpeas in America.

And whatever you call them, they are delicious.

- [Lori] They're wonderful.

- [Chris] You can make hummus out of those.

You can just put them in soups and pasta fagioli we used to have.

- [Lori] In salads.

- These are bright red or dark red kidney beans.

And those are the ones that I always associate with chilies and making a little meat and a lot of bean.

You know, there are some people who don't want any beans in their chili.

I want a lot of beans in my chili.

- [Lori] Me too.

Well, if you wanna do it for delicious reasons and for health reasons also, the beans are- - Then these are black-eyed peas, which are used for luck in a lot of cultures.

They have them on New Year's Day.

Hoppin' John, we've made that here, and they're a delicious one.

They also cook a little bit quicker than other beans.

- And in addition to being available dry, they also, just during certain times of the year, they have them available frozen, so they taste more like dry beans, which are really nice.

- [Chris] And these are red or orange lentils.

Again, they cook up even a little quicker than the green or French lentils.

They give you a little bit finer- - They get mushy.

- Sort of creamier kind of soup.

Another great fixture, black turtle beans.

And those, I associate with Cuban cuisine or Spanish cuisine.

They make a delicious soup, really thick and hearty.

And then pinto beans.

Again, the Mexican bean that you always have refried or in chilies and so on.

If you would pass over- - Okay.

- This is a dish that is really popular in a lot of Italian restaurants.

People wanna go back to their roots, they have beans and greens or they have pasta fagioli, which is beans and pasta, but this happens to be escarole.

And escarole is one of those wonderful greens of my childhood.

My grandmother had it.

Like, every day, she wanted to eat some escarole.

Escarole, we called it.

But I'm sure that, in addition to being delicious, having a wonderful little bitterness to it, but there must be some good reason to eat it, as well, from a nutritional point of view?

- Well, absolutely.

I mean, the the whole combination of beans and greens is a delicious combination, plus just such a rich nutrient array.

And, you know, if we talk about greens, greens in general supply us with a lot of potassium, a lot of beta-carotene, a lot of lutein.

You know, besides vitamins and minerals, which I'm gonna talk about some of the minerals that are contained in legumes, there are also nutrients that are called phytochemicals.

That's sort of a hot term these days.

And phytochemicals just mean nutrients that are neither vitamins nor minerals, but so they fall somewhere in between, contain a lot of antioxidants, et cetera.

And one of the phytochemicals that's gaining a lot of, you know, play these days is also lutein, which greens are very rich in.

And we were talking about...

Okay, so here we have escarole and cannellini beans, which is very Italian, but there are so many different kinds of greens that we can cook with in terms of beans and greens.

Which include kale, which is a much tougher but incredibly nutritious, probably the king of greens nutrition.

Very, very rich in lutein is the phytochemical that I was just gonna mention.

And I'll just sort of add this: Phytochemical... (clears throat) "Phyto" isn't "Fido" like- - The dog.

(chuckles) - The dog.

Like F-I-D-O.

It's "phyto," P-H-Y-T-O, which just means a nutrient that comes from a plant.

And so lutein, have you heard of this one?

- Yes.

- Yeah.

So, lutein is the one that is really good for our eyes.

It is supposed to help reduce our risk of macular degeneration and cataracts, which is wonderful.

And as I said, very rich in potassium, vitamin K, beta-keratin, vitamin C. That's sort of a little greens profile.

Now, when we talk about beans, like I said, which are just such an incredible source of nutrients.

So you mentioned that it's a great source of protein.

So a beautiful thing also is you don't necessarily need animal protein with this.

You can make a beautiful soup, beans and greens, and beans are the richest vegetable source of protein that we have.

Also, it's the most incredible source of fiber.

And a 1/2 cup of beans could contain 10 grams of fiber, which is an amazing amount.

It's also a lot of soluble fiber, which is the special kind that actually lowers our bad cholesterol and can help to normalize blood sugar for people with diabetes.

Some of the minerals that they contain are just amazing.

Potassium, magnesium, very rich in those two.

Those are two of the minerals that help us control our blood pressure.

Yeah, so, you know, a lot of times people think, "Oh, well, if you're trying to make a dietary change "to improve blood pressure, that would be to reduce sodium," which is true.

However, we would to increase potassium, magnesium, and calcium at the same time.

- Yeah.

- So, that's just a little bit of a profile.

Also, very rich in iron, all of the legumes are.

And particularly, lentils, which make a wonderful soup.

That smells fabulous.

- I know.

- It just looks so good.

- You know, one of the things that I love about this dish, as so many of the dishes that we have been, and will be preparing for this easy recipes, is that it doesn't take a lot of ingredients.

Now, we used some olive oil, we used a little bit of garlic, an onion.

- They smell great.

Yeah, they're fragrant.

- Some stock.

This, we happened to use chicken stock here, but you could use vegetable stock or you could use water.

I mean, really, you could.

It just adds another element of flavor when you do it with some kind of stock.

And then the beans that we had already made, and this was one of the uses that we could put those beans to and some greens.

And the greens are variable.

As you said, kale would be terrific.

I think of broccoli rabe- - Oh, I love broccoli rabe.

- It's a wonderful green.

- Also called rapini.

- Rapini.

- Yeah, in Italian culture.

- If you wanted to, you could just put some baby spinach in here, that's fine, too.

- And that cooks (clicks fingers) like that, 30 seconds.

- Yeah, that would be much, much quicker.

- Another favorite of mine also is Swiss chard, which is beautiful.

That comes in rainbow chard, red chard, so it adds, you know, some rich color.

Now, what I was gonna ask you now, we're looking at some dry beans here.

- [Chris] Mm-hmm.

- And I know that you prepared these cannellini beans yourself from dry, is that right?

