Casserole Time

She Said:

I was looking for something to take to work for lunches last weekend. Casseroles are always wonderful and easy to prep for the week - make them on the weekend and dole them out to individual containers to stick in the fridge. Then each morning, grab 'n' go.

The problem is that we always default to tomato-based casseroles when we think of them, and I can't really eat tomatoes, so I was on the hunt for something that had nothing tomatoey about it and stumbled upon something on Allrecipes.com. It has seen us through this week and there are STILL more leftovers that now need to be frozen or tossed.

The best part of this casserole was the portion size. There is no nutritional information on it and I'm sure it's pretty hefty in the fat and calories, but I stuck to doling out the portions as the recipe stated. It was not a lot of food and I actually lost a few pounds this week. I was hungry, too, but the end result is better. A happy little side-effect!

You can't beat how easy this was to make and we'll be claiming this as one of our own and modifying it to our liking in the years ahead.

Mom's Ground Beef Casserole

2 pounds ground beef (I used one pound 80/20 and one pound 90/10)
1 medium green pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
9 cups cooked wide-egg noodles (I had to do some calculating at the store - the end result is that this is one regular large bag of noodles)
1 pound processed American cheese, cubed (well, we used about 4 ounces of Velveeta, a couple of slices of Muenster cheese, and a couple of slices of Swiss - it's what we had in the house)
1 (15.25 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained
1 (10.5 ounce) can condensed chicken and rice soup
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
½ cup milk (we used skim)
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper

(They never remind you to cook the noodles or pasta, so I'm adding it here.) Cook noodles according to package directions. Set aside but do not drain until you're ready to use them. (They'll become one big noodle clump if you drain them ahead of time.)

In a Dutch oven, cook beef, green pepper, and onion until meat is no longer pink and vegetables are tender; drain. Remove from heat, stir in remaining ingredients. Transfer to two greased 2-½ qt. baking dishes. (We used one 3-qt. and one 2-qt. and did not grease them.) Cover and bake at 350℉ for 45-50 minutes or until bubbly. (It took 45 minutes for us.)

Simple, simple, simple and really delicious. It gets better the longer it sits in the fridge. In my mind, this casserole could benefit nicely by adding some sauteéd mushrooms, some garlic, maybe some peas or some chopped up asparagus, and maybe throw some Parmesan cheese in there somewhere, too. I think it can stand up to mostly any additions. It's a casserole, after all, and isn't that where you should be using up all of your leftovers?