Dinner

Fusion craziness – Coconut curry fettuccine

/ Dave S. Koster / 2 Comments

IMG_2450A few weeks ago, the kids and I were driving through the neighborhood after grocery shopping and a Domino’s Pizza delivery driver passed us. In typical dad-fashion, I said hey look it’s a Domingo’s Pizza! The kinds all said “Awww. dad, it’s Domino’s, there’s no such thing as Domingo’s Pizza.” I then suggested that WE could start a Domingo’s Pizza and make all sorts of crazy fusion food concoctions. It didn’t take long before this devolved into trying to mix up two of the weirdest foods into something plausibly edible. In any case. The attached recipe is the result of some of that.

What you need

  • 1 Can chicken broth
  • 1 Can full-fat coconut milk
  • 2 Chicken breasts (diced)
  • 4 Tbsp Avacado oil
  • 1 lb peeled & cooked shrimp
  • Some powered garlic, maybe a tablespoon or two
  • 2-3 Tbsp Yellow curry powder
  • 1/2 Tsp garam masala
  • 1 Tbsp Cilantro
  • 1 lb Fettuccine noodles
  • 2 yellow or orange peppers (sliced)
  • 1 cup of sliced carrots

Cooking it:

Start by pouring the coconut milk and chicken broth into a large pot, I like using an enamel covered dutch oven, along with the carrots and spices, except the garlic. Saute the diced chicken breasts with 2Tbsp oil and the garlic so they’re just cooked on the outside. Drop this into the pot. Allow this to simmer for 20 minutes or so. You want to allow it to develop the flavors.

Boil the fettuccine in water with 2Tbsp oil and some salt until it’s still soft, but still pretty firm. I’m not talking a bit al dente, I’m talking not cooked. drain the noodles and add to the sauce along with the peppers and anything else I missed. Cover for another 15 or so minutes so that noodles can continue cooking. Add the shrimp & re-cover for another 5 minutes -basically until the shrimp is hot. If you stick it in too early, they’ll become tough.

That’s it. I did this totally off the cuff and so the measurements may be nowhere near correct with the spices, you’ll want to adjust to taste.

 

Everything from a can tacos

/ Dave S. Koster / 2 Comments

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In honor of taco Tuesday, I thought I’d to a taco themed post. That is, a post where I talk about how we make ‘tacos’. You’d think that since I have a moderate stock-pile of ground turkey, I’d just use that. Nope. That takes planning and shit, and during the week I don’t really have the attention span for planning. My solution? Everything from a can tacos. It’s easy and all you have to do is open a bunch of cans and heat them up. Plus add whatever taco shell tickles your fancy. I like this particular dinner because it requires virtually no effort, tastes okayish, and includes vegetables (fruit – actually, tomatoes are fruit). Anyhow, here it is so I can continue being lazy and cooking dinner that’s actually not everything from a can tacos (chicken in the oven, I’m just sitting here waiting for the thingy to ding and tell me it’s time to get off my ass, grab another beer and then point at the food and exclaim CHILDREN, YOU’VE BEEN FED BE THANKFUL YOU DON’T LIVE IN A CARDBOARD BOX YET!)

What you need:

  • 1-2 Cans of chicken breast
  • 1 can of diced green chilies (mild or hot to taste)
  • 1 can of fire roasted diced tomatoes
  • 1 diced onion (I know this isn’t from a can, but this is essential so cope)
  • 1 small can of salsa verde
  • 1 can of black beans (drain)
  • 1 can sliced olives
  • 1 package of taco seasoning

Directions:

Mix it up in a deep pan and heat until heated. Do whatever it is you normally do with taco shells and serve.

Phoning it in – Plain noodles

/ Dave S. Koster / 4 Comments

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So far with this blog I’ve managed to write up some family favorites, but what I haven’t yet done is the misadventure part. I think I’d like to change that, largely because it’s a more significant part of my cooking-dad narrative than this blog might otherwise suggest.

Last week, I failed to write a blog post. There are a bunch terrible of reasons for this more akin to excuses. The largest of which is that I went to a writer’s retreat and didn’t feel like it. I worked on my book, which is a satirical take on the fairy tale of true love, not cooking. I could, of course, have just written and scheduled a post ahead of time like all other studious bloggers, but, well – lazy. In fact, I was lazy all week. My crowning achievement was folding the laundry. I spent most of the week phoning-it-in for dinner, and not the sort where somebody brings you food. Dinner was a product of condensed soup, McDonalds, and plain noodles.

