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Calling all comfort-food lovers.
If meatballs and casseroles
and stuffed peppers and enchiladas are
the things that keep you up late at night,
dreaming about them,
then are you gonna love this week's menus.
I've got five irresistible dishes that are sure to satisfy.
I'm gonna start off
with an Italian-meatball meatloaf sandwich.
You're gonna be a hero for a day when you feed your crew
this new spin on a good old classic meatball-Parm sub.
Our second dish has the taste of one of your favorite sandwiches
and the texture of a classic casserole.
I'm gonna make my Reuben-style casserole
with a little pastrami meatball, sauerkraut, and barley.
Then I'm gonna turn another classic inside out.
I'm gonna show you guys
my deconstructed sweet-sausage stuffed peppers.
They're not stuffed peppers at all.
It's sausage and peppers served
on a bed of buttery, cheesy rice.
And speaking of classics, there's nothing more traditional
than good, old-fashioned manicotti,
and I'm gonna serve my version
with a quick and easy food-processor sauce.
To round out the week,
I am making a must-have Mexican recipe --
creamy fish enchiladas.
That's an entire week's worth
of comforts, classics, and casseroles,
and you can have them done in just one day.
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.
Welcome to "Week in a Day," guys,
and if you love classic comfort foods,
you're gonna love this week's worth of meals.
I'm starting off with a meatloaf,
and I call this meatloaf my meatball meatloaf
because that's what it tastes like --
one giant Italian meatball.
But you know what -- It's a little easier to make
'cause you don't have to take the time to roll the meatballs.
You just make one big loaf.
I've got the oven preheated to 375.
In my mixing dish here, in my Bubble and Brown,
I've got 2 pounds of ground beef, pork, and veal --
A.K.A. meatloaf mix --
salt and pepper; olive oil;
a couple of eggs, lightly beaten;
couple of handfuls of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano;
fat handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped;
couple of cloves of garlic, grated or chopped;
and a few tablespoons of grated onion.
I'm going to make a special sauce,
an Italian-style ketchup, that we're going to use
as a little baster on top of the meatloaf,
and we're also gonna use it the day or night you serve
as the ketchup for the sandwiches themselves.
So, we're gonna start
with about a cup of organic or low-sugar ketchup.
To that, I'm gonna add balsamic drizzle.
Balsamic drizzle you can buy in the olive-oil and vinegar aisle
or the specialty-foods aisle of your supermarket.
It's a thick, syrupy, sweet, sweet,
deeply delicious balsamic vinegar.
I'm just gonna use 2 tablespoons -- 1...2.
To this, I'm also gonna add some coarse black pepper
and...
a healthy tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce.
Gonna mix that together.
Good.
I've got three slices of white bread
soaking in some milk.
Squeeze out the milk.
And as you're adding it in,
just mill it into little, fine breadcrumbs.
Once you've milled up your bread,
then just get in there and get 'er done.
Now we're gonna transfer this to a baking sheet.
This is a nonstick sheet, so I don't need parchment.
If your nonstick isn't so nonstick anymore --
and you know what I mean --
or if you have a baking sheet
that doesn't have a nonstick surface,
just line it with some parchment paper
so that the bottom of the loaf doesn't stick to the pan
when you take it off.
Now, you're gonna foam a loaf, guys,
that's about 4 -- 3 to 4 inches high,
so that it'll fit nicely
on some thick-sliced Italian bread
the day or night you serve.
Beautiful.
Slather your ketchup down over the top.
Oh, yummy, yummy.
You're not even cooked yet, and you look delicious.
Okay.
Put that back there.
Let me wipe down my hands.
And we're gonna put this in a 375 onion
for about an hour,
until the meatloaf is just cooked through.
See you in a little bit.
You know, meatloaf is a great make-ahead meal,
and it is an iconic American meal.
It's a diner classic.
It's a comfort-food classic.
But for me -- I'm an Italian -- I love this meatloaf
'cause it tastes like a giant Italian meatball.
Over here, I have some semolina bread with sesame.
I cut a couple of 1-inch slices.
Here's how I build my meatloaf sandwich --
the meatloaf on the bread,
lots of the balsamic ketchup...
a little onion...
little romaine lettuce.
And then I basically build a Caprese salad.
Basil, tomato, fresh mozzarella.
Lid.
Look.
It's literally as big as my head.
[ Laughs ]
That is my kind of meatloaf sandwich.
Now, this is kind of ironic.
