Head Start

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Deen

Getting a head start on the week's meals can really save you a lot of time and headaches

So today's show is going to be full of all kind of make-ahead recipes

and I'm going to be starting by preparing the best crab casserole, loaded with all kind of flavors

And that is the name of it, the best crab casserole. And then up next is my friend Beau's eggplant supreme

Morsels of this delicious vegetable are just in every last bite. And last but not least is a summer squash casserole that literally just melts in your mouth with savory richness

So y'all get your aprons on and your ovens ready because we're going to get a head start in the kitchen

I just love days when I can get organized and ahead of the game

You know, it gives me more time to do things that I really, really want to do

like spend time with Michael. We love sitting out by the water

or I love just taking a minute to go out in the garden and enjoy that

And I'm going to try to do that today. Look at these beautiful flowers

I'm going to try to get ahead of the game today by fixing some real simple, easy, but delicious do-ahead recipes

because I'm determined this week I'm going to be very organized. And the first recipe I want to share with you

the name of it is The Best Crab Casserole. You can mix this recipe up in the morning before you go to work, put it in the casserole dish

and then when you come home for dinner, just pop it in. Okay, so let's get our crab casserole mixed up

I'm going to start by adding to my bowl six diced eggs

one cup of breadcrumbs, and these are fresh, soft breadcrumbs, one cup of mayonnaise

You might know I'd be using mayonnaise in a crab casserole dish

A medium onion, diced up. A handful of green sliced olives. A fourth of a cup of fresh chopped parsley

And a can of crab meat. Now, you can use the pasteurized, the fresh, or the canned crab that you can find in the meat section of your grocery store

Any of those will work. We're just going to mix this together, and then I'm going to add two-thirds of a cup of half and half

And we're going to add our half and half. and you know you could really just use your imagination on this dish

and put kind of anything that you wanted to in it. Now I'm not going to use all of that milk

I don't think it needs that much. You could substitute the crab for shrimp or chicken

You could do the same thing using the canned chicken that's in the meat section at your grocery store

or if you had roasted chicken left over from last night's dinner

you could use it in that. Now we're just going to pour it into our casserole dish

It's just that simple. Look how good that looks. It almost looks like a cold crab salad

only we're going to bake it. Now I'm going to top it with breadcrumbs

fresh breadcrumbs that I buttered. So you can see they're kind of lumpy

And that's because I stirred them up in a bowl with some butter. And then I'm just going to decorate it with a few olives

If you don't like green olives, then find something that you do like

It won't hurt the taste a bit. Unbelievable how easy it is

Wrap this, put it in the refrigerator. When you get home from work, let it warm up a little bit

on the counter and then stick it in the oven and you got supper. But of course, I can't wait that long

so I'm gonna stick it in the oven. We're gonna bake it for about 20 or 25 minutes at 350

because everything's cooked in it. So we just wanna cook it until it's hot and bubbly

Don let me get in your way now Gertie okay If I in your way you bark once Well you know my crew are big eaters

So I've got two. And I've got another one right here. It's ready to come out

I know I can hear it bubbling. Look at that. Doesn't that look delicious

It's hard to believe that something can be that simple in the kitchen

Doesn't that look good? Doesn't that look good

I love all the eggs in it. Mmm. It really is delicious

I think you and your family will love it. I know you're going to love how easy it was

I'm going to take a break for a second, and I hope you all come back and join me

because I'm going to show you one of my friend's favorite eggplant casserole recipes

She's an eggplant. Love her. This next recipe involves eggplants

which is another one of my favorite vegetables, and I got lots to talk about about the eggplant

Eggplants originated in Greece, And they call them melizanas, which means in Greek, insane melon

And the story goes that the women would send the men off to the eggplant patch or the melizana patch

The men would sip their way through bottles of ouzo, which is what they drink there

and they would just get drunk as skunks. And when they got back to the house, they would blame it on the melons

So these eggplants were referred to as the insane melon. Now listen

All you Greeks out there, don't be calling me and fussing. Because that's not my tail

I sit on mine. That's somebody else's tail. But this recipe that I'm about to teach y'all, you can really believe that story

In fact, one of my best friends in the whole wide world, Susan Dupree, cooks a lot of eggplant casserole

And this is one of her favorites, so I want to share this one with y'all today

because I've eaten it at her house many a time and just love it

Now, all I've done is sliced our eggplant about yay thick. Now we're going to drop this into boiling water

and we're going to let it cook until it's soft. Now I'm going to add some house seasoning

because it's hard to season up foods if you don't do it while you're cooking

It's hard to get them salty enough or seasoned enough after they're already done

So I'm going to stick in two whole eggplants for this recipe

and I'm going to put the lid on there, and I'm going to let them cook down, and then I'm going to drain them

And I have some ready over here that's already cooked. We're going to let those just continue to cook along

I've got some over here that I put through the strainer, took my spider, and just mashed the water out of them

So these are ready to go. I love eggplant. I especially, especially love it

All right, I'm just gonna take a potato ricer and just kind of mash that all up

I'm gonna add a couple of tablespoons of butter. Well, maybe three

That looks good. All right, I want to make sure I get all that eggplant out of the ricer