- That's right.

Yeah.

If you buy dry beans, first of all, it's much more economical.

And then the other thing is that you can control those beans so that you can control the amount of sodium that you put in them.

If you get canned beans, sometimes they might be filled with sodium, and you have to rinse them, and so on.

But we're looking for economy here, and with, you know, just a pound of dried... That's what this recipe was.

- One pound?

- One pound of dried beans.

Now, this is gonna be eight or 10 servings- - It's beautiful, yeah.

- Of soup.

- [Lori] A pound of dried beans cost about?

- $2.

And, you know, and the head of escarole and the rest of the onion and the garlic I already had and so on.

- The white wine really is...

I can smell the fragrance.

Of course, the alcohol is on all gone, but that beautiful essence of white wine, I mean, it adds so much flavor to it.

Now, what I was also just gonna say really quickly, because, of course, Chris is a perfectionist and does the most delicious and the greatest texture and all that kind of stuff, but if you don't have the patience to, you know, cook them as long as they need to be cooked or to soak them overnight, which some of them require none of that.

Lentils cook really quickly and don't require preparation like that.

But you can use canned beans.

I certainly do that.

But what I do is make sure that I rinse the starchy, salty residue off before- - Before you use them, yeah.

I'm gonna grate a little bit- - Yum!

- Of Romano cheese in here just because I love the way it adds a creaminess to the whole thing and a little saltiness.

And if you have that bowl- - Yum!

- We wanna make sure we have a way to taste this.

- Okay, yeah, well, I can't wait to taste it.

- Just wipe this down.

- And I was gonna say also, you know, the great thing about a cheese like Romano or Parmesan, they are so richly flavored that you can just use a little bit and it imparts great flavor without, you know, so much saturated fat, et cetera.

That looks and smells fabulous.

- Just like they do in the restaurants.

- Right.

- A little bit more on each serving.

- Mm-hmm.

(cheese grater scraping) Nice.

- Now that's a hearty meal.

And, you know, for pennies per serving... Can we have spoons?

- Yes, well, I can't wait for this.

(Chris laughing) - Pennies per serving for something that's gonna be delicious.

As you've proved to us, I know it's gonna be nutritious.

- Full of nutrition.

- And so comforting.

I think that this is one of those dishes, you know, like pasta fagioli and so on, it's comforting to me because it's a memory, but it's also comforting just because of how satisfying it is.

- Absolutely.

- And, you know, well, the proof is in the tasting.

Mm.

- Mm!

Variety of textures, great flavor.

I can taste the separate essences of different things.

And so this is good for our blood pressure, reduces our risk of cancer, can lower our cholesterol.

- And it's delicious.

(laughs) - And it's yummy, that's the most important part.

- Truly yummy.

- Yeah.

(light acoustic country music) - One of the things that I love to make are soups.

And you can make soups in the winter, you can make them in the summer.

But, of course, I sort of think about soups more in the colder weather 'cause I like to make thick, rich, hearty soups that are dinner.

- Yes, but I like cold soups.

I like those gazpachos and those blueberry soups in the summer as well.

So you're right, it is a year-round option.

- But soups are basically and intrinsically thrift-driven- - Yes.

Yes.

- Because they are very economical to make.

- Have to throw stuff in.

- You get to use up a lot of different ingredients.

But today, we're gonna start from scratch and make one of my favorites, and that's a roasted butternut squash soup.

- Ooh, I really love that.

- So if you'd hand me some butter.

The bigger butter thing.

- The bigger butter.

- I like to start my soup with butter and some of those onions.

- You start everything with butter.

- Well, you know how it is.

- I'm convinced of it.

- And I like to use a nice sweet onion.

And it doesn't matter, you can rough chop this because it's going to all get blended together later on, okay?

So, I wanna get these onions sweating.

And actually, you want the onions to be almost caramelized a little bit, a little bit brown at the edges, and so on.

- Okay.

- So while that is sweating away, I wanna show you... (chuckles) Here it is, it's a big gagootz, as we used to call it in the neighborhood.

- (laughs) That's a good word.

- Gagootz is a general Italian word for a squash.

But this happens to be a butternut squash.

And one of the things that used to drive me crazy was trying to peel these things and cut them up and whatnot.

- Eh, forget it!

- And I realized, boy, I was barking up the wrong tree because all you have to do is... (knife thudding) You do have to cut it.

You have to cut it up.

So I cut the two tips off of this.

- I dunno if we have the...

Whoop!

There.

And then, there's always a bulb portion and a neck portion to it, and I cut it off right at the top of the bulb section.

- Yeah.

- All right?

- [Nancy] It is hard to cut, I know.

You really have to push through.

- They are hard.

And then I just do this and then cut the long parts in half.

- [Nancy] Yeah.

- And if you would put that skin cut side down on a piece of parchment paper.

- Cut side down.

- Right, there you go.

- [Nancy] Okay, I can't wait to see where this is going.

- Well, fortunately, that's it.

You just put this into an oven.

The bulb portion, you have to do a little bit more work, and that is that you have to- - [Nancy] Oh, get the seeds out.

- [Chris] You have to get the seeds out of this.

And all you do is just take a spoon and go in there and cut them out.

This one happened to have a lot of seeds.

But you don't wanna waste this portion of the squash, you know?

So, there you go.

- [Nancy] I was reading about squash this morning and learning that in Australia they don't differentiate between pumpkin and butternut squash.

It's like one and the same to them.

- [Chris] Yeah, pumpkin is a squash, you know, so.

- [Nancy] No, but we call, like, pumpkin soup and butternut squash soup.

To them, it's all the same, according to several articles I read on the internet this morning.

- You can interchange them in recipes.