We're gonna go from the meatball meatloaf
to meatballs that taste like pastrami.
Yeah, we're gonna turn them into a Reuben casserole
with Swiss cheese and sauerkraut and barley
right after this.
Welcome back to "Week in a Day," guys.
And as I said before the break,
we're gonna move from a meatball meatloaf
into meatballs that taste like pastrami.
We're gonna use
all of the spices that they use in curing pastrami
in a quick-to-make meatball,
and then we're gonna turn it into a Reuben casserole.
For the Reuben casserole, I need some caramelized onions,
so I got a couple of large onions, chopped.
I just added 2 tablespoons of butter to a little E.V.O.O.
in a big old skillet over medium heat.
You don't want the onions to burn
before their sugars develop.
So we're going to add the onions down to the skillet
and just sort of babysit them
until they get nice and sweet and caramel in color.
[ Sizzling ]
Meanwhile, over here,
I have a pot of water that I brought up to a boil.
I'm gonna salt the water...
and cook off one cup of pearled barley.
The barley's a great way to work a whole grain into a Reuben,
you know, 'cause it's normally griddled up
with pumpernickel or a nice, hearty rye.
So, for a casserole,
I thought pearled barley would be
a nice texture and really stand up.
So, a cup of that's gonna cook off
until it's just tender, about 20 minutes.
For the meatballs, I have 3/4 of a pound each
of ground pork -- nice, buttery ground pork --
and 3/4 of a pound of beef chuck.
To this, I'm gonna sprinkle in some panko breadcrumb...
add in an egg...
...and then about a tablespoon each
of the flavors that they use in pastrami --
about a tablespoon of coarse black pepper.
About a tablespoon or a palmful of sweet paprika.
About a tablespoon of granulated garlic.
About a tablespoon of nice, bright coriander.
About 1 1/2 teaspoons, or half a palmful,
of allspice, ground allspice.
And a little Cayenne pepper.
Parsley.
Season her up with salt.
And so they brown up nicely in the oven, a little olive oil.
Now, out of this mixture of about a pound and a half
of meat total,
I find you'll roll about 18 meatballs
once you get them combined.
You're going for about, oh, inch to an inch and a half
for the meatballs, guys.
This is ready to go into the oven.
450 for about 10 minutes.
Pastrami meatballs --
if you read on the Internet how to make pastrami,
it sounds delicious, but, boy,
it literally takes a week and a day.
[ Laughs ]
But if you use all those same great flavors and spices
and just roll them into a little meatball
with some ground meat,
you're gonna have a lot of the same effect
with a lot less time.
So, before I show you guys
how to assemble the Reuben casserole,
we need the Reuben sauce, right?
So, for our Thousand Island or Russian-type dressing,
I'm gonna use sour cream rather than mayo as the base
so it's super tangy.
To that, I'm gonna add some ketchup.
If you have a cup of sour cream,
then you want about 1/3 cup of ketchup, guys.
Give it a nice blush.
And that great pickley flavor --
couple tablespoons of pickle relish.
To that, a little salt and pepper.
Now, you mix this up ahead of time
and store it in a plastic food-storage bag.
The night you serve your casserole,
when it comes out of the oven, when you take it to the table,
you cut the corner of the plastic food-storage bag,
and you turn it into a little pastry bag,
and you can drizzle the sauce
down over the top of the whole casserole.
There we go.
Right down in.
Okay.
Grab my Moppine here.
Just wipe off the top of the little plastic baggie.
And that's it.
Pop it in the fridge
till the night you're ready to serve.
Now I'm gonna show you how to assemble the casserole.
So, we're going to take our barley -- cooked barley.
Get these things out of the way so you can see what I'm doing.
Take your cooked barley.
Combine that with one pound of sauerkraut,
rinsed and drained.
Combine that with your caramelized onion.
The sweetness will balance
the pickley sharpness of the sauerkraut.
Then nestle in
your partially cooked, pastrami-flavored meatballs.
And then you're going to cool the casserole completely.
Cover it. Pop it in the fridge.
The night you serve,
bring it back to room temperature,
and then bake it at 350
until the casserole is brown and bubbly and hot through.
And honestly, it tastes just like a Reuben sandwich.
Gonna top the whole thing
with a couple of cups of shredded cheese --
Swiss or Gruyère.
Nice.
I'm gonna pop this one in right now, though,
so you can see how great it's gonna look
the night you serve it up.
