Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Chef Be Not Proud.

Good morning everyone!

Glad to have you back!

Suppose I should offer a quick apology before getting started. Today’s recipe came as a result of having an overly busy weekend, which cut into my planning/prep/research/cooking time. I wouldn’t technically say I “half-assed” this. This was more like “fully-assed.”

Stop! Regroup.

We’re going to make an amazing recipe that you and all of your very stoned 17 year old friends will never forget.

Pizza casserole!

Goddammit, life is this crazy fucking tilt-a-whirl where you order a corn dog and then somebody else ate your corn dog and sometimes you just don’t have the time to make something elaborate. Or something.

I’m reaching here.

I’ve done a bunch of casseroles before so this is another in a series of tasty, simple and let’s say “ample” meals that can be cooked in one dish.

So why do I feel dirty for this one? I’m not talking dirty like “slightly naughty” here I’m talking dirty like “being on the wrong end of a donkey show” dirty.

Let’s try an origin story for this one.

Back in the late 1600’s in Naples, a local ashtray farmer named Guiseppe Stunod was experimenting with various store bought jars of sauce and cured meats when he stumbled on a recipe he called “Motherfucker That’s a Lot of Fucking Food.” After rethinking the title of the dish he renamed it “Pizza in Padella” or pizza casserole. Guiseppe went on to found the Institute of Pizza Casserole in Naples that was later destroyed by pitchfork yielding locals who found his dish an affront to their better sense. He then immigrated to the US where he was welcomed with open arms by obese Midwesterners who fell in love with his simple and insanely unhealthy concoction. He was later elected mayor of Waukeegan Illinios where a statue of his likeness is still prominently displayed.

Not buying it either huh?

It’s gonna sound odd, it’s gonna sound lame, and it might not even sound all that appetizing but one thing I will say, you can eat the FUCK out of this dish. Sure as shit wish I had discovered this back in my high school/college days because it’s just the perfect recipe for someone who’s stoned, drunk or both.

The real “inspiration’ for this came from “geniuskitchen.com” where their recipe called for using “Jimmy Dean” breakfast sausage instead of Italian sausage and even I couldn’t stoop that fucking low.

Pizza Casserole!

Here are the ingredients and may God have mercy on your soul.

1 pound box or bag of rotini pasta

1 pound of bulk Italian sausage

1 tablespoon of olive oil.

1 medium onion chopped

4 cloves of garlic minced

2 jars of store bought pasta sauce – your choice

1/2 pound of diced cooked ham

1/2 pound of pepperoni or as much as you want

(2) 8 oz bags of shredded mozzarella – the original recipe called for THREE bags but I just couldn’t do it

Some grated fresh parmesan – there’s no fucking way I’m using the cheap shit. I’ve got standards.

1 teaspoon of dried oregano

My variation also included 1/3 cup of minced pickled jalapeno and 1 jar of sliced mushrooms and a full removal of self dignity.

Preheat your oven to 375.

Easy step #1

Start by sauteing the onions in the olive oil. Give these a good sweat for say 5-6 minutes.

Next get your sausage up in there.

Animals.

We’re gonna cook the sausage until it’s no longer pink. Also add in the oregano for this step.

Make sure that’s fully cooked sausage in there. At this point add in the minced garlic until the garlic is nice and fragrant.

Then cook the pasta.

Follow the cooking directions on the box for “al dente” pasta. Remember this is going in the oven for awhile and we don’t want mushy noodles.

At this point you have pretty much finished the challenging portion of the meal. All that remains is the assembly and the shame.

We are going to, yet again, use one of the cheap-ass disposable aluminum pans for this dish, because if any dish screams for cheap ass disposable aluminum pan this one does.

Sauce up that pan why don’tcha. Spoon in about 1/3 of one of the jars of sauce or enough to fully coat the bottom of the pan. It’s OK to pool up some of the sauce since we’re going to be adding in something like 17 pounds of other ingredients.

