@ForkReport Hour 1 | Breakfast Casseroles

The Fork Reporter talks the technique of the week: breakfast casseroles! 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Neil Savedre. You're listening to kfi EM six
forty the four Report on demand on the iHeartRadio. App Yay,
look at that. It's Saturday. Everybody gonna shake off the
heaviness of the week and we're gonna enjoy talking about
food for Voliday, the holidays. I love this time of year,
although I will tell you that I I like to

(00:23):
slow down around this time of the year, and it
never happens, and it hasn't happened for a long time.
You know, I do Thanksgiving Morning, and I did it
for Bell this year again I'll do I'll produce the
Jesus Show on Christmas Eve in for John Cobalt, so
one to four will be live. So I'm all, you know,

(00:46):
I work just like you guys, and there's a lot
going on, so I get lost in all of that,
and then it's just then it's January, and I go,
I can't wait till next year's holidays. So I'm trying
not to do that. I hope you're in that same place.
But what it does make me think about is cast roles.
I love breakfast castroles. I love castroles period as long

(01:09):
as they're not those real weird turn of last century
like mid century weirdness where it's like jello and you know,
possum feet or something and fruit, but something weird like that,
like the I like that breakfast ones because there's so
much you can do with them, and they're pretty basic.
So I wanted to kind of break down castle roles

(01:32):
because I think when you have people over on the
holidays or they spend the night, or you wake up
early in the morning, they're really great because you can
prepare ahead of time and then pop them in the
oven and you're good to know. So when you look
at the history, it's pretty strange. They've been around for
a long time. I know, it seems like, well, they
gained popular popularity maybe in the forties or so and

(01:54):
into the fifties and sixties, but they've been around way
longer than you probably think, longer than the United States.
As a matter of fact. The word cast role comes
from a French term. It means saucepan. Now I hear
there are different you know, these words get kind of
matched together. So saucepan is borrowed from an old word

(02:16):
that medieval Latin that meant ladle so it's kind of
like this concept of being able to take the food
up in one ladle and throw it onto a plate,
and it hints at this idea of this kind of
communal pot that everybody would dig into together. And that's
why it hits me during the holidays. That's why I
think of cast roles, any kind of castrole, but specifically

(02:38):
breakfast cast roles during the holidays, because that communal nature
of getting together with family and friends and having food,
and you with certain traditions in the like with Christmas
in the Christian community or even secularists who celebrate Christmas

(03:00):
it's a secular holiday if they do, it's you're still
having family and friends over. And the concept of waking
up and having something hot and wonderful that doesn't take
a lot, there's not you know, all the parts of
it are basically in the castle itself, so you're good
to go. I like that. So this communal pot is
the is the visual I want you to take with you,

(03:21):
that concept of labeling food into somebody else's plate and
coming together. So the castrole that you and I get
into these days something that we might know today. It
has influences from all over the places dishes in different countries.
For example, there's a French cassulette or cassule. I guess
it would be I don't know, I'm not French. Don't

(03:42):
yell at me. The Spanish paea comes from this. You've
got British pot pie, you got Italian lasagna. Now all
are these? All these are similar. They're not the exact
same thing, but they're similar. They've got layers of ingredients,
they're cooked together in one dish, and they're consumed in
that manner as well. Earliest known casserole recipe dates all

(04:03):
the way back to around twelve fifty essentially kind of
a form of macaroni and cheese, and this particular dish
involved cooking pasta sheets and water and then layering them
with grated cheese, probably parmesana as parmesane and some mild spices.

(04:23):
So we think of mac and cheese, and there are
castle styles of mac and cheese. There's southern mac and
cheese that will have egg in it, and the macaroni
and cheese and it's delicious all combined together. But this
is interesting because it kind of has that lasagna feel
without the sauce or without the meat proteins in there,

(04:43):
and then of course the spices that will kick it up.
So you fast forward a few centuries after that, seventeen
eighty seven, you've got Thomas Jefferson. He brought back everything.
That guy was a big time food lover and often
would fine dishes in his travels and bring them back
to the States. He visited Italy, he brought back a

(05:03):
pasta machine, and his daughter, Mary Randolph, she started making
a similar pasta dish posta and cheese dish over the time,
so you had parmejan get swapped out for cheddar. Mary's
version of this dish became a regular feature at the
White House when her father became president in eighteen oh two,
so she even included the recipe in her famous eighteen

