Broccoli Corn / Savory Frank Noodle Bake?

So my husband maintains that "bake" is not a noun. And he may be right.

But I was going through my Aunt Del's recipe box and found two promising recipes, circa 1968 and 1967, the first from someone named Maude Buckley and the second from Better Homes and Gardens.

I mean "promising" in the late '60s housewife sense. Lots of short cuts, cornflake or cracker crumb toppings, "cut into wedges and serve."

Why not? I survived the late '60s. My kids will too. In fact I doubt my mom ever made these kinds of recipes, but I remember clearly going to Florida to see my Aunt Em and begging her, every year, to make her "cream corn casserole." The spécialité de la maison, so to speak.

I occasionally buy canned creamed corn (a habit from childhood), but I never use it. It sits on the shelf for a year or so and then I donate it to a food bank. When you think about it, it must be the sugar that made that casserole so appealing to ten-year-olds.

After all, according to a reviewer on amazon.com, cream style corn is the best:

I love that the ingredients are simple - Corn, water, sugar, corn starch and salt - and that the corn is grown and packed in the USA. The cans are large enough to make a cornbread/egg/cheese casserole for our big family. I also add it to regular cornbread because it makes it moist, delicious and less crumbly.

 Good ideas, I am sure. But instead of making the Brocolli Corn Bake (that's how Aunt Del spelled it -- broccoli was still a foreign vegetable in those days, I imagine) with its "1 1 lb. can creamed style corn," I decided to merge two recipes and see what happens.

Here's the new recipe:

Broccoli Corn Savory Frank Noodle Bake

16 oz. egg noodles, cooked

1 medium onion, chopped and sautéed in 1 T. butter

1 16 oz. container of cottage cheese

1 16 oz. container of sour cream

4 eggs, slightly beaten

1 t. salt

1/2 t. pepper

1 16 oz. package of frozen broccoli, thawed

1 10 oz. package of frozen corn, thawed

1/2 cup cracker crumbs mixed with 1 T. melted butter

I made two versions, one with beef franks (4-5) and one with tofu kielbasa. Mix the ingredients together, add cut up hotdogs, top with cracker crumbs (I also added some shredded cheddar cheese that was left over from the other night), pour into a small greased glass casserole, and bake ~20-25 minutes in a 325 oven. (You could use a hotter oven, but I was also baking a cheesecake.) Near the end you can add some reserved hot dog pieces to the top for garnish!

 Review to come. Dinner time.