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Today was wet and rainy.  Definitely not a salad day.

I pretty much went the exact opposite and made up a casserole.  Comfort food for a damp and dreary day.

I had been looking through my mom’s cookbooks earlier and was getting a kick out of all the recipes calling for mushroom soup and egg noodles.  “Pasta” hadn’t been invented, yet.  Spaghetti, macaroni, and egg noodles were the “pasta” of choice back in them ol’ days.

The odds of me having canned mushroom soup in the house are pretty much between slim and none (but I always have egg noodles!)  so it was just a matter of working with what I had.

Hamburger Noodle Casserole

  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 4 oz mushrooms, sliced
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1 cup beef broth
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • garlic powder, salt & pepper
  • French Fried Onions

Brown the mushrooms in the butter, add the beef and cook through.  Add the flour and cook.

Add the beef broth and cook until thick.

Stir in the sour cream and season to taste.  thin with a bit more broth, if necessary.

In the meantime, cook about 6 oz noodles according to package instructions.  Drain.

Mix into beef mixture and spoon into casserole.  Top with french fried onions and bake at 350° for about 30 minutes.

That, of course, is secondary to dessert!

My mom used to make a Lemonade Pie with frozen lemonade concentrate and Cool Whip in a graham cracker crust.  Now… the odds of me having Cool Whip in the house are slimmer than canned mushroom soup, and I wasn’t about to go all over town looking for the elusive frozen lemonade concentrate without high fructose corn syrup.  And graham crackers have BOTH high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated fats.  If I’m going to be bad, at least the ingredients are going to be good!  I found my grahams, but the lemonade was not going to happen.  I actually though for a minute about boiling down some lemonade, but common sense and reality intervened just in time!

And then I though – Lemon Curd!

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So…  Tim’s Lemonade Pie was born. The lemonade comes from Lemon Curd, and the cream is real whipping cream.

Tim’s Lemonade Pie

  • 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
  • 4 tbsp butter, melted
  • 1/2 cup pistachios, ground

Mix together and press into 10″ pie plate.  Bake at 350° about 10 minutes.  Cool completely.

  • 2 jars lemon curd
  • 2 cups whipping cream
  • 1/4 cup pistachios, for garnish

Spread one jar of lemon curd over completely cooled crust.

Whip cream until stiff.  Fold in second jar of lemon curd,  mixing well.  Spoon over lemon curd, smoothing top.

Sprinkle with more pistachios.

Freeze.

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Okay… so this isn’t exactly what the weather was calling for, but I don’t care.  It was rich, it was tart, it was creamy, it was damned good.

I’m making another one for Easter!