(05:25):
twenty fourth book The Virginia Housewife or The Virginia Housewife.
So this is something that's been around for some time.
We come back, I'll finish up a little bit of
the history of the castrole, and then I'll get into
some basic breakfast cast roles that I know and love,
and someones that are inspiring, but they're really not difficult,
and they're always a crowd pleaser, and like I said,

(05:47):
you can prep them ahead and toss them in the
oven the morning of a special event or a holiday,
and everybody gets to enjoy them.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
You're listening to the Fork Report with Nil Savedra on
demand from KFI AM six forty.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Just think if I talked like that, I'd be great.
Hi news Right, I'm in the Foger Park. I'm gonna
sunt in that way one day after I polish off
a bunch of lasagna.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
Well you already do have the look for that voice,
to be honest, I do.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Right, Yeah, right, it's not. It's not like, oh, that
voice doesn't fit. I do look like I say, are
you doing?

Speaker 4 (06:24):
Nobody's surprised when that voice comes out?

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Get could I.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Get six number two's and a die coke? A die coke?
Watching my waist talking about cast rolls. Happy Saturday to you,
Neil Savadri here talking food, enjoying the holidays. Lights are up,
Christmas tree is already up. Maybe if not, maybe you're

(06:48):
doing it this weekend. I'm trying to. I want to
switch the those who won to three gables or whatever
we have in the front of the house. I want
to switch them to permanent Christmas light, so I'm trying
to take time to do that for all year round.
Well you want their low profile, but you only use
them on a holiday. Or you can do them white
if you want, you know, just a lighthouse. But if

(07:09):
you're having a party or for I don't know, Fourth July,
do red, white and blue. You could do whatever you want.
Sounds classy, it is, right, that's it. I'm classy. Yeah
you are, look at me. I'm glad, my lug you bun.
So I want to do that, had a chance to

(07:30):
do that, but I'm in that mode where I start
thinking about the holiday foods and everything, and I started
getting into cast roles. Now I think breakfast cast roles,
but it could be any sort of cast role. We've
been breaking down the history of the Castle of the
Mighty castrole, and of course comes to Thomas Jefferson, an
interesting fellow in his own right, but often like is

(07:50):
at the core of a lot of strange historical American
First like mac and Cheese is attributed to him bringing
this over and his daughter Mary Randolph making up this
pasta dish, and then they change it to cheddar do

(08:10):
all these things so very interesting. If you've ever seen
a copy or any of their reproductions and the like
of the eighteen twenty four cookbook The Virginia Housewife. It's
in there as well. In the late eighteen hundreds, more
immigrants come to America, and one of the best things
about immigration is not only new cultures and learning about

(08:34):
new things. Food and culture is food. Food is culture,
and so different styles of castrole dishes became a staple.
So these meals were inexpensive. They tend to be easy
and really some of the best food we eat, whether
you call it peasant food or what have you. That's

(08:56):
what starts with every culture, because every culture starts poor.
I mean, well, every culture is you know, a person
popping their head out of a hole, cave, whatever it is,
looking around and going what do we have to shelter ourselves?
What do we have to clothe ourselves? And what do
we have to eat? That's it. And people tie you

(09:16):
to their culture, thinking, you know, this is my culture,
and I said, yeah, but that's your culture because it
had to be. That was what you had. And now
in a world economy and there is such mix and
match and all these things, we have access to almost
every spice, you know, all these different things and culture
blurs lines. You know, even our neighbors to the south

(09:41):
in Mexico, they have a lot of interesting things that
are part of their culture and people go, oh, this
is my culture. And I said, yet, well, did you
know that the reason why you have brass in Mexican
music that goes back to Germany being partaking in the
land of Mexico at one point. And these things happen

(10:03):
and it changes stuff. Of course, Spanish is not native.
Spanish is a white man's language. Is European it is not. Yeah,
so Spanish is not the language of Mexico. It's a
native language. They're Indians, they're you know. So it's really
interesting to see how these things come together, and that
became part of a major growth spurt in the United States.

(10:29):
These these cast roles, they feed large groups, they're inexpensive,
put them together, easy to prepare. You don't need a
ton of you know, ovens or this. You can do
it all in one dish. And that's why it becomes
that culture was based on not having anything, which is
the starting of the start of every culture. So really

(10:50):
popular during tough times. So you had eighteen nineties, you
had the depression. You had both world wars where you
had to simplify, and in that simplicity came these cast roles.
By nineteen fifties, cast roles took off big boom, and
you see them if you look back on magazines and
like in American homes, they were everywhere. You had smaller

(11:12):
kishen kitchens, new oven proof cookware which meant that you
glassware and things like that that you could put in
the oven at high temps. The rise of canned goods,
so you had Campbell's soups. So these castroles became this
go to way to use left overs, feed the whole
family on a budget. That's where pop pies and the

(11:33):
light come from. So next time you're digging into these hardy,
hardy castroles, remember it's been around for centuries, been around
for a long time, and been through many culturals, cultures,
So you are actually consuming something that was made to
be cooked simply with simple, inexpensive ingredients for large communal groups.

