This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to what people in the food industry are obsessed with eating, drinking, and buying right now.
Tray bakes rule my world. Few meals are as satisfying to whip up as slabs of eggplant parm, a sheet of strawberry snacking cake, or any other dish that comes together in a single 9” x 13” pan. There’s only one problem: Though my heart wants to bake for a small town’s worth of folks, I live in a household of two, and there is only so much baked ziti and custardy French toast that my husband and I can eat. My love of casseroles was a curse until I met my new kitchenware MVP.
This cute, small Sweejar baking dish is designed for your cute, small, tray bake-loving households. Small but sturdy, the ceramic casserole is not only easy to use and clean (dishwasher safe, indeed), but it also comes in an array of darling colors, like buttery yellow and cherry red. In its miniature glory, this 5” x 6.5” inch dish allows me to bake casseroles perfectly portioned for two. And before you ask, when scaling down a recipe that calls for a 9” x 13” baking dish, just divide by four, which should yield the perfect amount for the wee Sweejar. My small baking dish also frees me to experiment and throw together inspired, small-scale, recipes on a whim—all safeguarded by the knowledge that if my creation isn’t a hit, I haven’t wasted a ton of ingredients.
Sometimes I simply can’t go on without a bite of warm, homemade blondies or ooey gooey butter cake. But does that mean I want an entire sheet of it in my fridge? That’s where I thank my petite baking dish for satiating my identically petite but URGENT cravings. And with fall is around the corner, I’m counting down the days til I can snuggle up in a blanket on the couch and eat a single serving of chicken pot pie straight from my small-enough-to-hold casserole dish. Now that’s what my heart really wants.