One lament, heard far and wide, by working parents is that about cooking. I mean, after a 10 hour day of commuting, working and generally not sitting on the couch watching TV, the last damn thing any one of us wants to do is cook. Usually, this is where going out comes in, but when you’ve got kids that are starting to eat like teens, that becomes an outrageous expense the minute such a notion pops into your mind.

When I was a kid, about the age of our oldest now, the go-to was hamburger helper. If memory serves, it was the first thing I learned how to cook. The other go-to, for a time, was also TV-dinners. To be clear, this was NOT an every night occurrence, though if you eat enough hamburger helper, it may as well have been. In my family, the solution is plain noodles. No olive oil, or pesto basil with sliced olives, sun dried tomatoes, toasted almonds and mushrooms. None of that. Just plan damn noodles. It takes roughly 5 minutes dirties exactly 1 pot and exactly 1 strainer and it’s slightly more healthy than mac-and-cheese.

At this point, you may be saying, but Dave! You could also just empty a jar of sauce into a pot and have sauce too, then you’d have a veggie to go with. To this, all I have to say is: one pot, one strainer, why the hell would I dirty more dishes if I don’t have to.

What you need

  • Some damn noodles
  • A pot of water

Directions:

Boil the water, add noodles and boil until soft, but no so soft they’re basically mush. You want a bit of firmness in your noodles. And, if you insist on being one of those pinterest parents, you can add the basil pesto, a couple cans of sliced olives, sliced mushrooms, a handful of toasted almonds and half a jar of sliced up sun-dried tomatoes.

French Fry Crawl!

/ Dave S. Koster / Leave a comment

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They* tell you that when you have kids everything changes. The most notable change, in my opinion, is that all the money you didn’t have before to spend on things like food and rent and going out with friends from time to time is spent instead on diapers and a fully new wardrobe every four months as the little spud grows out of everything they own. Another thing that changes is going out. When they’re super little, like within a week or two, you can still go out with your partner, but it’s going to be a restaurant . The whole pub thing is out and was the minute somebody peed a little blue line on the stick. As your kids get older, the amount of going out gets better, then as they approach teenager, you can take ’em out, but it becomes just totally unaffordable. On the bright side, fast-food is usually ‘cheap’, so when you’re pre-teen with a cracking voice asks if he can have two #1 meals instead of the happy meal he was perfectly content with not, how long ago was that a year, two? holy crap, a kids meal, there’s an outside chance you can say yes.

As ‘going out,’ for a meal varies by age, there is one thing remains fixed. You will NOT be organizing a pub crawl with your friends**. Really though, if you’ve ever done a pub crawl, you know that hanging out with friends and jumping from place to place to order a single shot or beer or whatever only to crawl onto the next place until you run out of legs for the night, is an amazingly good time that will result in selfies that never die on the Internet, in spite of their seriously questionable content. While this sucks, I have a solution for you (sort of), that the kiddos will appreciate, provided you only do it once a year.

The Great American French-Fry Crawl!

*Insert crickets*

Okay, okay, it sounds dubious, but it’s a fun and relatively inexpensive night with the kiddos that is memorable, doesn’t involve any sort of real food, and forces the lot of you to sit in the car all night and talk. It’s like being at a restaurant only cheaper, someone is driving, someone is tweeting, and all of us are being as raucous as is possible in a confined space. We started our annual french-fry crawl after a heated kitchen-table debate over the bestest french-frys. Usually, the debate involves star wars or history, but not that day, and it was a great day. Anyhow, here is how to have your own french-fry crawl:

Date:

Last day of school, wherever you are.

Rules:

  • Get a pile of cash
  • Everyone gets in the tactical family transportation unit
  • Go from fast-food joint to fast food joint drive-thru and order 1 (yes just 1) small french-fry.
  • You may order other things – drinks, burgers etc… but save room for fries.
  • Each family member will rate each place according to ‘better than’ ‘worse than’ ratings, so at the end you have a ranking
  • Each stop will be tweeted/facebooked/instagramed (whatever) by the non-driver with the #frenchfrycrawl tag
  • When you have exhausted all of the nearby fast-food places, go for ice-cream. It is acceptable to take-home ice-cream in the event that you’ve got allergies.