(11:58):
And so what doesn't work better than a castle role
or what doesn't work better than a cast role during
the holidays, So they make sense and I'll be you know,
covering a bunch of breakfast cast roles throughout this season,
posting them online and like two because I love them.
They're just I mean, you can go Mexican, you can

(12:20):
go Italian, you can eat whatever it is, you can
go that any pattern, you know, you can go sausage
and potatoes. You can do whatever you want. Right, got
an eye roll from Miss Kayla because she's like I said, yeah,
it's the cast roles for you.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
You're listening to the Fork Report with Nil Savedra on
demand from KFI AM six forty.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Look at this already at the seventh a day that
will live on in infamy other than nine to eleven.
Prior to nine to eleven, this marking the bombing of
Pearl Harbor, which entered us into World War Two. That

(13:03):
was the biggest day. We had never been attacked on
American soil like that. So it's kind of crazy to
be this separate from that while we're going, you know,
inching into the holiday season. And it's just I mentioned
it just to think about there's other I think we

(13:23):
constantly want to say we're in the worst times ever,
but there have been some very intense times, including the
Civil War and the like, where America has been in
rough shape, and I'm a very proud part of we
the people, rather than worried about the you know, the
people in power at any particular time, is that it's
about us. We deal with the majority of things. How

(13:45):
we treat each other, how we interact with each other,
means more to how this country is run than any
one person. I'll tell you that much. We need to
get that right, and the holidays is a perfect time
to reset and remind us about how powerful that is.
In that same process, there are times that things do

(14:07):
affect us, and one of the things is prices. I know,
prices are insane, and you know, I hear Moll Kelly
talk about this all the time, and we may have
differing views. He often points out the fact that we
you know, I don't want to speak for him, but
rightly so to say that, because we do this as Americans,
we often are you know, penny cautious, pound foolish type

(14:33):
thing where we're worried about the cost of eggs. Yet
there's other costs that can be more damning to us
at times. But I see things that are inching up
in everyday things, and it does ultimately a little bit
here and a little bit there be that death by
a thousand paper cuts, and you've got Chipotle now confirming

(14:54):
a price hike. So an analysis finds higher prices for
protein and that moves forward to being passed on to us.
So Chipotle's been very busy in this particular case. They're
raising prices and working on fixing portion sizes, right, because
there was a concern that if you acted a certain way,

(15:17):
like pulled out a camera, you'd get more than if
you just went in there. So this popular Mexican fast
casual chain is upping its prices to keep up with inflation.
Potle's Cheap corporate corporate affairs officer Lori shallow Shallo Shallow
is Funnier. Schalow confirmed in a statement this week that

(15:42):
the company's going to raise its prices or just did,
rather about two percent nationally. It doesn't seem like a lot,
but every bit changes things, right. This is the first
price increase in over a year. It's aimed at offsetting inflation.
Strange thing is that in most businesses, they're not upping
your pay with that traditional two to three percent, going

(16:06):
with inflation as well, so that means things get more
expensive but you're not necessarily making more money. Price bump
first spotted by an analyst from Truist Securities. They reported
it on December fourth that twenty percent of Chipotle locations
have raised their price of proteins like chicken and beef
by two percent, so that is expected to roll out

(16:29):
to all locations very soon. Truists raised their price target
for Chipotle stock, sending shares up more than five percent.
And when we see this these price hot hikes, you're
going to have to look across the board. What fast
casual or fast food used to be. It's going that's

(16:52):
a particular model that means inexpensive food served quickly. So
if one of those things go out the window, its
cost effectiveness or the speed. If it takes longer, you know,
nobody's going to go, oh yeah, I want it to
take two percent longer, three percent longer, four percent longer

(17:14):
and beyond to get my food. Then of course they're
not going to want to be paying more for it either.
And proteins are getting more expensive, and I have a
feeling things are going to get even more expensive in
the future, depending on you know, rules and regulations. Here,
things have already gotten more expensive in California due to
rules and regulations, and you have to be willing to

