Cherokee Casserole

Thanksgiving is a time for families to get together and share a good, old fashioned meal and to reminisce about times past. Anat, the kids and I were talking about old family recipes and I related the one below, which had everyone in stitches. My aunt developed [or found] this casserole as a means to use up left- over food and feed a big family.

My mother and her friend, Barbara, vacationed on Cape Cod during the summers when I was in grade school. Barbara had two sons and a daughter, and the four of us hung out all summer long. Our fathers would come down on the weekends and on Sunday they would leave for home and work and they would give the moms some housekeeping money to tide us over for the up coming week. We didn't have a lot of money in those days, so, by the end of the week we were low on money and food. That's where Cherokee Casserole came in handy. With a minimum of effort you could make a meal out of whatever was left over from the preceding week.

The Cherokee Nation would be appalled. Some old family recipes are best left in the past but this one is good for a laugh. I am sure there is a recipe like this in everyone's closet.

CHEROKEE CASSEROLE RECIPE

Sauté approximately one pound of ground beef with some chopped up onions [it doesn't matter how many or how old, whatever you have in the back of the bottom drawer of the refrigerator]

Check the back of the other shelves of the fridge for leftover corn, peas, green beans, whatever is left over from dinners past [even from the distant past]; add to the pot.

If you are lucky, there will be one or 2 wilted stalks of celery at the bottom of the vegetable bin. Chop these up and add to the pot.

Add a cup of uncooked rice to the pot. In theory, the rice will cook with the rest of the ingredients. If you are low on hamburger, add a second cup of rice.

Now for the piece de resistance. In the back of one of the upper shelves of every refrigerator in the 1960's [or perhaps in the meat tray] there would be one or two slices of Kraft American Cheese (square cheese), wrapped or partially wrapped in plastic wrap. This is the essential ingredient of Cherokee Casserole. It is best if the cheese is slightly hardened around the edges. Tear this cheese into strips and place strategically on top of the now bubbling casserole.

Cover and cook until the kids get back from playing outside. If you cook for a long time the rice will be really mushy; if you don't cook it long enough the rice will be hard. Either way the rice will never be done properly.

From the moms' point of view, this is the ultimate meal for a vacation; it takes no effort and it uses up everything in the refrigerator. From the kids point of view it was the worst possible meal; it taste terrible and it was like the week in review. My mother and her friend Barbara were both grade school teachers and they used psychology on us. When we came in from the beach looking forward to a delicious home-cooked meal we would eagerly ask What's for dinner? The Moms would enthusiastically respond "Your favorite... Cherokee Casserole!!!!"

If you try this recipe and like it, look for my next old family recipe, American chop suey.