I love cooking with whole grains,
and I think a really clever way to do it is
to incorporate it into dishes with flavors that people love
or something as cute as a meatball.
If you want to get more grains into your diet,
mix some barley in with some meatballs
and put a little Reuben sauce on it and some cheese,
and I bet you you're gonna warm up to the grain.
How good does the Reuben casserole look?
Hello.
The browned cheese,
a little bit of that caramelized onion
peeking through,
pastrami meatballs all tucked in there.
Now we're gonna take our sauce, drizzle that down over the top.
How adorable, right?
Super cute.
I'm gonna scoop some out here.
What a fun way to enjoy a Reuben sandwich
without having to make 9 or 10 sandwiches.
You could really feed an army with this casserole.
Oh! Delicious.
Sauerkraut, barley, the sweet caramelized onions,
your little meatballs -- mmm-mmm-mmm.
Grab me a fork.
I want some of those meatballs.
Looks delicious.
Up next, also pretty tasty -- a deconstructed stuffed pepper.
Yeah, we're gonna take sausage, peppers, and onions
and put it over cheesy rice
instead of stuffing the peppers with the cheesy rice.
I'll show you that right after this.
Meet you back here.
Mmm.
Hey, guys, welcome back,
and we are midway cooking through
a whole week's worth of comfort foods.
And I've done little fun things
to each one of them.
Like, last one was a Reuben sandwich
that we turned into a casserole.
This one I call "deconstructed stuffed peppers."
Yeah, you take a pound and a half
of sweet sausage with fennel --
or you could use just straight-up ground beef --
brown it up,
and then we're gonna drain off a little of that grease.
We're gonna take the meat, peppers, and onions and sauce
and serve it the night of up on top of a bed of rice.
So, to the pan that we browned the sausage or beef in,
you're gonna add a little drizzle of olive oil
'cause we've just drained off all of our fat.
And then you're gonna add
the rest of your starting lineup --
two large green bell pepper, chopped,
one large red bell pepper, chopped,
one large onion, chopped,
3 or 4 cloves of garlic, sliced,
salt and pepper.
Give this a stir to distribute your olive oil,
and then you're just gonna let this cook out a little bit
to get the peppers and onions a little tender,
partially covered, 7 or 8 minutes.
You know, I love stuffed peppers,
but, you know, I'm not a patient girl.
And when I'm cooking for a whole week,
sometimes, I just want to get through each dish.
You know, I like that sense of accomplishment.
So, in this case, I just said, "You know what?
I want to make sausage-stuffed peppers."
I'm like, "How do I make that easier?
Oh, let's do one of those 'deconstructed' dishes.'"
"Deconstructed" just means you made it easier.
Here, we're putting the peppers all chopped up with the sausage,
and then the night you serve,
you make cheesy rice and throw it up on top --
tastes exactly the same.
When your vegetables have sweat out a little bit, guys --
your peppers and onions and garlic --
add in a couple tablespoons of tomato paste.
Give it a stir.
[ Sizzling ]
Got to wake it up.
It's been hanging out in that tube a long time.
Now, to that, we're gonna add
about 1/2 a cup of dry wine, white or red.
Give that a stir.
Now, for the sauce --
simple, just like when you make stuffed peppers.
It's usually just tomato puree, tomato sauce, or tomato passata.
This is a puree that's sometimes made out of just fresh tomatoes.
It's really light.
To that, I'm gonna tear in a few leaves of basil.
Turn the heat way down now to simmer.
Slide the sausage,
or, if you used ground beef, the beef, back into the pan.
Just let this simmer together to thicken up a bit...
and for the flavors to combine.
Then cool completely.
Store in the fridge.
And then, the night you want to cook this off,
just heat it up on the stovetop
while you're cooking up some rice.
You're gonna cook the rice in almost 2-to-1 ratio.
I'm gonna cook a cup and a half of rice,
so I've got a little shy of 3 cups
of chicken stock in the pot
that's come up to a bubble.
I want the rice to stay nice and fluffy.
That's why I go a little shy on the liquid.
Give it a stir.
[ Drawer opens, clattering ]
[ Drawer closes ]
Pop a lid on it.
And you do this the night you want to serve, guys.
Let that cook about 16, 17 minutes.
You know, when I cook for my dog Isaboo,
I use a long-grain rice.
It's nice and fluffy.
It doesn't turn to complete mush.
I make the food every couple of days,
so it stands up to cooking.
I always have it on hand in the pantry.
