Modified Johnny Marzetti rears its ugly head again...

[Phentex]

I am pretty sure we had a discussion of this on DU2 but I'm not sure anyone remembers.

I was introduced to Johnny Marzetti at a family reunion for my husband's family. Apparently this was one of those recipes that was only ever made when extended family got together and sentimental feelings have been established. I had never had anything like it and being brought up by a Sicilian, was pretty traumatized by it.

I thought maybe it was a southern thing but after I posted about it and talked to others, I realized this was an old recipe that had just been debased by this family over the years. There are several versions which sound decent such as the one described in this history

http://ohiothoughtsblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/johnny-marzetti-recipe-and-history.html

but the one the family makes calls for cream of mushroom soup, canned tomato soup, canned spaghetti, green peppers, green olives and cheddar cheese along with sausage or ground beef.

WHY, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WOULD ANYONE MAKE THIS WHEN PASTA OR LASAGNE IS SO EASY TO MAKE??????

It's been years since anyone made this. For some reason my sister in-law-thought she'd revive this for the next family gathering this weekend. Is it edible? Yes. Will we survive it? Yes. But I just don't understand why anyone would make this. I plan to make a side dish of veggie cheese ravioli and eat that instead.

Any of you ever been in this boat?

[cbayer]

1. I guess if she's just doing it for nostalgic reasons, you all could have a good laugh over it.

But I wouldn't eat it.

[Phentex]

3. It was fun telling my husband...

he cringed and then shivered like a ghost had just walked over his grave, lol.

[cbayer]

5. Even though my husband will eat just about anything, I don't think he would

eat this. He is particular about his pasta and canned spaghetti would probably be the final nail in this coffin.

[locks]

2. hungarian goulash

I remember this from my childhood and as the old recipe mentions we called it hungarian goulash. It was not a casserole, just mixed up in one pot. We loved it and somehow survived these "comfort dishes", maybe because we had to go out and play afterwards!

[Phentex]

4. Ya have to wonder though

if ANYbody else really likes it. Or are they like us and don't want to hurt any feelings.

[A HERETIC I AM]

6. Well, it isn't horrible!

I mean....like mentioned above, it is comfort food.

It's simple, cheap to make and versatile.

I've had it where whole kernel corn was added!

You have to admit, making a proper lasagna is a bit more involved than a simple one-pot dish like this.

(OK, 2 pots, one to boil the pasta in)

[Phentex]

9. Even easier is a frozen lasagna! ha!

It really is about a memory for them.

But that's what food is sometimes.

[Laurian]

7. Johnny Marzetti was a hit in my Ohio elementary school 55 years

ago. It was more if a baked spaghetti dish, though, using Mrs. Marzetti's original recipe with egg noodles instead of macaroni. I also remember the Marzetti restaurant in Columbus and still buy Marzetti Slaw Dressing for coleslaw and broccoli salad.

[Freddie]

8. Never knew where it came from

But that recipe (with that name) turns up in PA Dutch cookbooks too. Actually it sounds good to me but I like most casseroles, will have to try it. I like their salad dressings too.

[Phentex]

10. Many of the versions sound good...

one place that came up when I looked it up talked about it being like the telephone game where the recipe changes from place to place. Some of them sound a bit like a hamburger helper kind of casserole.

I just think the salty soup cans and spaghetti o's are better suited in other ways.

This one from Saveur sounds good...

INGREDIENTS
10 tbsp. olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 medium yellow onions, roughly chopped
8 oz. white button mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 28-oz. can whole peeled tomatoes in juice, crushed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 ½lb. ground beef
2 tbsp. finely chopped parsley
10 oz. wide egg noodles
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
8 oz. cheddar cheese, shredded
3 oz. mozzarella, shredded
3 tbsp. bread crumbs

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Heat 3 tbsp. oil in a 12? skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic and onions; cook until soft, about 8 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and set aside. Return skillet to heat with 3 tbsp. oil; add mushrooms; cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Add to bowl with onions; return skillet to heat with 2 tbsp. oil. Add beef; cook until browned, about 8 minutes. Return onions and mushrooms to skillet along with oregano and tomatoes; boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook until thickened, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat, season with salt and pepper, and stir in parsley; let sauce cool.

2. Heat oven to 325°. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat, and add noodles; cook until al dente, about 7 minutes. Drain and toss with butter in a bowl; set aside. Spread 2 cups sauce on bottom of a 9? × 13? baking dish; cover with noodles. Spread ⅔ cheddar over noodles; top with remaining sauce. Sprinkle remaining cheddar, mozzarella, and breadcrumbs over sauce; drizzle with remaining oil. Bake until browned on top, about 25 minutes.

