Marguerites Cookbook

A cooking blog all about making vintage recipes from a cookbook we inherited from our grandmother

Carrot Casserole

CarrotCasseroleHeader

Today, we decided it was time to spice up some vegetables. Don’t get me wrong, I like vegetables, but sometimes plain old vegetables gets boring. Marguerite made several vegetable “casseroles” that made veggies more exciting. The ingredient that provided that excitement was french fried onions and she used them on several different recipes. This week, we made a carrot casserole.

Carrot Casserole

Here’s what Marguerite had to say:

Carrot Casserole Recipe

This recipe was extremely simple.  The hardest parts were splitting the cream of celery soup in half and waiting for the oven to preheat! This carrot casserole recipe will be so easy to add to any meal and you can squeeze it into the oven while your main course is cooking, too.

Carrot Casserole

To be honest, I feel like every recipe lately has had some “cream of” soup in it. Even though its feeling a little repetitive, these carrots were really good. The celery soup helped keep the carrots from drying out in the oven. Those two main ingredients combined together perfectly to make a delicious vegetable dish. Then, adding the french fried onions to the top made it even better. The crunch and flavor of the fried onions really make this recipe extra special.

Carrot Casserole

Vegetable casseroles like this carrot casserole are popular in our family still. These recipes frequently come out at large family gatherings, which make me remember Marguerite now that she’s gone. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks certain recipes bring her to mind more than others.

Carrot Casserole

Carrot Casserole
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
4-6 people 5 minutes
Cook Time
20-25 minutes
Servings Prep Time
4-6 people 5 minutes
Cook Time
20-25 minutes
Carrot Casserole
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
4-6 people 5 minutes
Cook Time
20-25 minutes
Servings Prep Time
4-6 people 5 minutes
Cook Time
20-25 minutes
Ingredients
Servings: people
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease bottom of casserole dish.
  2. Put one can of carrots on the bottom of the casserole dish.
  3. Spoon 1/2 the can of celery soup on top, then another can of carrots, and the remaining soup.
  4. Cover and cook at 375 until it bubbles, about 15-20 minutes.
  5. Uncover, put on onions, and bake for 5 minutes.
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Crab Meat Ramekins

crabmeatramekins

When we chose this recipe, we thought it would be fun to try something pretty different than the rest of the cookbook. When we actually made it, we found out something even cooler. This was one of Aaron’s mom’s favorite recipes. Marguerite made it a lot for her because she liked it. It was also another semi-diet recipe Marguerite had in her cookbook.

crabmeatramekins

When we chose it, neither of us knew what a ramekin was. We picked up a few from Sur la Table to make this recipe. I love the simplicity of the white ramekins. They are going to make great cookware for other recipes in the future I’m sure! But for now, back to the crab meat ramekins.

Here is what Marguerite had to say:

crabmeatramekinsrecipe

As you can see, there were NO instructions with this “recipe!” Upon consulting some other sources we figured out how we wanted to prepare the crab meat ramekins. We started by putting the ingredients in a saucepan to heat everything up. When doing that, Aaron thought that one 6 oz can of crab meat might not be enough. It turned out that the single can of crab meat was plenty.crabmeatramekins

 

We did have to change the amounts some in the recipe, specifically the bread and cheese for the top. In discussing the recipe with Aaron’s mom, she told him that she remembered the little brown ramekins that Marguerite used to make them in. She also commented that the tops of those were tapered and smaller than the rest of the ramekin. That made needing more bread and cheese to cover our ramekins make total sense!

crabmeatramekins

I prefer lobster, especially since I spent a summer in Maine, but thought these crab meat ramekins were delicious! (It may have been the cheese and bread.) All jokes aside, I did really enjoy this recipe, and so did Aaron. He did think that if we tried it again he may want to use lump crab instead. If you’re somewhere you can use fresh crab this summer, we hope you give that a try!

Crab Meat Ramekins
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
4 ramekins 15 minutes
Cook Time
8-10 minutes
Servings Prep Time
4 ramekins 15 minutes
Cook Time
8-10 minutes
Crab Meat Ramekins
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
4 ramekins 15 minutes
Cook Time
8-10 minutes
Servings Prep Time
4 ramekins 15 minutes
Cook Time
8-10 minutes
Ingredients
Servings: ramekins
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 375.
  2. Put the cream of celery soup and mushrooms in a medium saucepan over medium low heat.
  3. After a few minutes, whisk in the skim milk.
  4. Add the crab meat and lemon juice and mix ingredients together.
  5. Pour mixture into 7 oz. ramekins.
  6. Top with cubed bread and cheese.
  7. Place in oven for 8-10 minutes or until bread has browned and cheese has melted.
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Rice and Broccoli Casserole

Rice and Broccoli Casserole

Now I like broccoli, rice, and especially cheese as much as the next person, but I can’t say I particularly love them all mixed together. However, this rice and broccoli casserole was not a bad way to mix them.  This particular casserole was introduced to Marguerite by an elementary school colleague, Sylvia Camp.

ricecasserole

Here is what Marguerite’s cookbook had to say:

Casserole

As you can see, this rice and broccoli casserole is another extremely simple recipe which includes quite a few of the same ingredients that a lot of Marguerite’s recipes employed. Casseroles were a staple of hers. This must have made making any number of different recipes easy depending on what she had on hand.  Mixing all these “cream of” soups together went a little better for us than it did for our Chicken and Broccoli Casserole.

ricecasserole

Like I mentioned earlier, I am not a huge fan of casseroles. This one was just okay, in my opinion. Aaron also enjoys carbs and cheese, and at times only wishes to tolerate vegetables. He had this rice and broccoli casserole along with our protein of choice for a few meals, but he didn’t necessarily feel the urge to go up for seconds. For two people who, outside of Marguerite’s meals, were used to having a pile of vegetables next to a pile of starch, this was a clever change of pace. Aaron found some value in a casserole as a different way to prepare these accompanying food groups, and will likely want to try this again with some improvements.

ricecasserole

Rice and Broccoli Casserole
Print Recipe
Prep Time
20 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Prep Time
20 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Rice and Broccoli Casserole
Print Recipe
Prep Time
20 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Prep Time
20 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Ingredients
Servings:
Instructions
  1. Butter the bottom of a casserole dish.
  2. Put cooked rice in casserole dish.
  3. Sauté onions in butter until light brown.
  4. Mix the onions with the cooked and drained broccoli and the three different soups.
  5. Pour the mixture on top of the rice.
  6. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
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