And if I don't have time to make a risotto
and stir and stir and stir,
or if I don't, you know, have basmati or whatever,
I use the good old long-grain rice.
If I use long-grain rice, though,
I always have a little surprise at the end.
I stir in some flavor -- in this case, butter and cheese.
So, to our rice, we're gonna add a few tablespoons of butter.
And we're gonna stir that in to melt
and to mix in our parsley.
Then, once you get your butter melted into the rice,
you're gonna add in some Parmigiano-Reggiano --
couple of handfuls.
Yum.
Here's how you serve it up.
You make a well of your cheesy Parmigiano rice.
And then you fill it up
with your sausage or beef, peppers, and onions.
It's kind of like an inside-out stuffed pepper,
but it's a whole lot easier to make.
Beautiful.
Done.
Little extra sprig of basil up on top.
Adorable.
Up next, a traditional dish -- manicotti --
right after this.
Manicotti was something that you saw at every
Italian-American restaurant when I was a little girl.
We used to go to a place called Massie's when I was a little kid
in South Glens Falls,
and I loved to get stuffed shells or manicot.
It's just one of those great, classic, back-in-the-day,
go-to comfort foods.
And this one I made really simple.
I took my -- my pizza sauce -- it's like a blender marinara --
and you're gonna roast the manicotti in the oven,
so it'll cook the sauce.
I just take my blender sauce, pour it over the manicotti,
mix it -- so easy.
Like, you cannot get easier than this for a make-ahead meal.
Welcome back, guys.
Today is all about comfort food, and this one --
one of my favorites from childhood,
from back in the day -- good old Italian manicotti,
just some manicot stuffed with ricotta cheese
and a simple tomato sauce -- delicious.
I've got a big pot of water up to a boil.
And I'm gonna parboil for about 5 minutes --
gonna partially cook 14 to 16 manicotti shells.
Depending on your brand,
you're gonna get 7 to 10 shells in a package.
So the filling will go for 14, 16 pieces.
Drop these down in.
And, again, you're just gonna cook these for about 5 minutes.
If you're a little absent-minded [chuckling] like I am,
you might want to set a kitchen timer
so they don't go too far.
Then you're gonna cool them so you can handle them
and dry them,
and then we'll fill them up.
Now, the sauce is a sauce that I actually make
for our pizza sauce
when my husband and I have pizza night.
I've just made a couple slight variations.
When I make pizza sauce, I add oregano.
For this sauce, I'm gonna use a combination
of a little bit of basil and some parsley and some thyme.
Otherwise, the sauce is pretty much the same.
He is a little dented.
It got messy getting into him.
So, for the sauce, one can of San Marzano tomatoes,
dropped down in your food processor.
To that, add a couple of leaves of basil.
To that, a few sprigs of thyme.
Couple tablespoons of parsley.
Grate in a few tablespoons of onion.
Grate in a couple of cloves of garlic.
And then, especially if you can't find
San Marzano tomatoes in the grocery store,
just a tiny sprinkle of sugar.
Healthy drizzle of olive oil.
And a little salt and pepper.
When I use this as pizza sauce, as I was saying,
we just put it straight on the pie, raw,
and it cooks up in the oven.
Got the oven at like a gajillion degrees.
Here, we're gonna cook the sauce out a little bit,
and I'm gonna add
the rest of the jar of the passata
from the recipe we just made up.
I'm gonna combine that
so we end up with a little more sauce.
Done.
So easy.
Pour the sauce into a saucepan.
Use up the rest of our passata or tomato puree.
And that's it.
We let this simmer gently while we make up our filling.
I'm gonna take a quick break.
When we come back, we'll fill the manicotti.
Welcome back, guys.
I'm working on a whole week's worth of comfort foods.
And, man, if you're like me, when I was a little kid,
one of my favorite comfort-food suppers was manicotti.
If you love stuffed shells or manicotti or cannelloni,
mmm-mmm-mmm.
It's fun to make a back-in-the-day favorite again.
So, I've got a couple of cups of ricotta cheese
in a big old mixing bowl here.
To that, I'm adding, oh, one package
of the biggest value in the grocery store,
in my opinion --
a box of chopped, frozen spinach.
It takes a mountain of spinach to net out
10 to 12 ounces of cooked spinach.
So I'm just separating that with my fingertips because,
after you defrost it,
you need to wring out some of the liquid
so it doesn't stain the ricotta cheese.