If you DO go out for your french-fry crawl. Tag me early in the night @daveskoster, I want to check out your progress and I’d love to know what everyone’s favorite was.

Cheers!

-Dave

* They being everyone who’s ever had children before and some who haven’t, but think they’re providing sage advice.

** In the interest of being honest this is not strictly true, but it’s something you’re going to need to plan for weeks and will cost you 10x what it would have when you were 23.

 

Porcupine Meatballs

/ Dave S. Koster / Leave a comment

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This article appeared in the September 14, 2016 edition of the Seward Journal Newspaper, and has been heavily edited.

In Alaska, hunting and fishing permeates our various cultures, whether you’re an Anchorage dwelling vegan or a whaling captain out of Utqiaġvik. This becomes profoundly obvious during the summer and fall months, even in the most concrete urban corner of Anchorage, when folks are heading out to fill their freezer. Over the past two weeks, Moose hunting season launched, and as is usually the case during hunting season, the only Moose I’ve caught sight of are limited to the antlers from a successful hunt tied to a camouflage four-wheeler, strapped to a trailer, hitched to a truck driven by someone who hasn’t showered in a week.

Earlier this week, I was having a conversation with a co-worker about our respective dinner menus and she mentioned she was having porcupine meatballs. As you might imagine, my first question was not, in fact, “What’s a porcupine meatball.” Rather, my inclination was to ask her what porcupine tasted like and where she got it. Instead, I decided to act as though I already knew everything there was to know about meatballs, porcupines and where to get them, and what they taste like, and every which way porcupines might be rendered into meatballs and cooked. I went with the very safe “Oh, that sounds good,” before she went on to describe the recipe in some fuzzy detail. The key ingredient was not, as I’d assumed, porcupine. It was hamburger.

The lack of porcupine meat in the meatballs should have been obvious, but I just figured that I had a skewed opinion after so many years working for Fish and Game. One of the things you learn working for an outfit like that is that anything containing fat or protein is a possible menu-item. Around the point where we’d gotten around to the merits of using wild rice, another one of our coworkers approached. Now, it’s important to note that this particular coworker is from somewhere in the deep south and is not a hunter. His response, in tones suggesting he had never been one of these folks, was “Oh, sounds like when folks would cook opossum back home.”

At this point, my coworker having porcupine meatballs had to clarify that they are porcupine meatballs not porcupine-meat balls. We all had a good chuckle and went home and I spent my commute wondering what porcupine-meat balls would taste like. I don’t know if I’ll ever find out, but on the bright side, I can always have porcupine meatballs, and if you’re one of the lucky un-showered hunters or spouse of said un-showered hunter, you can use ground-moose -After you’ve had your shower.

Update April 14th, 2017

I returned to my post at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in late November, 2016. Shortly after my return, we had a luncheon pot-luck, and I decided to make porcupine meatballs. As with my initial reaction, everyone expected it was made of porcupine and was extremely disappointed when they found out I’d used boring old ground turkey.

What you need:

  • 1lb ground meat (not necessarily porcupine)
  • 1/2 C. Raw rice
  • 1/2 C. Milk
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 3 Tbsp. Italian seasonings
  • 3 Tbsp. chopped onion
  • 1/2 C. chopped Mushrooms
  • 1 Can condensed tomato soup
  • 1 Can water

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix the hamburger, rice, milk, salt, pepper,
Italian seasoning, onion, and mushrooms. Shape into about 9 balls and
place in a 9x9x2” baking dish. In a small bowl, mix soup, water & a
bit more salt. Pour the soup evenly over the meatballs and place in
the oven for 1 1/2 – 2 hours.

Bourbon glazed salmon

/ Dave S. Koster / Leave a comment

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Living in Alaska, one thing you tend to get your fill of is salmon. I love salmon strips, baked salmon, salmon patties, salmon burgers, (you get the picture.) However, because I’m lazy and a creature of habit and also because I think the flavor of salmon stands on its own perhaps only needing the very moderate intervention of a dash of garlic, lemon, and dill. I virtually always cook my salmon that way. Today (two weeks ago, actually. I scheduled this post – sorry it’s a thing bloggers do, I’ve got time today), I found myself obligated to cook salmon for dinner as my wife had pulled it out to use on Friday, but gave up when the kids said, we just want to potato cakes. She also handed me a recipe involving panko crumbs and stuff. I was like, ‘No, my way is better and you all like it.’ She sighed and shook her head. Okay, fine. Maybe only I like it that way, still the panko crumb thing still didn’t sit with me. Instead, I went looking for something sort of different. What I ran across was a recipe for bourbon glazed salmon. The idea was awesome, however, me being the rebel that I am, I concluded that I couldn’t possibly lift the recipe in it’s entirety. Rather, I examined it, picked it apart and constructed my own version. here it is:

What you need:

  • One Alaska salmon fillet, I used Coho, cut into single portions (like 4-6oz)
  • 1/3 Cup of bourbon
  • 4 Tbsp Teriyaki sauce
  • 2 Tbsp Soy sauce
  • Alder smoked salt
  • Garlic
  • Parsley
  • 1/8 Cup brown sugar
  • 2 Tbsp Molasses
  • Avocado oil
  • 2 medium yellow onions, diced

Directions:

Place the salmon into a baking dish and set aside. Combine the bourbon, teriyaki, brown sugar, molasses, soy, and about 2 Tbsp avocado oil in a small pot, heat until the sugar dissolves and the bourbon just starts to burn your eyes. Pour most of this over the salmon, then sprinkle with a healthy covering of alder smoked salt, garlic powder, and parsley. Allow to marinade for 1-2 hours, hold a few tablespoons of the marinade back to pour on top of the salmon during cooking.

Heat another 1-2 Tbsp. avocado oil in a large iron skillet, toss in the onions and cook until they start to become soft and translucent. Spread the onions out evenly over the skillet and place the salmon on top of the bed of onions. Pour the marinade into the skillet & over the salmon. Pour the marinade mix you held back over the salmon now as well. Cover this and let cook over med-low heat for 15 minutes (less if your fillets aren’t particularly thick. You want to turn the heat off as soon as the salmon has cooked through (it flakes easily with a fork).

Serve with wild rice, top with the onion / marinade from the bottom of the skillet.

Ginger Sesame Salad

/ Dave S. Koster / 2 Comments

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There are times where I find cooking an incredibly creative endeavor. Less because I’m a brilliant and bubbling with culinary innovation or anything, and more because I’m a terrible grocery shopper. I ALWAYS forget something. To be more specific, I usually forget enough to cook dinners for a full week. What’s more, I frequently find that I’ve picked up stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with the usual weekly routine of making a fast, filling, and approximately nutritious dinners. To that end, when the only salad-like vegetables you have to hand are a head of cabbage, a few orange peppers that will not last until stir-fry on Thursday, and a pack of mushrooms, salad is a pretty remote option. In any case this is pretty much the state of things in this household and creativity – or just trying random shit – becomes a full on necessity. Last week was one of those times. I had pretty much nothing to work with and a strong urge to make a dinner that wasn’t 50% Rice-o-Roni. Most of the ingredients here are things I just happen to have lying around at any give time because they’re on my mental long-term grocery list, which means I usually buy a LOT MORE than I actually need. Ever. Another bonus on this one is that it takes like 5 minutes to prepare and tastes as good as anything you’ll get in a restaurant. I also expect you can make it with half a bag of coleslaw mix a few not-so prime sugar snap peas and that zucchini you’ve been struggling to work out how to use before it goes bad.

What you need for the dressing:

  • 6 Tbsp Red wine vinegar,
  • 1/2 Tbsp GOOD balsamic vinegar – don’t skimp on this,
  • 3 Tbsp red wine,
  • 1 Tbsp Teriyaki sauce – In my opinion, this is one of the key ingredients, even though there’s not much,
  • A few drops of soy sauce (to taste, really),
  • 1 Tbsp Sesame oil,
  • 1/2 Tbsp Chili pepper sesame oil (or just regular sesame oil and mix in a few pepper flakes),
  • 1 Tsp toasted sesame seeds,
  • 1/2 Tsp ground ginger,
  • a few dashes of garlic powder (about 1/8th of a tsp), and
  • 1 Shallot, finely diced,

The salad itself:

  • 16oz small fresh button mushrooms,
  • 1-2 Cups chopped cabbage, and
  • 2 sliced large orange peppers.

Directions:

Put the cabbage and mushrooms into a container with a lid. Mix up the dressing and pour over the mushrooms and cabbage. Put the lid on the container and shake well. Put this in the fridge for a few hours, if you can spare the time, skip it otherwise. Just about the time you start cooking dinner, slice up the orange peppers and toss with the salad mix in a bowl.

