Making Much With Very Little: Stuffed Steak Casserole

 So, as I stated a few blog posts ago, I have been really racking my brain on how to help people out as much as I can during this...well...mess seems actually a rather nice way to put it...that we are all in.  So, I brainstormed and brainstormed some more and one of the things that I did come up with was that I could definitely find ways to stretch a meal and/or make money stretch and share some of those ideas to hopefully help people out in my little corner of the internet.

So, first up is I'm going to be sharing more recipes.  Like this one.  I ran into an article stating that people are turning back to buying ground meat instead of whole cuts because it is cheaper, which I definitely understand, so I started thinking on different recipes I could share that would use ground meat.  I didn't really want to do the usual meatloaf or tacos as those are things people can just find anywhere.  I sat down and came up with a goal to share a series of recipes using ground beef (and hopefully share recipes where you can sub ground pork or chicken if you need to) that are simple, cost effective and filling.  Note, I no where in that sentence mentioned "super healthy" as really anytime you go for simple, a lot of times you end up sacrificing the healthy a bit, although I WILL try to make some healthy recipes here.  

Right, so here's the neat part about this series of recipes dealing in ground meat.  I am purposefully making them so you can brown up a big pot of ground beef (or whatever) and then just set aside 1 lb portions of said meat to use in recipes later. So if you buy a big bulk package of hamburger, you can just brown all of it to use later...this is intended to make it easier for those who have to work, for example, and just need some help with cheap and easy meals.  

The first recipe I came up with is based on one of my mom's old stand by recipes.  When I was a kid, my mom would take a cheap cut of steak, pound it super thin to tenderize it, make up some stuffing mix, throw it on the steak, fold said steak in half (so the stuffing was sandwiched inside), throw some gravy or cream of soup on top of it and bake it.  She called it stuffed steak and it was cheap, relatively easy (okay, pounding the meat wasn't really easy I doubt, but my mom did seem to enjoy taking her frustrations out on the meat) and a decently filling meal.  Open up a can of green beans (or veggie of your choice) and you have a decent meal.

I subbed out the steak for ground meat, redid the process a bit and voila!  Stuffed Steak Casserole is born!

Enjoy!

Stuffed Steak Casserole

Ingredients:

• 1 lb Ground Beef (or other ground meat), browned and drained
• 2 cans Cream of Mushroom Soup, undiluted
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 package stuffing mix, made to package directions (I used Stove Top for this recipe, but feel free to sub what you have...I also added about two hamburger buns worth of left over squishy bread to the stuffing to help pad the stuffing out a bit).
• 1 tsp. Italian Herb Seasoning
• 1 TBS dehydrated onions (or 1/2 to 1 tsp. onion powder)

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

2.  Mix ground beef, cream of mushroom soup, water, Italian Herb blend and onions in a saucepan, over low heat, and heat until well combined.  You can skip this step, but just be sure to whisk the cream of mushroom soup, your Italian Herb seasoning, the onions and the water really well before you add the beef if you are doing this cold, so you don't end up with weird chunks in your casserole.

3.  Pour mixture into an 8x8 Pyrex baking dish (or 2 quart casserole dish).  

4.  Spoon stuffing mix (after you fluff it up) over the top of the beef mixture, spreading it as evenly as you can.

5.  Cover and bake in 375F oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until mixture is bubbly and heated through to your liking.  If you like, bake for 20 to 25 minutes and then remove cover or aluminum foil and then bake the last ten minutes without a cover to crisp up the stuffing (depending how you like it).

6. Serve with vegetable of your choice (we obviously had green beans with ours).

Note:  This should freeze well.  Just let it cool well and then put a good layer of plastic wrap over the top and another layer of aluminum foil.  Before baking remove the aluminum foil, remove the plastic wrap (important!) and then place the aluminum foil back on the casserole.  You'll have to increase the baking time like 10 minutes I would say if you are baking from frozen.

I know I may catch some flack over the amount of sodium in this recipe and I get it, trust me.  But, you can definitely go with reduced sodium Cream of Mushroom soup if you want to cut down on the salt and you can also make home made stuffing to cut out the stuffing mix.  But, I was definitely gong for a quick and easy meal here.  Feel free to change it up as you see fit.