I just find that the butternut squash cooks up a little bit more tender sometimes, a little bit less fibrous than the pumpkins that we get here.

All right, so put those cut side down, and you put them into the oven and just bake them.

Bake them at 375 degrees, a nice high temperature, until they're really soft.

And here's what it looks like.

Let's get my heat going here.

This, you know, it comes outta the oven.

- [Nancy] Yeah.

Then you just peel the skin off?

- [Chris] Well you can just scoop it out.

- [Nancy] Just scoop it.

- We have some that I've already scooped out.

But it's nice and soft, and so you just- - [Nancy] It's like a sweet potato.

- [Chris] It is, it's like a sweet potato.

And it has gotten nice and sweet because baking it like that brings out the natural sugars in the butternut squash soup.

- [Nancy] Mm.

- [Chris] So here we go.

- [Nancy] Indigenous to Mexico, by the way- - Are they?

- Butternut squash.

- Did not know that.

- I didn't know that either.

- So, I'm just gonna scrape that out.

Now, this is a whole lot easier than trying to peel and cube raw butternut squash.

- Oh, my goodness, for sure, it is!

- And what you end up with is this nice puree, as it were, of cooked squash, tender and sweet.

You could actually just saute this in a little pan and as a side dish.

- Oh, yeah.

- And just serve it instead of mashed potatoes.

It's wonderful.

And there are times when butternut squashes are on sale.

That's the time to just buy them up.

- (laughs) Or there are times when your neighbors are just trying to unload them.

- That's right.

- You know?

"I've got tomatoes, zucchini, and squash."

- [Chris] All right, so now I have the onion in there.

I'm gonna put my different- - [Nancy] Because this is something people like to grow in their garden.

- Squash in there.

And I'm gonna stir that around.

(spoon clattering) - [Nancy] I'm sorry, go on.

- [Chris] I wanna add some chicken stock to this.

- Yeah, I was gonna say, you've gotta make it soupy somehow.

It's not gonna just cook down to a soup.

- Yeah.

And for my butternut squash soup, I always do use chicken stock.

I don't use- - What else would you use?

- Well, I mean, you could just use water, I suppose.

- Oh.

Oh, I see.

- But this enriches it so much.

- [Nancy] Oh, of course.

- [Chris] And adds a layer of flavor to it.

I also add a little bit of water, if you wanna hand me that water.

- [Nancy] Just a tiny bit.

- [Chris] Yeah, just a tiny bit of water.

(spoon clanging) And... (water pouring) Actually, I'll hold off the rest of it and see if it needs to be thinned out later.

- [Nancy] That is something you can add later.

- I'm gonna put the lid on this and let that come.

Now, when I serve this, I love to serve it with some homemade croutons.

- Ooh, homemade!

- Oh, yeah.

- Oh-oh!

You don't see those in my house!

- (laughs) So, I'm gonna heat up some butter in a skillet.

And if you have those slices of nice bread?

- Now, it's important to start with good bread.

- Yeah, this is like a country-style bread.

- I can see little grainy things in it.

- So it's nice and hearty.

I think it's... (sniffs) Yeah, it's a little sourdough.

- Right.

You also don't want the bread to be real soft when you start, am I correct?

- Right.

- You want sort of a stale, dry bread.

- [Chris] This is along the lines of waste not, want not.

Turn all of your old bread into bread crumbs or croutons or something that you can use.

We even included a recipe for bread salad.

- What's that?

- Panzanella.

It's an Italian dish.

Actually, the Italians are great for using leftover bread.

They make a bread soup, and they make something called a panzanella, which is a bread salad.

You just mix it with different herbs and whatnot.

- And that's in the book?

- Oh, yeah.

- I've gotta read about that one.

I missed that.

(Chris laughs) - All right.

So, now, we're gonna get that buttered crackle a little bit and cut these into nice-sized squares.

- [Nancy] Oh, that's very evenly done, Chris.

- [Chris] Oh, well.

You know.

- Four, evenly-spaced.

- And I wanna spice up this butter because that's then gonna get soaked into the croutons with a little bit of sage because I wanna include herbs that go with the soup.

I'm not gonna actually put herbs in the soup, but it's gonna, you know.

- Yeah.

No, I would not have thought to season the croutons with sage.

- [Chris] A little bit of thyme.

And probably a little bit of pepper.

(pepper mill crunching) - [Nancy] Oh, I like this idea, and it's not that hard.

- [Chris] And a little bit of salt.

- [Nancy] God knows we all have stale bread sitting around.

- [Chris] Yes.

(pan scraping) - My family likes to start a new loaf before they finish the old one 'cause they don't like it when it gets down to the end, and the heel is stale.

I like it for toast, but they don't.

- Okay.

As you get it in the pan, you wanna coat it with all of that delicious, melted butter.

- Yes.

I would be using a spatula, myself, as opposed to the flipping method that you're so good at.

- Well, you could use a spatula, it's just fine.

It's just I wanted to get it quickly coated with that butter- - No, I'm impressed.

- Because now it's actually gonna toast and get croutony.

- [Nancy] In there, not in the oven?

- [Chris] No, just like this.

Just gonna keep turning.

- I thought you were gonna put it in the oven.

- And then, what you have are these.

We did some of these ahead of time.

Taste one of these.

(both munching) - [Nancy] They're soft inside and crunchy outside.

- [Chris] Yeah, they really are- - [Nancy] Oh, that's very gosh.

- Tasty, tasty things.

Okay?

- Oh, that's very good.

I was expecting it to be crunchy all the way through.

- No.

- [Nancy] Mm!

- So now, again, in television, we cook a lot faster than things actually cook.

This soup will cook down for about 20 minutes.

- [Nancy] Is that all?

- It'll come to a nice boil.

The onions will get really nice and soft.