(17:37):
pay for those things if you want them. The antibiotic free,
these types of things, which is good. Who wants that
in their food? But all these things change the price.
So as this continues to go up, I had said
Chipottle was going to be one of the first ones
to really start integrating portion can robotics. I think more

(18:02):
robotics are going to be coming the way of Chipotle,
for sure. I think it's I think it's absolutely going
to happen. They keep saying, oh, they're just doing you know,
they're making salads, or they're frying the chips or any
of these things that you don't invest that much to
fry chips. You invest in that to find ways to

(18:24):
cut costs. And that's what they're going to do. So
despite the higher prices, some costs like avocados and dairy
have continued to rise. So Chipotle's CFO pointed out that
during an October earnings call, the price hike last year
didn't fully offset the higher cost of ingredients, and how
do we keep hearing that? Right? Each year it goes

(18:49):
up and up and up. They've been putting extra effort
into ensuring portions are consistent. That's a big deal because
that was pointed out, like we said, on social media.
So while you might be paying a little bit more
for your Chipotle meals, looks like the company is trying
to stay on track and keep customers happy with both
portion sizes and overall quality. That's all great, but at

(19:11):
some point that quality jumps the fence and then it's
going to become a sit down restaurant because now you're
paying for the quality over the you know, inexpensive and
quick meal that is often associated even with a quick
or serve type place. It's not fast food, but you're

(19:35):
not going to stay. You may have lunch there, but
you're not going to sit and have dinner there or
anything like that. That's I think we're going to be
seeing more and more of this, and we'll see how
that plays out for these fast casual places or the
quick serve stuff. But Chipotle continues to invest in new
technology and to raise their prices where it stops nobody knows.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
You're listening to the Fork Report with Neil Savedra on
demand from KFI AM six forty.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
My brain is in a thousand different places right now,
and it's not big enough to be in one KF.
I am six forty life everywhere in the iHeart on
the iHeart within the iHeart part of the iHeart Radio app.
Holy Hell. I looked at my wife this morning and said,
I don't know where I am today. My brain goes everywhere. Anyways,

(20:29):
it's the Fork Quart. I'm Neil Savedra and happy to
be here with you, even if it's physically only, but
happy to be with you this Saturday as we approach
the holidays and look forward to getting together and connecting.
I know we've already been through Thanksgiving. My son turned eight.

(20:50):
We've been celebrating that, and it was really just a
neat boy, the love of my life. He and his
mom are everything to me and I just seeing him
grow and think and all that stuff and become his
own person is just an absolute miracle. And part of
my favorite favorite things in the holiday is to see

(21:14):
him experiencing them. AnyWho, So it's like been a long
couple of weeks with all that stuff, and I know
it's been the same for you. You know, the holidays. Well,
being here consumes a lot of our time and our focus.
And one of the parts is, you know, hosting, and
when you're hosting, there's a lot of responsibility because one,

(21:34):
you want to fulfill your own needs and once right
during the holidays, you want to connect with people and
it's hard to do so if you're making everything and
you lose track of you know, yourself, and that that's
that's difficult. And even when it goes well, there's there's issues.
But I want you to think about something this story

(21:56):
I came across that I thought, well, you know, I
think a lot of people go through these types things.
Imagine this. You put in all the work, you're cooking,
you're cleaning, you're preparing, you host a great party, then
your guests take all the lefto overs that you worked
as hard on. And I laughed at this story because
I get it. I get it. But you're hosting for others.

(22:20):
That's gonna be the reality. Like you have to know
what's going into this as a matter of fact, that's
part of the pride in doing it. If you can,
if you can set up you go to smart and
Final and by the way, the last weekend to participate
and join in the pastathon, so you can still find

(22:40):
out more at kfiam six forty dot com slash pastathon.
But you can go into a smart and final and
still donate anything there as you're getting groceries as you
check out there. And also Wendy's of course is a
big deal. You can go through Wendy's and you pay
five dollars I think, and you can get like fourteen
dollar coupon book, so you're good to go there. But

(23:04):
you go there and you can get all kinds of containers.
You can get the Chinese food style container, takeout container,
you can get little plastic ones. You can get all
kinds right, and you can start when you're cleaning up,
putting stuff in there and making plates for everybody to
take with them. If you'd like to do that, you
could separate some for yourself so you don't leave anything

(23:27):
to happen chance. Happenstance. That's what I'm looking for, so
you can keep happenstance. Why are you shaking that one off?

