Casserole Crazy

A month ago (give or take a few days) I participated in a Brooklyn's Fifth Annual Casserole Party hosted by Casserole Diva Emily Farris held at Brooklyn Label in Greenpoint.
I paired up with my friend Kelly and we stormed through the competition as "Team Rice & Beans".
Kelly being the Rice and I the beans.


Her and I sat down and decided to create an "ethnic" casserole. We wanted to turn a traditional dish and add some our Caribbean and Latin heritage flavor. Our slogan was "Mi casa es su Casserole".


Our casserole included white rice (made Spanish style), red beans, steak, home made sofrito, queso blanco and topped it with maduros (soft plantains).




Kelly and I did not follow a typical casserole recipe, we basically free-styled it.

The casserole came out pretty good. We came in the competition as rookies. Between the two of us it was our first casseroles ever!

We did learn two valuable lessons:

#1 - Add plenty of cheese when making a casserole.

#2 - When competing in a casserole competition the contains rice, cut the casserole in slices - so the judges have a fair amount of your casserole.

Overall, it was a good time, I got to taste a lot of different casseroles like fried chicken casseroles, casserole's topped with nachos, cornbread casseroles, sweet potato casserole, and duck confit casserole (which was the winner).

When I spotted the duck confit I remember telling my friend "Oh no someone made duck - I think they're gonna win".

And the winning casserole was the Duck Confit casserole, which was actually pretty tasty.

For more info on the Casserole Crazy party click the link below:

Casserole Crazy

Check out some articles about this Casserole Party here:

Metromix
50bucksAweek Blog
Greenpoint Gazette

(Never mind my last name is spelled wrong.. but its okay ^_^)

And check out some of Emily's photos on her facebook:

Emily Farris's Photos - The Fifth Annual Casserole Party

And I came across this great with a ton of casserole recipes:

Mom-Mom