Casserole Creep Anonymous

[OtakuLoki]

Yes, let's speak up. How many of you have planned your meal, and had all the ingredients ready. And then, something else came to your attention, and you just had to add that. And a little more of this. Oooh, and some of those. And these go with everything...

And soon enough you're transferring your meal to a larger pot, then dealing with leftovers, because suddenly that meal you had planned that was just going to be a modest meal for you and your family grew, and grew.

I find that stir frys and chilis are particularly susceptible to this. Of course those dishes that have no official recipe are even worse, like Glop.

I do hope I'm not the only one with this problem. Right now my stir fry is growing....



Glop was my mother's name for beef casserole with pasta. What some people would call "Hamburger Helper." I think Glop is just a better name. Not only is it more fun, it's more descriptive, too.


I offended the manager at a dining hall I was working at one day when I referred to the meal of the day, a chili-mac, as "good glop." It broke her widdle mind when she complained that I would never call something my mother made "glop," and I got to explain that was what she called the dish we were eating.

[Queen Tonya]

We never have glop here, we have noodle crap. Sometimes we have wonderful pasta dishes with fantabulous sauces and all sorts of fresh herbs and vegetables and such, but other times it's Helper-type noodle crap.

Stir-fry, primavera, chili and spaghetti sauces are the main culprits for meals that wind up in my largest pot regardless of my intention. Once I start chopping stuff up, it's hard to stop. If a little red and green pepper is needed, might as well slice them up completely. And the entire stalk of broccoli, or head of cauliflower, or use up the entire jar of canned tomatoes, etc.

I look around the kitchen and just keep seeing stuff that goes with whatever I'm making, and the dish grows and grows.

[OtakuLoki]

The big problem is when you have to go to an auxiliary pot, because it's grown beyond the bounds of the 16 quart stock pot.....

[Zuul]

One night I was going to make a casserole.

It started out with some Spanish rice and leftover taco meat. Well, hey, corn would be good with that, right? And maybe some beans. And, ooh, fresh tomatoes from the garden.

I can't forget some nice sauteed onions and peppers, either.

And, of course, cheese is necessary as well!

It went from one pan to three.

I ended up having to cook the third pan the next day, because there was too much food to even consider cooking it that night.

I know of what you speak.

[Hatshepsut]

Soup. You can put just about anything in soup and it is a good way to use up bits of things. Any soup I make is extremely thick, more like stew. Soups can contain onions, carrots, noodles, rice, beans, bits of leftover meat, and any green vegetable except for for cruciferous veggies (which emit unpleasant gasses when cooked for a long time). Then you can throw in some tomato paste or leftover spaghetti sauce, a bit of milk or cream ... the possibilities, and the size of the resulting stew, are endless.

I own the largest size crockpot I could find. And I often have containers of soup in the freezer.

[Glazer]

It is impossible to make less chilli than what your largest pot can hold. This is how I cook everything. Nothing is ever the same twice.