[alfie]

11. Your version sounds yummy.

It also sounds like it would freeze well. I love doing recipes I can freeze portions of for nights when I don't feel like cooking from scratch.

[greatauntoftriplets]

12. Your in-law's recipe sounds ghastly!

Maybe whoever is making it will change their mind.

[Phentex]

20. I doubt it...

I think what I need to do is introduce the other versions to them and see if it makes any difference. The saving grace is this only pops up once in a blue moon!

[spinbaby]

13. Every family has something like that

Our family's awful dish that turns up at every family gathering is this green stuff made with lime jello, marshmallows, cool whip, and canned pineapple. Horrible glop, but everyone is attached to it because because it's been served at every holiday table since sometime in the 70s.

[Phentex]

22. That's really what it is...

I experiment on my family all the time but I really do encourage honest feedback when they just don't care for something.

[dem in texas]

28. Yes, I used to hate that stuff

Another one that was popular was called the 24 hour or 5 sisters salad: pineapple chunks, Mandarin oranges, miniature marshmallows, coconut and sour cream. I always served it when I made baked ham and my three kids loved it. When they were grown, they would ask for it, but I refused to make it, so my daughter started making it for family functions.

[Texasgal]

14. reminds me of tater tot casserole

and anything molded with Jello. My poor grandma... she really thought she was making a good family "staple".

[Phentex]

21. my husband told me his grandmother once made jello with

fruit cocktail mixed in. He thought it was okay but in being polite, he acted too excited about it. From that point on, she made it for him every time he visited. I think that's kind of sweet but he got sick of eating it!

[Warpy]

15. This sort of thing was a mainstay in the 1950s

and had various names, including American chop suey. It was under that name that school cafeterias in NC served it, the mystery meat stretched to the breaking point.

Most family meals during the weekday were casseroles with some kind of meat (occasionally left over from Sunday), some kind of condensed soup, some kind of pasta, potatoes or rice, and breadcrumbs and/or cheese on top. It was cheap and tasty and allowed meat for one person to extend to six.

[Phentex]

19. I can see that...

Like I said, some versions sound a bit like a hamburger helper style recipe.

Those of us older and wiser and on low sodium diets prefer to leave the school cafeteria food alone.

[grasswire]

16. Never heard of Johnny Marzetti casserole, despite...

.....having many, many cookbooks!

I do like very much the Marzetti brand of pickled vegetables, etc. Pepperoncini, and so on....

[Jenoch]

17. In Minnesota this recipe

is called goulash minus the mushrooms and cheese. It was a staple of school lunchrooms.

[Phentex]

18. It reminds me of goulash...

I think I saw it mentioned in an article I read.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

29. My wife grew up in rural Wisconsin in the gastronomically impoverished 1950s

(The town she comes from reminds me of Lake Wobegon, except that it is in Wisconsin, not Minnesota; there is a river, not a lake; and has German Lutherans and Polish Catholics, not Norwegian Lutherans and German Catholics.)

Anyway, I just showed her the Johnny Marzetti recipe, and she said, "That's hamburger hot dish."

[kestrel91316]

23. My mom made something called Tuna-Biscuit Bake, but I never felt obligated to make it just

for the sake of nostalgia.

Canned tuna (not albacore, either), cream of celery soup, sauteed onions, canned peas. Put into a casserole dish, topped with canned biscuits (my mom never made biscuits from scratch).

I would eat it, but I never took seconds.

[Phentex]

24. LOL! I have never been a fan of canned tuna casseroles...

of any kind. Even though I like tuna by itself and I love canned tuna fish sandwiches, I have never wanted it warmed into pasta or casseroles.

[kestrel91316]

25. I loved her Tuna Noodle Casserole, but I don't eat creamy fattening casseroles like that anymore,

haven't for decades.

[MuseRider]

26. Looks like something my mother would have made

she made some god awful stuff, all out of a can or box except for bread and pasta, she made those herself. Go figure.

I belong to a club that has an annual meeting and the luncheon is always ham loaf. It is loathsome I am sure, the recipe is from the first meeting over 100 years ago. Dry and awful stuff. I am so thankful for being a vegetarian when we have that meeting, it is sacrilegious not to eat it apparently.

I do not understand the emotional attachment to something that could be made better. Enjoy!

[grasswire]

27. Oddly enough, I saw my first Johnny Marzetti recipe in a cookbook today!

It's a spiral bound cookbook of Virginia cookery. There it is. Johnny Marzetti. Whaddyaknow?