CHEF BOYARDEE Halloween Casserole Slice

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly of Freestyle, Real T
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CHEF BOYARDEE Halloween Casserole Slice
CHEF BOYARDEE Halloween Casserole Slice

The main ingredient, obviously, is the CHEF BOYARDEE. This came about simply because I had four cans of Chef Boyardee about to expire. I don't eat the stuff normally but I do keep some on hand because, well, you never know when grubby, starving orphans might show up begging for food.

I was originally going to use plain ground beef but really felt this was going to need more flavor to remind me it isn't canned pasta that's a couple months shy of expiring.

In my opinion, you want this stuff to cut like a pie or cake. For that to hold true, you don't want the onions giving off all their juices during the baking process. If you sautee them first they're not only going to not ruin the consistency of the entire dish with their onion juice but will help soaking up any other moisture in the dish.

The key ingredient, in my opinion, to making this into something that cuts nicely instead of something that spoons sloppily is the Parmesan cheese. Ideally it is going to combine with the meat and onions in soaking up all excess moisture and end up producing what I hope will be an easy to cut dish... once it cools, of course.

Originally I wanted to use a pop-n-fresh type of garlic bread sheet but I could not find any so I went with plan B. Any type of frozen garlic bread could be used, I opted for these ciabatta rolls because I think they have more nooks and crannies to soak up everything and they may provide a more firm base.

Surprisingly, it did slice nicely. Although it was more like a lasagna than a pie or cake. The base was a bit tough though, not fork tender. If you don't want to have to use a fork AND knife then you're probably better off using Texas Toast of some other kind of garlic bread that is not ciabatta. Although, the ciabatta did get a nice crispy brown on the bottom so to each his own I guess.

So, the recap of what I did to this:

16 oz. CHEF BOYARDEE Lasagna
16 oz. CHEF BOYARDEE Beef Ravioli
16 oz. CHEF BOYARDEE Beefaroni
16 oz. CHEF BOYARDEE Spaghetti & Meatballs
16 oz. Italian Sausage
16 oz. Parmesan Cheese Blend
16 oz. Mozzarella Cheese
2 c. Onion
Frozen Garlic Bread (6-8 pieces)

1. Sautee onions til translucent and set aside.
2. Brown Italian sausage and then allow sausage to cool.
3. Once cooled, pulse through a food processor(or chop with a knife) until fine.
4. Combine CHEF BOYARDEE, Italian Sausage, onions, and Parmesan Cheese Blend and mix well.
5. Place garlic bread slices in bottom of a 13" x 9" baking dish.
6. Spread most of meat mix evenly over the garlic bread(may have some leftover.)
7. Top with mozzarella.
8. Cover with foil and slit holes on top.
9. Bake at 425 degrees for 45 minutes.
10. Allow to cool 15-20 minutes.

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Taken on: October 31, 2016
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