Now, I use a nice sheep's milk or cow's milk fresh ricotta,
so when you bring it home, just let it sit in a strainer
and drain some of that liquid away
so it's not too wet when it goes into your filling.
To the spinach, always,
a little bit of freshly grated nutmeg.
Salt and pepper.
Some Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, freshly grated.
And then, to make everybody get along
and to give our filling some legs, a couple of eggs.
Just lightly beat those.
Get them in there.
And then, unlike with my Reuben casserole,
I had the presence of mind -- thinking ahead --
to line my bowl with a big old plastic food-storage bag.
We're gonna make a pastry bag out of that food-storage bag
to help us fill our manicotti shells.
The manicotti is partially cooked --
about 5 minutes --
and that's so it's still firm enough to handle them
without making them rip or tear or fall apart.
I've also taken a one-pound ball of mozzarella cheese.
Take it out of its wrapper or out of its liquid,
if it's a fresh mozzarella ball sitting in liquid,
and let it dry in the fridge just on a little piece
of waxed paper or parchment paper --
let it dry out a little bit overnight.
It's easier to shred it up the next day,
and that'll yield you about 2 to 2 1/2 cups.
Same thing when you're making pizza -- let the fior di latte
or the mozzarella dry out overnight,
then thinly slice it,
and your pizza pie won't be as wet.
Okay.
Now...
...work the filling into the corner of the bag.
And try and work out some of the air.
Then snip.
And I've already got half of our sauce
sitting in the baking dish.
Work over the baking dish so once you fill the shell,
you can just set it down sideways,
and if any falls out the back, it's okay --
it's already in the baking dish.
Last one.
Perfect.
Now...
we're just going to spill our sauce
down over the top of that.
Slather that around.
Top that with your mozzarella cheese...
...and another little sprinkle of Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Now this is ready.
You cool it, cover it, store it.
The night you want to serve,
get your oven nice and hot at 375,
and bake off the manicot
until it's brown and bubbly all over -- delicious.
There's something so mentally satisfying
about going home
and knowing that you have trays of food
that you can just uncover and pop into a hot oven.
Dinner's done.
It's not processed.
And it's homemade. It's homemade goodness.
Guys, the night you serve your manicotti,
just like when you make a lasagna,
you want to take it out of the oven
and let it set for a few minutes and settle
before you serve it up.
Then, I use a butter knife to help me kind of fish around
and figure out when I've come upon two manicot,
'cause you don't want to rip into them.
Then I take a big old serving spoon
and scoop out two at a time.
Of course, I could eat about eight of them --
they're so delicious. [ Laughs ]
Up next, equally delicious, but totally different --
We're gonna make a Tex-Mex dish,
a halibut-fish enchilada casserole --
really delicious and super rich --
right after this.
Okay, guys, welcome back.
I cannot believe we have cooked our way
all the way up to dish number 5,
and it stars fish -- that even rhymes.
We're making a wonderful, easy-to-make,
really rich, delicious dish.
It's a fish enchilada,
made with big, beautiful halibut.
So, I've got
a pound and a half to 2 pounds of halibut over here.
We are going to broil the halibut,
so I have the broiler preheating.
In the bowl here, I've just added 1 cup,
or about 8-ounce brick of cream cheese
that I softened up in the microwave a bit.
To this, I'm going to add about a cup of sour cream.
Then, we're gonna season it up with coriander --
about a teaspoon --
nice, bright coriander
and nice, smoky, earthy cumin -- or "koo-min" --
about one teaspoon or 1/3 of a palmful.
Now, this is based on some research I did
because casseroles are so incredibly popular --
casseroles, one-pots, and Crockpot cooking --
huge, right?
Every time I cook them on air,
it always gets a lot of attention.
So, I was researching
the most popular types of casseroles,
and Tex-Mex comes up a lot.
In just about every Tex-Mex recipe,
there's a couple of cans
of these little green chile peppers,
little 4-ounce cans.
So, I'm trying to make
a kind of a traditional Tex-Mex casserole here --
or California-Mex.
So, I'm gonna throw in two cans of those little green chiles,
diced -- fairly mild.
To this, I'm gonna add 1 cup
of shredded Monterey Jack cheese,
or any mild melting cheese will do.
We're gonna reserve another cup to cup and a half
for the top of our casserole.
And then I'm gonna add some fresh herbs.
I have a combination of cilantro and dill.
I love dill with seafood,
and the cilantro is nice and bright,
and of course, it's the leaf of the ground coriander
that's in there.