- [Nancy] Mm!

- But, you know, there's nothing raw in it, so there's nothing bad about it.

(spoon tapping) And then we wanna make sure that it's really smooth.

The original recipe that I had for butternut squash soup included, at this point, like, two cups of heavy cream, in order to give it a creamy texture.

And I just can't do it.

- Oh, I can.

(laughs) I can!

- So, I mean, if you wanna put heavy cream in here, fine.

But by using an immersion blender or by putting it- - I know you love this.

- This is my boat motor.

(Nancy laughs) By putting it in small batches into a food processor or a blender.

Just be careful when you're blending hot soup in a food processor and whatnot.

This is actually safer than transferring it to another pot and whatnot.

So I'm just gonna go into the pot.

(hand blender whirring) All right, so... (hand blender whirring) - [Nancy] Oh, that looks good.

That's starting to look like squash soup.

- Yeah.

And it's nice and creamy, it really is.

And now I just wanna make sure I have a taste of it.

So if you give me a tasting spoon?

- We serve it every Thanksgiving.

I don't have a Thanksgiving without a butternut squash soup.

- [Chris] Just to... - Don't burn yourself.

- Oh, boy.

It's so sweet.

It's so delicious.

Just needs a little bit of salt, okay?

- Okay, and that's really kind of all the seasoning you've added.

- That's it.

The seasoning's gonna be in the croutons.

And so I'm gonna move these croutons over here.

We have the ones that we've already done.

- Oh, it's a good consistency.

You don't need to add any more of that water, do you?

- No.

- No, it's good.

- [Chris] I'm not going to.

- [Nancy] So, this is without the two cups of heavy cream.

- [Chris] Right.

But it looks creamy.

- It does look creamy.

I'm really astonished.

- And believe me, it tastes creamy.

So now I'm going to just serve up some of this into a bowl.

Again, this would've cooked for about another 15 minutes in real kitchen time.

And I'm gonna put this down here.

I have a couple of... Let me just clear up the deck here.

I have a couple of garnishes that I'd like to use, and one is...

These are hazelnuts- - Yes.

- That I toasted.

And I'm just gonna crack them.

- And then smash them.

- Whoop!

This one runnin' away.

- Oh, you're just gonna sprinkle the little pieces on?

- Yeah, gonna can do that.

- Isn't that smart?

- I love the flavor of hazelnuts and chocolate - [Nancy] Yeah.

(chuckling) - [Chris] And hazelnuts.

- [Nancy] We're not putting any chocolate in here, I'm sorry.

- No, no, no, no.

Okay.

- That's exactly how you treat the garlic.

- Yeah.

And now this is a little bit... You could use creme fraiche or a little bit of sour cream.

And I just wanna put a dollop in the center of this bowl.

- [Nancy] Mm!

(Nancy coughing) Excuse me.

- [Chris] And- - Oh, pretty.

- A couple of these.

And you eat that right along with the soup, these wonderful... And, of course, you could serve croutons on the side, or you can just...

I like to put them right in there, they get nice and soft.

- [Nancy] Ooh!

Ooh!

- And there you have not just a first course, but you have a main course serving of a delicious soup.

If you wanna have a little taste- - Oh, absolutely!

- (laughs) Oh, you got your spoon?

Okay.

Because this is- - Mm!

Oh, that's so good.

- Yeah, isn't that good?

- Mm!

And now with a crouton.

- [Chris] Yeah.

- [Nancy] Even better.

Even better with a crouton.

- As I said, the thing about it is, it's not a side dish, this is dinner.

And once you get used to thinking about this as dinner, first of all, it's delicious and it's satisfying, and it's economical.

So, you know, dinner is only gonna cost like $1 a serving or less than that, and you have something that you can really be proud that you made and happy that you ate.

So, there!

- I'm happy I ate it!

- Roasted butternut squash soup with herbed croutons.

(audience applauding) (light acoustic country music) You know, Nancy, one of the things that I use, I have a tool that helps me be a thrifty cook, and that is this machine right over there.

Bring this over here.

This is a slow cooker.

And there are all different kinds now.

They got them with timers and set them whatever.

But basically, what they are are just- - Crockpots.

- Crockpots.

They have a crockery insert, and you put it in there, and then you put food in here, and you come back after work, and all the food is cooked.

But what's nice about it is that it cooks a lot of food all at once, and then you can store, and it's very efficient in terms of the use of the heat and everything.

- Right, right.

- And then you can store those to have additional meals with no additional work.

So not only do you get a nice fresh meal when you come home from work, but you also have additional meals later on that you don't have to heat up the kitchen for or any of that stuff.

And so, I thought to demonstrate this, I would make one of the things that made me go out and get a slow cooker, and that is brisket.

- Oh, my gosh!

We're speaking my language now.

(laughs) You know, I'm Jewish, and a brisket is served at Rosh HaShanah, it's served at Passover.

It's served at just every Jewish holiday.

- And I make it, actually, with potato pancakes because I celebrate Hanukkah, too.

(Nancy laughs) I never let a good holiday with good food pass me by.

So what we have here is a beautiful, flat piece of brisket.

I like to get that single-cut brisket.

- [Nancy] Right.

- And you wanna trim just a little bit of the fat off of the top.

Not all of the fat, though, because the fat is gonna help keep this moist while it's in the slow cooker over the long period of time that it cooks.

- And you wanna make sure the fat's on top when you put it in so it's sinking in.

- Right, and that's what we're gonna do.

It's got a little thin portion right here.

I'm gonna tuck that under to make sure it fits, and it's even in the pan.

You know, that was the hard part of doing this recipe.

- Whoo!

I'm wiped out.

- I know.

And now, here's the other part of this.

The recipe that kills me.