All right. I'm going to give it a quick spray because I don't want it to stick

I'm just gonna spoon this in here, into the bottom. Alright, now I've spread that out

I gonna sprinkle the top of that eggplant with one ten ounce can of clams And I drained the clam juice off of it and I have it in this bowl right here

Just going to spread those clams out and then I'm going to top it with some buttery fresh

cracker crumbs. Okay, that looks about like a cup. Okay. I've got the juice from the clams

I'm gonna add half a cup of half and half, and I'm just gonna pour this over our casserole dish

And all that clam juice is gonna run through that eggplant. I don't think I'm gonna put all this mixture on

because I don't want to make it too, too mushy. All right, now I'm just going to dot this with some butter

I like lots of butter on top of my crumbs. I'm going to put this in the oven on 350

and we're going to bake it for about 30 minutes. And in TV time, the 30 minutes is up

Now you talking about getting ahead. That's pretty good, isn't it? Ooh, and speaking of pretty good, look at that. Yum

Now how easy was that? You're gonna love it. Yum. Mmm. Oh, my goodness, this is so good with the clams and the eggplant

It's out of this world. Oh, my goodness, and this other squash is ready

So I know I've got to run for a second, and I'm going to dip up this other eggplant

and when I come back, I'm going to share another one of my favorite recipes with you, a summer squash casserole

Can't beat them. Now the casserole that I'm making today originally calls for patty pan squash, those pretty little

white squashes that almost look like flowers, but they're not in season yet

this recipe is going to work nicely with this yellow summer squash. Now I've used six large

squash and that comes to about seven cups. I'm going to put it into a pot of boiling

water. It's just that simple. Okay. So I'm going to cook this squash for about six to

seven minutes and then I'm going to take it out and I'm going to drain it. And I have

some here that's already drained, and you can see it kind of cook down. And in this pot

I'm going to add a couple of tablespoons of butter, and we're going to saute off a cup

of onions, a clove of garlic, some salt and pepper. All right, now while that's sauteing

off. Oh, and I'm going to add about a fourth of a cup of fresh parsley. And while that's

sauteing, I'm going to come over here. I'm going to take two pieces of white bread and

I'm going to dunk them in water and moisten those up. And then I'm just going to squeeze

that water gently out of that bread, just like that. And then I'm just going to crumble

it up into our saute in onions and garlic. All right, now I'm going to add our squash to the pan

And just let that all kind of cook together for a couple of minutes

I'm gonna spray our casserole dish. In fact, everything we've done today

in these get-ahead meals has been a casserole, hasn't it? To me, I think they're just lifesavers

I'm gonna take this off the heat. And I'm gonna crack one egg

and add that to the squash You want to be careful that you don have it so hot

that it'll scramble up your egg. All right, so I'm just going to dip this up into our casserole dish

Yeah, the egg is going to give it some substance. and kind of bind it together

Because you notice we didn't add any liquid to this. Just the liquid from the bread and the butter

and then the natural liquid that comes out of the squash. I've just gotten all my squash planted in the garden

I planted zucchini and yellow squash. And it's going to be so, so good

All right, I'm going to top our casserole now with some cracker crumbs, a nice buttery cracker

You can just choose your favorite. Or if you wanted to, you could top it with cheese

All right, let's just dot this with a little butter. We're going to throw this in the oven

bake it for about 20 or 25 minutes at 350. Now if you're making this for a night or two down the road

you just cover it, put it in the refrigerator, and pull it out

It'll last for two days in the refrigerator. But I would hold off on my breadcrumbs

I wouldn't put those on until you were ready to bake it. And let's see what the other one looks like

It's ready

So let's give a quick little taste. You can see where the eggs have bound the dish together

Looks delicious. Mmm

And it is delicious. So good. Coming up next, I want to share some tips with y'all on ways that you can serve this in little mini individual meals

So I'll meet you back in the kitchen. I hope you're enjoying today's show as much as I am

You know, I love to do ahead, plan ahead, get myself very organized

But you know, there's a little danger in that. When your kids come in, especially those big old boys that got empty, hollow legs

and are as hungry as a bear. And there's a chance you might lose some of that make-ahead food

I found that a real good idea is to take your casseroles

rather than making them in a big one, is do them up in individual casserole dishes

and let the children know, put a note on it and say, Jamie, you can have this one

Bobby, you can have this one. And that way they won't mess up the whole dish

and eat every bit of food in the refrigerator. I hope this tip comes in handy for you

because you're talking to a woman with experience. I've had those big old boys raid my refrigerator before

So keep your food safe from them. If you're like me and so many others out there

we need all the help that we can get to get our week going

And I think these recipes will do just that. You cannot beat the best crab casserole

And my friend Bo's Eggplant Supreme is so good. And there's nothing any better during midsummer when you can get your hands on that wonderful fresh patty pan squash or a nice summer squash

You just can't beat it. And I hope that you enjoy the mini casserole ideas that I gave you today

You know, a meal like this, pull out the spring onions, slice up those tomatoes, and you're all ready to go

I really hope that y'all like some of these recipes today, and I hope some of these ideas will help start your week off just a little bit better

So until next time, y'all, I send you love and best dishes from Paula's Kitchen to yours