This is a wholesome, hearty dish you can throw together with just 15 minutes of active time requiring your attention — because you have done all the hard work in advance with your home canning. (In Minnesota, a casserole is called a “hotdish.”)
And, it’s really tasty, despite the lack of added tricks such as herbs, garlic, olive oil, etc that pasta recipes usually call for. A lot of the flavour comes from the aromatics of the pepper, celery and onion already in the Minnesota Mix tomato mixture. You might wish to try it as is the first time out, and then decide if you want to jazz it up.
The carbs, cheese and meat do pack a big calorie punch, so perhaps have this with the rest of your plate full of leafy salad or veg of some sort such as roasted broccoli, steamed cabbage, etc.
(To be clear, this is a “cooking with canning you have already done” recipe. This is not a recipe for canning.)
This recipe uses:
The recipe
Minnesota Mix Macaroni Hotdish
Ingredients
- 1 half-lire jar home-canned ground beef (1 US pint)
- 1 half-lire jar Minnesota mix (1 US pint)
- 125 g macaroni (uncooked. 1 cup / 4 oz uncooked)
- 50 g cheddar cheese (light. Or regular. 2 oz / 1/2 cup after grating)
Instructions
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Spray a covered casserole dish with cooking spray, set aside.
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Grate cheese, set aside.
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Drain the jar of ground meat, put in a good-sized saucepan.
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Add the Minnesota mixture to the saucepan, put on stove, bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.
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Meanwhile, cook the macaroni according to package directions, drain.
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Start heating oven to 180 C (350 F).
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Add macaroni to beef and tomato mixture, stir, and turn piping hot into casserole dish.
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Sprinkle cheese over top.
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Put cover on.
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Bake in oven for 30 minutes.
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Remove cover, cook for a final 5 minutes to brown cheese.
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Serve piping hot.
Recipe Notes
Use a casserole dish (with a cover) that's at least two litres (2 quarts) in capacity.
Instead of the home canned ground beef, you can take 500 g (1 lb) of ground beef, and brown it.
For the cheese you can use any semi-firm cheese such as cheddar, colby, Swiss, Monteray, Leicester, etc.
The purpose of simmering the meat and tomato mixture for 10 minutes is to thicken the sauce a bit.
To cook the macaroni, follow the package directions, or boil it for about 8 minutes. Don't over cook: you want it tender but not soft. To cook the macaroni in a pressure cooker: put macaroni in, cover only just with water, pressure cook on high (10 lbs) for 4 minutes, let cool down naturally, drain immediately when pressure is gone.
TIP! Freeze the beef broth off the ground beef for soup stock!
Source
Tomato Hotdish Recipe With Minnesota Tomato Mixture. In: Isabel D. Wolf and Edmund A. Zottola. Recipes Using Home-Canned Minnesota Tomato Mixture. Accessed November 2015.
Nutrition
Per 1 cup (250 g / 1/2 lb):
- 447 calories, 170 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 8 points
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
* PointsPlus™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.
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