Please take note that the cheap ass aluminum pan is setting on a very sturdy cookie sheet for assembly and cooking.

Next we’re going to toss some of that shitty store bought sauce with the pasta.

After contemplation and further reflection I think this is the part that fucks with my head. The store bought sauce. I can’t remember the last fucking time I bought a jar of somebody else’s sauce. To make matters worse, I didn’t even research “Best Pasta Sauce” or anything. I just bought the shitty, fuckin’ Kroger brand figuring there was enough other shit going on that the sauce would be a minor player in the finished dish.

I’ll bet homemade sauce would be fucking killer here and would very much reduce the amount of self loathing. Maybe next time.

Und now Wie layer!

Put about one third of the pasta in the pan and then mix in the sausage/garlic/onion mix.

And here comes the cheese parade.

That’s the first of the 2 bags of mozzarella and also give some grates of parmesan over the top.

Now get ready for layer two. The ham odyssey.

This is another layer of pasta, about half of what is left, some more sauce and the diced ham. This is the stage in the original recipe that called for adding yet another goddamn bag of cheese and I just couldn’t do it, man! What I did instead was the “freelance” layer. Cover half of this layer with the mushrooms and the other half with the jalapeno. Having never made this dish before I was just playing jazz here and figured we could sample and determine which half we liked best.

Like so.

Now the final layer! Take the remaining pasta and place it on top, now sauce the shit out of it. The rest of the goddamn sauce.

Give it some fresh parm. For class!

Now make with the remaining mozzarella cheese and pepperoni. You know you want to pile the pepperoni all over this fucker. Go ahead. And yes, we saw you eating some of the pepperoni right out of the bag and we’re not here to judge you.

That’s your Primary Care Physician’s job.

And here we are!

What you are seeing in this picture is a line of dried basil that I used as a line of demarcation showing which side had the mushroom and which side had the jalapeno. If you look closely you can see that I indicated which half was which with a clever placement of the veggie in question on it’s indicated half.

It’s finally ready for the oven. You may want to call in someone to help you lift this into the hot oven cuz it’s a heavy fucker.

Finally, bake until molten. About 40 minutes.

Maybe some garlic bread?

Look at that photo for perspective on the size of this behemoth.

I’m trying to remember how heavy this thing was and I’m gonna say, what? Seven pounds? Maybe 8?

Yeah.

Let this big pan of shame sit for a good ten minutes before diving in head first with both hands.

Get a plate and get messy.

I mean REALLY messy!

Hey, who said every meal has to be a fuckin’ work of art? Not me dammit.

Does this have enough sodium to kill an entire herd of Bedouin shepherds and their flocks?

Yep.

Doe it have enough fat to possibly require an EKG afterwards?

It does.

Can you just grab two forks and an entire 6 pack of cold beers and set them next to your plate all at once while you go after this double-fisted style?

You can.

Is it delicious?

.

..

…

Of course it is.

If I was still in my 20’s I would probably make this and then feed on it for an entire week for breakfast lunch and dinner.

As it was there were 3 of us eating on this thing and we couldn’t even kill half in the first setting.

For the record both the mushroom side and the jalapeno side were equally delicious.

Remember last year when I did another casserole

and talked about feeding a big group of people?

This fucker would work for that too.

You’ll be the goddamn hero of the end of year bowling alley potluck!

I mean, who wouldn’t love this shit?

Got kids? Oh man, they are going to drive you apeshit asking you to make this over and over.

Do better than I did and maybe serve a salad alongside.

Why do I get the feeling that in the hundred plus recipes over these 5 seasons of Sunday Gravy, this recipe will be the one most of you folks try?

I don’t blame you and I won’t shame you.

I brought enough shame on my own self.

That’s gonna do it for today. I’ll be bringing you a real recipe next week I promise. In fact that recipe was yet another request and it turned out incredible.

Thank you everyone. I mean that sincerely. It’s always good of you to stop by.

Have a great rest of your weekend.

PEACE!