Spice it Up

One of the best features of allrecipes.com is that a cook can type in several ingredients and get dinner ideas for what's on hand. Tonight's options included ground beef and mushroom soup along with the key word "casserole." Upon hitting "enter" I received a few workable choices. Three seems to be an optimal number for this since there are enough to make you feel like your making a decision, but not so many you get bogged down in the details. Thus, Meatloaf Casserole - submitted by the Campbell's Kitchen - was this evening's winner.

The process was easy: brown some ground beef (of course turkey, chicken, or vegetarian crumbles would all work just as well) with chopped garlic. Add a can of diced tomatoes, half a can of golden mushroom soup, and a little Worcestershire sauce. This goes into a baking dish and is topped with instant mashed potatoes which have been made with water, butter, and the remaining soup. The dish goes into the oven for 20 minutes to brown the tater topping.

Overall, the meal was good - hot and homemade in very little time and effort. But, it really needs tweeking to add more flavor. The Worcestershire and mushrooms made it more reminiscent of strogonoff than meatloaf, and it lacked the veggies to be shepherd's pie. The potato layer - with the added soup - was the best part of the dish. I think cooking instant potatoes with soup instead of the milk is a great idea to liven them up. I did, of course, make a couple of changes by adding a little salt and a generous helping of pepper to the meat mixture along with casserole cheese to the top of the potatoes. In retrospect, though, I think it would have tasted more like meatloaf (at least the kind I like) with onion soup mix and barbecue sauce instead of the canned tomatoes. An Italian twist with some extra herbs might also be good. A Mexicali flare with green chilis and chipotle sauce added to the meat and taco seasoning in the potatoes might be another way to go.

This is something I will make again because the guys really liked it, it was easy but still felt like comfort food, and there was plenty left over for lunch tomorrow. But next time, I'll be playing with the ingredients to make it much more interesting.