This is whole-berry cranberry sauce.

Now, just pour that on the top.

- [Nancy] I've done this many times.

- [Chris] Yes.

Now, you'd say, "Well, I don't like cranberries, or- - Doesn't matter.

- "Somebody in my family doesn't."

You will never know that there were cranberries in this.

So, just smoosh that down with a fork or something and just get it a little more evenly spaced.

- Right, you want all of the ingredients coated all the way across, just so that when you're slicing it up- - Yeah, everybody gets...

The flavors are evenly distributed.

Well, the other thing about slow cooker is that the flavors get right into whatever it is you're cooking: Chicken, beef, whatever you put in the slow cooker.

And now you want to sprinkle on a package of onion soup mix.

Again, you know- - (laughs) I know.

- Well, listen.

Here's one of the things about what we're talking about.

When we say easy recipes for thrifty cooking, we mean easy recipes.

We mean ingredients that you, number one, can find or probably have in your kitchen.

Number two, that they don't cost, like, $8, and you need a quarter of a teaspoon of, you know, cardamom, or whatever it is.

- [Nancy] (laughs) Yeah, where do you get that stuff?

- This is not that kind of recipe, and it's not that kind of cooking.

This is the kind of cooking that our mothers and grandmothers did, and they didn't run out and get 14 ingredients that cost two to $3 each because then the dish cost more than, you know, your weekly budget for food.

- I'm wiped out.

I just had to empty that whole package, honest to goodness.

- So, now- - Let me just add, you know, this recipe is so flexible.

If you don't have cranberry sauce, you can use a jar of grape jelly.

- Yes, some sweet- - Really, you can.

You can throw ketchup in there with some brown sugar instead.

I mean, it's kind of like whatever you've got sitting around.

- Yeah.

Also, I make this with a...

When they have on sale turkey breast.

- Yeah?

- I put the turkey breast in here, cranberry sauce, and the Lipton onion soup mix.

- Oh, yum.

I've never done that.

- Oh, yeah.

Put the lid on it.

- Oh!

Go to work.

- Put it on low, and go to work.

Eight hours later...

If you wanna move that over to the side.

- Do you actually happen to have one eight hours later?

- I happen to have one eight hours later, and- - [Nancy] Ah!

Ooh!

(laughs) - This meat is so tender that I hope it doesn't fall apart.

Here's what I do, folks.

When I get home, I take the roast out, if I have time.

I mean, if I want, I can just serve it the way it is.

But if I have time, if I'm gonna serve this later, I take the roast out, let it cool, and slice it.

We're gonna need more than one slice.

And slice it and put it back in the Crockpot.

And then, when I go to serve it, it's already sliced, and you don't have the difficulties of, you know.

- My mother used to make... She would buy the biggest brisket that they had in the grocery store.

She would cook it up, let it cool.

She would take it back to the grocery store- - Have them slice it.

- And have the butcher just slice it up.

And it was all those really thin, thin pieces, which is such a great way to serve brisket too.

- We had our kitchen magician slice this up for us here.

Joe Certo- - That's nicely done.

- Was the one.

Now, accompaniments to this.

I don't know?

What do you usually serve with brisket?

- Well, personally, I like rice.

I'm from the South, we put rice with everything.

So I have this brown rice casserole that I serve with it.

And then any kind of a green vegetable, and you know.

- Yeah.

Okay.

- And a kugel.

Because it's always being served at a Jewish holiday, you've gotta have a sweet kugel with it.

- You know what I think I need, kitchen magician?

I need a dab of mashed potatoes, and I know you've got some over there.

Because this plate is not gonna look complete for me until I have- - It's got some potatoes.

Absolutely.

- Some potatoes on there.

- Absolutely.

- Ah, yeah.

There we go.

- [Nancy] Oh, look at, pretty, pretty.

Thank you.

- All right, so, if you put that on there, and get a spoon from that drawer, we're gonna- - You're just a meat and potatoes kind of guy, aren't you?

- Yeah.

I mean, come on.

- What size are we talking?

- Oh, yeah.

Here.

We just wanna put some of this delicious... Well, here's the other thing, it makes cups and cups of this delicious gravy.

- (laughing) It does.

I always have it sitting in my refrigerator long after the brisket's gone, I'm saving the gravy.

- And people always say to me when I tell them this recipe, they go, "Wait a minute.

Did you put water in the pot?"

No, this is all just juices from the meat itself.

And so, there, I have to- - A piece of meat that is the least expensive cut, the toughest cut of meat, unless you slow cook it, and then it sort of falls off the fork.

- You got a fork there.

You're not gonna need a knife to cut this, Nancy.

- No, the brisket is always so tender.

- [Chris] Let's have a taste.

- [Nancy] You got it.

Oh, look.

See?

And it's important to cut the brisket against the grain, we have to mention that.

- Yes.

When you take the brisket out, or just when you're gonna serve it, you wanna make sure that you cut it against the grain and that way- - Mm!

- [Chris] Is that good?

Mm?

Another fork?

Okay, I'm gonna have a taste.

A little bit of that gravy.

- Oh, my gosh.

Oh, this is so good.

- Okay.

- It's so good.

Thank you.

I'm coming to your house for the next Jewish holiday.

- (laughing) Okay.

(Nancy laughing) A thrifty meal, a delicious meal, a comforting meal, one which involves very little time in the kitchen.

Just a few minutes of preparation, and your family is not even gonna know you're sneaking in a thrifty dish on them when they have this delicious brisket cooked in the slow cooker.

(light acoustic country music) Oh, yeah!

Back in the kitchen.

You know, one of the ways to really remain and to have a thrifty kitchen is to never waste anything and to make the best use of leftovers.

- Oh, absolutely.