That’s it. It’s easy, and absolutely delicious.

Basil chicken stir-fry

/ Dave S. Koster / Leave a comment

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First appeared in the Seward Journal Newspaper 02/22/2017

If I had my way, I would literally eat every meal directly from a can.
As much as I love good food, I hate dishes. This is even more true
when I’ve spent 8 hours working, 4 hours caught in traffic, an hour
cajoling the children into finishing homework and entirely too much
time shoveling the driveway, which still has me concerned
archeologists might very well find my desiccated remains at the bottom
of a glacier in a thousand years. Rather than giving in and having
‘everything from a can’ tacos, I rely heavily on stir-fry to keep
dishes to a minimum while still providing something vaguely like a
nourishing meal. That said, I can only get away with tossing the very
nearly expired vegetables with tofu and chicken with some some
‘stir-fry sauce’ from the bottle about once every other week. In order
to combat this prohibition, which my wife assures me is, in fact,
enshrined in our wedding vows, I have to get creative with the stir
fry. It turns out that if the flavor profile is different enough, even
if the ingredients really aren’t, it doesn’t count against the
stir-fry limit. So, here was this week’s version of stir-fry.

What you need:
Main dish:

  • 2Tbsp oil
  • 2Tbsp chopped fresh basil
  • 1Tsp Rosemary
  • 1/2 Tsp Sage
  • 3 Cloves of Garlic, minced
  • 1 bunch of green onions, chopped – separate green tops from the white bottoms.
  • 1/4 Cup white wine
  • 2 Tbsp Lime juice
  • salt & pepper to taste
  • 3 Chicken breasts chopped into 1/2” – 3/4” cubes.
  • 2-3 Cups thawed or fresh broccoli florets
  • 2 small yellow squash

Rice:

  • 2 Cups jasmine rice
  • 1 Can of chicken broth
  • 1 C Water
  • 2 Tbsp fresh chopped parsley
  • 2 Tbsp Olive Oil

Directions:
Cook the rice as you normally would in a pot by bringing the rice,
chicken broth, water, and parsley to a boil. Once the rice is cooked,
add the oil, mixing it in well. You can use 1-2 Tbsp or so of butter
instead of olive oil, but we’ve got food allergies to contend with so
this is what I use, it still gave a buttery taste.

Pour a couple of tablespoons into a 14” wok and brown the chicken,
garlic and the white parts of the onion. Once the chicken is browned,
add everything else, holding back only the green parts of the onion –
add those right near the end. Cook over high heat stirring frequently.
The goal is to cook down the water. There will be a lot of water
because a lot of water will come out of the veggies. Once the
vegetables are cooked through serve over the rice.

Super awesome Steak and Potatoes

/ Dave S. Koster / 2 Comments

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A few years ago, which my belt insists was far too long ago, my family staged an intervention on my blood-pressure and Cholesterol. For a good long while after that, I exercised a lot and cut 90% of the red meat out of my diet. Hell, I cut out 100% of beer and even got close to being able to run a half-marathon. It was awesome. I felt good, my clothes fit nicely and I had lots of energy. Of course, what I didn’t have was much time. Fast forward to today, I killed my gym membership because I couldn’t make time to get down there and am struggling to get my ass out of the chair and, if nothing else, keep my weight from getting even worse.

The one change I made that I’m holding pretty well too is the near complete elimination of red meats and far more careful intake of unhealthy foods. I’ve been slipping on he unhealthy food front, but I’m holding firm on red-meat. Of course, this is super easy to do when I walk into the grocery store and peruse the meat section. I just can’t justify spending $20 for a meal of red meat. I mean, hell, who can afford that shit? (If you happen to be one of those people, I don’t want to hear it.)

Anyhow, when we do eat steak, I generally don’t, except for Christmas dinner, in which I eat a 4oz portion. I even get turkey burger when we grill in the summer. It’s seems pretty unfair for my family to have to adhere to the same standards of food intake because they don’t have problems with high-blood pressure. That’s sort of a ‘me’ issue. A good work around thus far that minimizes my intake of red-meat, reduces the cost of red, meat AND gets my family a tasty steak and potatoes meal, PLUS (and this is the real bonus) It’s a one pan meal ONE PAN. One pan means less dishes, which, you know, my wife gets stuck with most of the time, but you know, I’m looking out for her too.

