Cooking with Maria…or the Kittel Casserole



Maria, so good you came! I need you to help me because I cannot make it on my own!
Before Maria showed up, I made all the necessary preparations:
1 medium sized onion and 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped and placed in the hot olive oil, in the pan.  
Half of a small casserole of ground beef (I think there were around 250 g) in the pan, over the slightly glossy onions.  I stirred around the meat and added some flavours – a little pinch of pepper, a little pinch of oregano and one of basil and, instead of salt, 1 teaspoon of soy sauce.  
Half of a small casserole of mushrooms (I think there were about 200-250 g), finely chopped and thrown in the pan as well. 

Added some curry powder …
6 cannelloni which don’t need to be boiled in advance – I tore them to pieces.  
I peeled 3 potatoes and I was getting ready to grate them….
Ding- dong! The girls are here!

Maria, so good you came! I need you to help me because I cannot make it on my own!
2 zucchini
These zucchini have cucumber in the middle” said Maria. I didn’t have the heart to say no…
I grated the potatoes as planned, and the zucchini- we peeled and grated them together. 

Here I gave Maria a break as she was already asking of the Big Black.
I carried on …
250 g  of branza de burduf (which is a very salty , soft cheese, but any cheese would do) grated as well
4 eggs
100 g heavy cream
200 ml cooking cream
Salt, pepper, oregano, basil
All put together in a mixer bowl.

Mommy, did you call me?”, says Mari sticking her head in the kitchen. In translation “What’s there for me to do now?
Maria, right on time. Help me!
We mixed together all the ingredients in the bowl.
And now?

Now we get our hands dirty!
In the grated potatoes and zucchinis, Maria put some salt, pepper, basil and oregano and because she wanted something else to add in, I offered her some dill. She made such a discontent funny face…I gave her some a la Provance mix of greens- they sounded better! Then we got dirty- we got our hands in the bowls with potatoes and zucchinis and for a greater fun we poured in some of the egg mix too.

Of course that before we put the potatoes and the zucchinis in the tray, we squeezed the heck out of them, but we couldn’t miss the opportunity to play with the food a little.
And now, let’s put together the casserole.
In the tray that Mommy prepared for us (buttered and coated with bread crumbs) we put as a first layered the torn cannelloni.

We continued with a layer of zucchinis.

Then the meat with mushrooms. Here Maria did it by herself. 
And a layer of potatoes…all by herself again.

And the final step- the eggs , cheese and cream mix. 

And the casserole is done! 
Here I intervened and got the casserole in the oven- preheated at 175 Celsius. Left it there for about 25 minutes.
After about 25 minutes, we took the casserole out and decorated it with some mozzarella bits.

7 more minutes, and the casserole looked like this and the little master chef was happy. 

Two minutes it took her to get super hungry, and we kept insisting of taking yet another photo of her…
…when all she really wanted was this:
The fork, the tablespoon were not enough all alone, so she decided to use both at the same time, sweet thing!

After about three servings, separated only by a small break of chasing the Big Black, in the end I was left with only this:
I think it was good…

May you have the same appetite as Maria had!

“Maria, what should we name the casserole?”
“Ummm….ummm…The Kittel casserole!” (not Kitten, not Kettle…Kittel!)
“What?”
“KITTEL”
 

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