- There are times when I actually like leftovers better than the original dish that the thing came from.

- They've saturated and- - Yeah, they have more flavor and interest to them.

The time when we all have leftovers is usually after Thanksgiving, so there's, you know, turkey tetrazzini and turkey salad and all of those uses of leftovers.

But there's actually a long history of using leftover cooked things, like cooked chicken.

And one of the ones that you just never hear about anymore, but it's still just as delicious, is chicken a la king.

- Yes, chicken a la king, that was one of the most popular...

I've been reading about this.

One of the most popular American recipes ever.

- Before you tell everybody about that, I'm gonna melt some butter, and I'm gonna fry off some mushrooms.

- [Nancy] Just plain old, nothing special mushrooms?

- [Chris] Sliced mushrooms.

- [Nancy] Oh, yum.

- Okay, and we're gonna cook those until they lose a little bit of their liquid and I'm gonna hold off putting the other things in.

So tell me about chicken a la king.

- You know, you said it was a popular recipe.

When I grew up, you heard about it all the time.

I mean, all the time.

And I was reading it was one of the recipes that was most often replicated in recipe books.

And there would be cookbooks that would have not just one but several different recipes for chicken a la king in the same cookbook because it was such a popular recipe.

And then, about 20 years ago, James Beard wrote a column somewhere, "Whatever happened to chicken a la king?"

It was gone, it'd vanished.

And, you know, you're bringing it back!

Everything old is new again.

- The thing about chicken a la king is that you could make it turkey a la king.

You could make it, you know, anything.

You could make it shrimp a la king.

It's basically creating a deeply flavored, vegetable-imbued, nice thick sauce and then heating up some already cooked product in it.

And what we have are two cups of chicken that was leftover.

This was a poached chicken that we made chicken stock from, and therefore, we had all this chicken left.

And so we got chicken soup out of it, but we also got this delicious pieces of chicken, which I've cut up into little cubes.

All right, so, you see these mushrooms are starting to get nice and brown.

- Yep, they're soft already.

- I'm gonna put in some onions.

As a matter of fact, I'm gonna put in a lot of onion 'cause I love them!

- I love onions, too.

Can't have too many.

- And a lot of times, it depends upon the size of the onion that you chop up.

I'm also gonna put in some chopped green pepper.

Now, in terms of thrifty kitchen, I usually use a green pepper 'cause they're less expensive.

Sometimes, when you're in the market- - Then a red or a yellow pepper.

- Then a red or a yellow pepper.

Sometimes the red peppers are just as inexpensive, I use a red pepper because I like the color of it, and so on.

Or a little bit of mixed each.

But it adds a delicious flavor in this sauce.

- [Nancy] It's a very different flavor, whether you go with the green or the red.

- Yes, it is.

- Very different.

- Mm-hmm.

But you can see it's also already getting pretty colorful in that pan, and they're gonna cook down a little bit.

And, you know, as always, when we're cooking (laughs) on TV, it's a little bit faster than you might cook at home.

- Oh, sure.

- What you're gonna have, because you had four tablespoons of butter- - Yeah, lots.

- You add an equal amount of flour, because we're gonna actually make a roux in the pan as the vegetables cook.

And a roux is just a thickening agent, made of equal parts shortening and flour.

- Okay, got it.

- Right?

Fancy term, you know.

- Sorry.

I was gonna say, it's believed that this recipe originated in your neck of the woods, in Brooklyn.

- [Chris] Really?

In Brooklyn, New York?

- [Nancy] Yeah.

Actually, in Brighton Beach.

That's Brooklyn, right?

- Yes, absolutely it is.

Not far from where I grew up.

- Don't let me interrupt you.

What are you adding now?

- I'm just gonna add a little bit of salt at the base of this so that we have lots of flavor in here.

I'm gonna put some cracked black pepper.

- There was an inn there run by a Mr. and Mrs. King, and they had a cook there who created this dish and named it for the owners of the inn.

Now, there's absolutely no 100% proof of this, but I saw this in several different sources, and this seems to be the most plausible place where this recipe originated, and it was a long, long time ago.

- I had no idea who the "king" was in a la king.

- No, yeah, it's just a "king" with a mister in front of his name, instead of, you know, "Your Royal Highness" king.

- Yeah.

- Okay?

We need to mix it up some more?

- No, just get it all.

Because you actually want that flour to cook for a minute or two before you add liquid to it.

Flour, when you first put it in a dish, has a sort of a flour taste.

And by cooking it, you're gonna remove that sort of raw flour flavor from it.

- Okay.

- So you wanna make sure that once you put the flour in, you do stir it around for another minute or two.

And you can see it making sort of a dark paste in there and so on.

But you're not gonna make a dark roux like you would for jambalaya or some, you know, New Orleans-style cooking.

This is a light roux, meaning that you don't let the flour brown very much.

Just to cook that flour until it's... Yeah, like that.

- Yeah, okay.

- [Chris] Now I'm gonna add two cups of milk.

(pan sizzling) There we go.

- [Nancy] Mm-hmm.

- [Chris] Now, as this milk comes up to a boil, you'll see that that roux is gonna thicken it into a nice creamy sauce.

- Really?

- Yes.

- [Nancy] It's just gonna happen?

- It's just gonna happen.

And I'm gonna flavor it with, again, one of my favorite kitchen flavorings.

- Oh, Worcestershire!

- It's Worcestershire sauce.

- Worcestershire.

- I'm gonna put about a tablespoon of Worcestershire in there.

Gives a nice flavor.

- [Nancy] Mm-hmm.

Very nice.

Mm.

Smelling it, anyway.

- Actually, I'm going to just get a tasting spoon to see if I have the salt correct in here.