A couple tablespoons of each of those herbs,
about 1/4 cup total.
Little salt and pepper.
Stir to combine.
This will become the filling for our enchiladas.
So, now that's gonna set off to the side
while we broil up our fish.
You cook the fish until it's opaque.
You can just look at the side of the fish
to know when it's done.
When it's opaque and firm
and feels like it's gonna flake up for you,
take it out and cool it completely.
You're gonna add the cooled, flaked fish to our filling.
Spray it with a little all-natural
olive-oil cooking spray
and season it up
with any seafood seasoning you like.
Got my own little blend here
I'm gonna grind down over the top.
And then I'm gonna pop it under the broiler.
If you don't cook a lot with seafood,
halibut is a great fish to start using.
It's really forgiving.
It stands up to grilling.
It stands up to cooking things way ahead, like this casserole.
It's really hard to overcook or improperly cook
a piece of halibut.
So, I'm just flaking up the halibut.
It's nice and cool.
Such a pretty fish -- bright, bright white.
There we go.
Then slide all of your cooled fish
into your filling mixture.
And then you can char up some tortillas on the stovetop
if you have a gas-top stove,
or you could just wrap them up in foil
and heat them up a little to make them pliable,
so you can wrap and roll.
Tortilla down.
Filling.
Wrap and roll.
Seam side down.
Wrap and roll our last one.
Snug it in there.
And then, an easy finish --
spill over just enough cream to coat the enchiladas.
It'll take about a cup to a cup and a half.
Top that with another cup of the Monterey Jack.
That looks good.
And a little Parmigiano cheese.
Now, this is ready to go into the oven,
so you're gonna cover it.
It's already nice and cool.
Pop it in the fridge.
The night you want to serve,
bring it out to room temp for a few minutes --
you know, get the chill off while the oven's preheating.
Then you're gonna put it in a 375 oven
for 45 to 50 minutes
until the top is nice and brown and bubbly.
I'll show you what it looks like in a few.
You know what?
People always want new seafood recipes.
They're intimidated by cooking seafood.
This is a way to make seafood really appealing
to the whole family.
It's rich and delicious,
and it's a great make-ahead casserole.
When you're serving seafood,
it's hard to do a make-ahead meal.
This casserole solves that problem.
The night you serve, guys,
take your fish enchiladas out of the oven
and let them set up a bit.
Then, dress up some buttery avocado
and slice up some red onion rings.
This is an absolute must.
If you order suizas --
enchiladas suizas when you're out,
that's a traditional garnish -- those red onion rings --
and it's really delicious with this dish, as well.
So, now I'm gonna negotiate a couple of these guys
out of the casserole.
And I find that a two-utensil method
helps get those guys over there.
Beautiful.
The halibut, that creamy, rich filling --
man, oh, man.
So, we've had an entire week's worth
of great comfort foods,
and each one was so different than the next.
This one was a beautiful Tex-Mex,
or maybe you could call it
a Californian take on Mexican food --
beautiful, buttery, rich dish.
But we started out with an Italian dish --
kind of an Italian-American meatloaf sandwich --
a meatloaf that was flavored like a giant meatball,
and then we turned it into a sandwich
with the mozzarella and tomato and basil,
lettuce, tomato, onion --
I mean, on and on,
with that balsamic ketchup slathered all over it --
delicious.
Then we had, like, a diner classic --
a Reuben casserole --
pastrami meatballs with sauerkraut and barley,
our special sauce drizzled all over the top,
once all that Swiss cheese got all brown and melty.
Then we had the deconstructed [chuckles]
sweet-sausage-stuffed peppers.
The night you serve, you make some cheesy rice.
Line the bowl with the rice.
Fill it up with the peppers or meat and onions.
And it tastes just like a stuffed pepper
without having to go through that whole process.
Then, we had a favorite from when I was a little kid,
manicotti.
We used to go to Massie's in South Glens Falls,
and I'd always order the manicotti --
so delicious and such a great comfort food.
Simple ricotta filling, simple tomato sauce --
took 2 minutes to make.
Let it simmer for a few minutes.
Put the whole thing together.
Bake it off any night you like.
And then we finished it up
with the beautiful halibut enchiladas -- delicious.
Now, whether you make all of them, guys,
or just the ones that appeal to your taste buds most,
the point is you'll have a leg up
on the workweek ahead of you.
I'm Rachael Ray.
Thanks for spending the day with me, guys.
Now get cooking
so you and your whole family can get eating.