What you need:

  • 4-8 Potatoes, depending on size. I like the smaller Yukon gold, you’ll want to use upward of 8 of them.
  • 1 – 1 ¼lb Steak chopped into cubes
  • 2 Tbsp fresh Parsley
  • ½ Large yellow onion, diced
  • ¼ tsp dill weed
  • 4Tbsp olive oil (or 2 Tbsp olive oil 2Tbsp lard)
  • 1/2Tsp Salt
  • Pepper to taste
  • 2Tsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/8 C. Red wine
  • 1 12-oz bottle Stout beer
  • 1 8oz package sliced mushrooms
  • Montreal steak seasoning (it’s got salt, pepper, dill seeds, and some other stuff in it.)

Directions

Rub the Montreal steak seasoning into the diced meat and brown in a well-seasoned 14” iron skillet with 2 Tbsp of olive oil or 2 Tbsp lard. Pull the meat off the skillet and set aside.

Dice the potatoes into relatively small pieces, roughly ½” or smaller. This will help them cook faster. Put them into a large covered bowl with onions, 2 tbsp oil, salt, pepper, and the dill. Mix well and put into the Iron skillet. Cook until the onions start to get a bit translucent. Add the Beer, red wine, Worcestershire sauce. Allow that to bubble off and once it’s cooking well again, add in the rest of the ingredients. Cook until the potatoes are soft, but not mushy, and the sauce has thickened into a gravy.

Easy Enchilada Casserole

/ Dave S. Koster / Leave a comment

By Fred Tice

** This article first appeared in the November 30 Issue of the Seward Journal Newspaper**

Rather than serve up the usual fare of ‘leftover turkey’ recipes,
which you’ve undoubtedly already worked through, something not-turkey
and also easy seemed in order. Fred Tice came to the rescue with this
gem:
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There are two methods I use to determine the bona fides of a Mexican
restaurant. The first is when I sit down. A pitcher of margaritas
should appear instantly, as if by magic.

OK, no, not really.

The first is the chips and salsa. If the chips are stale, or the salsa
thin and weak, that doesn’t bode well.

The second, far more important test is how well they make enchiladas.

A really good enchilada is a culinary work of art, a thing of beauty.
Have you ever tried to make them, complete with the presentation of a
first-rate Mexican eatery? I have, and rolling those things up without
destroying them is darn near impossible, not to mention time
consuming. That’s why I use the recipe that follows. Total prep time
is about 1½ hours.

Ingredients:

A package of around 20 or so small flour or corn tortillas. (I like
flour, but corn is healthier and lower calorie. The diameter isn’t
important, it’s just that corn tortillas usually only come in
six-inch.)

2 pounds ground beef or turkey

32-oz. can enchilada sauce, green or red, chef’s preference

1 to 1½  pounds grated cheese (depending on the cheesiness of the
cook). I like to mix ½ pound mozzarella and ½ pound Monterey jack, but
whatever you have on hand is fine.

16-oz. can diced tomatoes, drained. I like the ones w/ oregano, basil
and garlic already in the can; this is optional.

Spices as desired.

½ tablespoon cooking oil

8-oz. can of sliced black olives for garnish (optional)

In a large skillet, brown and drain the ground meat. Mix in the
enchilada sauce and tomatoes. Bring to a low boil, then reduce heat
and simmer for 30-45 minutes, or until a fairly thick consistency is
reached. Mixture should not be too soupy. Season to taste with cumin,
salt, pepper, chili powder, and/or paprika.

While enchilada sauce is simmering, preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Lightly oil a large casserole dish (approximately four quarts). Line
with tortillas. When ready, ladle on a layer of sauce, enough so
tortillas are just barely visible. Then add a layer of grated cheese,
approximately ½ inch thick.

Add another layer of tortillas, then more sauce, and another layer of
cheese. Repeat until all ingredients are used, making the top layer
cheese. Garnish with olives if desired.

Place in preheated oven and bake uncovered for 30 minutes, or until
cheese is bubbly. Remove from oven, allow to cool until top layer of
cheese stops bubbling, and serve. Refried beans make a good side with
this recipe. Another bonus – great leftovers. This is one of those
recipes that is better after it sits in the fridge all night, then
microwave for breakfast. Yum!

Special thanks to Fred for submitting this article. Image shown is Dave Koster attempting to make both a green batch and a red batch for a school potluck – it went over well.