- Oh, I salted something the other day at the start of the recipe, forgot I had done it, salted it at the end of the recipe, it was horrible.

- Actually, that could use just a little bit more.

So if you wanna put that in there.

- [Nancy] Okay, got it.

- [Chris] All right.

Now, I'm gonna add some peas.

- [Nancy] Again, frozen.

- Yeah.

- No problem.

- And here's the thing, you're starting out with just two cups of chicken.

So, the major part of this dish is the vegetables and the sauce.

- Right.

- The chicken is just sort of leftovers.

The impetus to start this dish.

But the real flavor... Plain-boiled chicken doesn't have that much flavor.

- You could pour this over rice and have a meal.

- Yes, actually.

And so now you can see how that has thickened up.

- It has thickened.

- I'm just going to lower it a little bit.

Lower it down.

And I'm gonna add the chicken, and we stir that in.

- Oh, wow.

- Two cups of chicken.

And what we wanna do is make sure that that heats all the way through.

- [Nancy] So that the chicken is hot.

- [Chris] So that the chicken is nice and hot.

- [Nancy] Okay.

- And, in the meantime, you know, you oughta think about what you wanna serve this over because this needs some kind of starch accompaniment.

One of the big things that people would do, a classic chicken a la king is served over rice.

- Yes.

- You make rice, you'd put a serving of rice into a bowl, smash it down, make a timbale, as it were, and then plop that over.

You'd have a mound of rice on your dish, and then you would serve the chicken a la king over that.

However, one of my favorite things to do is to make some biscuits.

- Ooh!

- Or to use leftover biscuits.

You made a big batch of biscuits, don't know what to do with them?

- We never have leftover biscuits.

- We never have leftover biscuits either.

- (laughing) That's a fallacy.

(Chris laughing) - But all you need to do is then split these biscuits, and we're gonna put them on a plate.

- It's kind of like a chicken pot pie concept, just all the pieces are separated.

- Yes.

And how about this?

You got some waffles?

You got a waffle maker?

Put this over waffles.

Chicken a la king over waffles: Mm!

Just a terrific dinner.

- You've stopped me in my tracks with that one.

- Oh, yeah.

- I've never even heard of that.

I mean, I've heard of chicken and waffles, but not chicken a la king and waffles.

- There it is, chicken a la king and waffles.

- Wow.

- Is that heating through there?

- I don't know.

They need enough.

That's enough.

Like, we're on TV.

- It would be at home...

I'm gonna spread these biscuits out a little bit and just get me a nice serving on each one of these things.

Oh, yeah.

- Oh, yeah.

Oh, no.

It's okay if it spills all over it?

- Oh yeah.

- 'Cause it's supposed to- - It's supposed to- - Look like that.

- There we go.

- All right, that on the corner needs a little more.

- A little more on that corner.

- [Nancy] Okay.

- [Chris] So there we have it.

Chicken a la king on biscuits.

What do you think?

We gonna have a taste of this?

- I think it looks yummy.

- Yeah?

All right.

I gotta have a taste.

I gotta see how those mushrooms taste in the chicken.

- Yeah, you gotta get a little bit of everything in each bite here.

Well, what are you thinking?

- [Chris] Mm.

(munching) - Oh.

Oh!

- You're right, the sauce is so good that you could just put it over the biscuits.

- I didn't even get chicken in that bite, and it's good.

- No, you don't need it.

A deep mushroom flavor, a good onion.

The mushrooms are terrific.

- [Nancy] Mm.

There's chicken.

- Green peas, a delicious flavor.

Chicken a la king, just one of the recipes in our "Easy Recipes for Thrifty Cooking."

(light acoustic country music) You know, I wish I could say you're seeing double, but it's not even close.

This is my son, Joseph.

Joseph, it's great to have you in the kitchen here at the station, but, you know, we're in the kitchen all the time at home.

- Yep.

And it has been quite a while, but it is always a pleasure to cook with you.

- Yeah, Joe's been on cooking with me before, but he was, like, three years old, and we had him up on a stool and whatnot.

Now he's taller than I am and whatnot.

And because we were gonna make... (laughs) You know, we wanted to make a casserole, something that was delicious.

And I thought about, "Well, you know, "what did my mother make?

She actually combined things.

She used to use leftover pasta, and she would make a delicious casserole out of it called baked macaroni or an Italian macaroni al forno.

And Joe is my pasta guy.

He really loves pasta.

- I'll take it just about any way you can serve it.

- That's right.

Plain with butter, with sauce on it, cheeses, whatever it is.

Joseph is a freshman in high school this year.

- Yep.

And quick little shout out to my algebra class and English class.

You guys are great.

- (laughs) It's gotta happen.

- It's gotta happen.

- All right, the first thing that we do is, you know, if you had leftover macaroni with some sauce on it, that's fine.

If you make your macaroni for this casserole, just put a little sauce on it.

It'll keep the noodles separate.

And we're just gonna put in this.

This is ricotta cheese.

And you wanna mix that together, Joe, because we wanna make sure that we have a nice mixture of the ricotta.

And I'm gonna put in, while you're mixing, some grated Romano cheese.

And I'm gonna put it in at this stage so that it gets all mixed through.

I'm actually gonna put in quite a bit.

I'm just gonna save a little bit for the top.

And Romano cheese is a sheep's milk cheese.

So it's different than the Parmesan cheese, which is a cow's milk cheese.

Both of them are delicious, and you could use either one.

We just happen to always favor the Romano cheese.

It's a little tangier, a little sharper.

Okay, so you got that mix through here?

- Yep.

- I'm gonna give it just a another little run through.

Since this is all gonna bake in the oven, you know, all of this stuff is gonna mix together anyway.

- Yeah.

- So what else do you like to eat, Joe?