Speaker 4 (23:37):
I was shaking my hair.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
Out of my face. I wasn't shaking my head at
you like I usually am.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Raggored. Oh sorry, Neil. It's something that happens when you
have a hair. You wouldn't understand. So she this woman
goes on and she starts talking, sharing her story about
her greedy Thanksgiving guests. That's a little tacky. So what
if they ate? What if there was no leftovers? Would
you call them greedy for enjoying the meal?

Speaker 3 (24:03):
I just had a similar situation happened to me. I
didn't host, but my cousin did, and she called me
complaining about my other cousin because she took five to
go boxes of this aluminum foil, Like.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Okay, I'm not saying you can take more than what.
Who was that for?

Speaker 3 (24:19):
She only has one daughter, and I don't know who
else that that could have been for.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
But because of the bone.

Speaker 3 (24:26):
No, she's actually really tiny. And the cousin that she
took it from has like three kids. Her nieces and
nephews were visiting her mom.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
I literally had a similar situation with the cousin.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
I always gonna say her cousin king.

Speaker 5 (24:40):
Maybe their cousins, I don't know, but it was a
cousin I was hosting, and we did something through.

Speaker 4 (24:45):
Like a I think it was like a Texas roadhouse
where we did a.

Speaker 5 (24:47):
Catering for the holidays, and we spent a good amount
of money on the steaks.

Speaker 4 (24:53):
Nine steaks went home with that cousin.

Speaker 5 (24:57):
No, I swear, And I thought and and I thought, well,
maybe they're just hungry. It's not like they couldn't afford it.
But they took literally the rest of the steaks with them.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
Okay, that's different. That's different to me. You don't take
like a whole bird home. You know, it's like, well
it was left over. You don't take a You wouldn't
take steaks home. So here's the deal. Don't leave it
up to them. You get these containers as your cleaning up.

(25:29):
Do you let everybody know I'm making to go bags
for everyone? If if you want them, they have your
name on them. If you don't, just leave them in there,
that's it.

Speaker 4 (25:41):
That's smart way to do it.

Speaker 5 (25:42):
But what do you do when a family member tells
you like they snitch?

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Right?

Speaker 4 (25:45):
Do you do you confront the cousin?

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Now?

Speaker 1 (25:48):
Well what? Oh, okay, so what what are you planning on? Okay?
The whole There's two reasons why people go to jail. Okay,
they go for for punishment, right, and to protect the
society who's doing it right from dealing with that wing
nut right. Okay, so punishment. Do you want to know

(26:11):
so you can punish them or is that to protect something?
So if you're trying to protect yourself from them, don't
invite them next time. If if you're trying to punish them,
then you call and you say, hey, listen, we are happy.
We had hoped to divvy that up amongst the people

(26:31):
that had come. But you can't say I was hoping
to have some leftovers myself. That's not what it's about. Yeah,
if you want that, then you prepare them, and you
set aside some for yourself for yourself, and you plan that.
So you plan between a pound and a pound and
a half of protein per individual, and two pounds if

(26:57):
you're going to give them leftovers, and three pounds if
you want to have leftovers for your damn self. So
think about that, but proportion that stuff out beforehand, put
their name on it, label it, and let them know, hey,
we have leftovers. I've made to go bags for all
of you. It has your name on it. Please don't

(27:18):
take anyone else's. And if you don't want to, just
leave it in there and we'll divvy it up. And
then you don't after word who's leaving their food out.
So somebody, you know, a La dan Aykroyd in trading
spaces is shoving you know, a salmon fila down his pants.
That's like, you know, control the situation. You're putting the

(27:40):
food on the plate for them, You're controlling the portions
or you're whatever it is. It's like, keep that in
mind or don't host, but don't expect to have leftovers
if you're hosting. Uh, and you're not putting aside something
you didn't you know.

Speaker 4 (27:58):
That was our last year hosting, so it's noted.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah, you're still paying off those steaks exactly chateaubriand that
everybody took home. Wow, that's insane. But somebody had to
tell you, Yeah, how did you not? How did you
not notice six or seven steaks?

Speaker 5 (28:14):
Because it was like halfway through the party. There was
all these people at my house and they were on
the stove and they decided they wanted to leave early,
so they just started throwing them in there. And then
I found out after they left.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Well, don't invite Bill handleback because he will take your stuff.
He takes food. You've been listening to the Fork Report,
you can always hear us live on KFI AM six
forty two to five pm on Saturday, and anytime on
demand on the iHeartRadio app.