- Well, I also like a lot of Italian foods like pizza, (Chris chuckles) which we make all the time, as well.

- [Chris] Mm-hmm.

- I like a lot of Chinese foods, dumplings.

Just a whole bunch of stuff.

- Yeah, a lot.

- You know what I like.

- Yeah, I know what you like.

(laughs) Just need a little sauce in the bottom.

Part of that is just for flavor, and part of it is that, you know, it provides some moisture as this bakes in the oven.

This particular pan was a Christmas present, so I got a nice deep-dish lasagna-style pan, which is perfect for this.

Okay, lots of nice sauce in the bottom.

Now, I'll put in a layer of this.

And if you had spread that out, Joe?

- [Joe] Mm-hmm.

- [Chris] Right.

Do we need more?

'Cause we have lots more.

- [Joe] Yeah.

I think a little bit more.

- You know, I'm gonna put a little more macaroni in here and mix it.

This is such a deep dish.

I'm just gonna mix this together.

And you need a little bit more in there?

- [Joe] Mm-hmm.

- All right.

So now we're gonna start layering a few more things.

We have some shredded mozzarella cheese.

That's a good thing.

I'll mix this up a little bit.

Go put that in there.

Joseph is one of those boys who is gonna grow up learning how to cook.

You know, he's gonna know that because that's part of my tradition.

I grew up in the kitchen being a kitchen helper.

Sometimes, my grandmother would make me actually shape these meatballs myself.

But these are nice little tiny meatballs, the kind that you would put in wedding soup.

But you could put some ground sausage meat cooked, or some bigger meatballs, just to add a little bit...

I'd put them all in there, Joe.

- [Joe] All right.

- [Chris] You know why?

'Cause the crew is watching, and they're gonna eat all of this, and they don't want you to be stingy about it.

Okay?

- All right.

- [Chris] Just spread them out.

Let's put a little bit more sauce on there.

- [Joe] All right.

- I'm gonna put this over here.

So, from the earliest time, Joe's been helping me to put together, you know, the toppings for our pizzas, you know, making fresh pasta, which is something we love to do.

- Yep.

- And it's just nice when you sit down to dinner, and you know you had something to do with the meal, it's sort of important.

- It is.

And pasta is one of those foods that is really pretty inexpensive.

- Yep.

- And I think a lot of people don't realize that.

But it's an ordinary food, tastes great, and it's thrifty.

- Yeah.

That's right.

We're doing thrifty cooking.

- Yep.

- Well, talk about thrifty cooking.

This casserole is gonna serve like 20, so.

(laughs) All right, I'm gonna put another layer of macaroni on top of that.

All right.

And if you would even that out, smooth it down before we put the final layers on it.

Yeah, pasta was actually a part of every one of my Sunday meals in my entire life growing up.

Your grandmother and great-grandmother served pasta as the first course in every Sunday dinner we ever had.

All right, more sauce.

- Okay.

- Never enough sauce.

- No, we may need a little bit more.

I don't know.

- Oh, just use it all.

Just put it all on there, and we'll spread it around and make-do.

That's part of cooking with leftovers, is making do with the amount that you have.

All right.

So we got some nice delicious sauce in there.

Okay.

Now another... (laughs) More cheese.

More cheese.

- More, more.

(laughs) - So, in a sense, this is sort of like lasagna, but made with...

I wanna talk a little bit about the pasta that we used.

This was a penne rigate, which is the little...

They look like nibs, and they're long and slanted.

But these have ridges.

Rigate means "ridges" in Italian.

And the reason why they're nice is 'cause they're the right shape and the right size.

Oh, put some more on there.

Again, you know.

- You say, "Put these on."

I say, "How high?"

- (laughs) And the ridges help hold the sauce on it.

And the fact that they are hollow means that some of that cheese will melt right inside these little penne rigate.

Now, you could use other kinds of small macaroni.

You know, where we are, a lot of people use rigatoni, which are like bigger tubes.

But this is, I think, a nice size.

It scoops out well, as we hope we'll see.

Okay.

Some more grated cheese.

And this is gonna go in the oven, about a 350-degree oven, until it's really bubbly and hot.

And I used to like it that the edges were just a little bit crunchy, a little crispy from being in the oven.

I'm gonna move this over to the side, Joe, and I'm gonna go get this, this one over here.

I think I need- - The pads.

- Yeah.

- All right.

- It's one of the things that, you know, we love to cook with our kids in the kitchen.

There are some safety things that always have to be kept in mind, and one of those is... Not for you, you're a little older (laughs) and wiser.

But, you know, to make sure that you're not exposing your kids to the dangers of sharp knives and hot stoves and so on.

But there are still plenty of things that your kid can do.

All of that preparation work that we did before could be done by, you know, a two-year-old or three-year-old to help you out and get the sense that they're participating in all of this.

- And you've always been very good about that.

- Oh, yeah, because I need the help.

(Joe laughs) There's no use having kids if they can't work for you.

You know what I mean?

(laughs) We have put them to work.

All right, Joe, I know this is the hard part for you.

We're gonna have to actually ask you to test this and see if it's edible.

I wanna make sure you got some of those meatballs in there.

- [Joe] Mm-hmm.

- And I have a fork.

There we go.

I'm just gonna...

Whoop.

- [Joe] Mm.

(crew laughing) - Holy smoke!

- When it's good it's good.

- That's right.

And let me tell you, folks, you see the look on his face?

This is the reason I love to cook in the kitchen.

Because I hope that that's the face that my mom and my gram saw when I was a little kid.

And it's all about sharing a little bit of love in the kitchen.

Joe, We're glad to share it with you, you always share it with us.

And this is macaroni al forno, baked macaroni Italian-style.

(light acoustic country music) (bright upbeat music)