Marketing, Cooking and Ground Beef Casserole

Usually once a week, I will take a 20 minutes drive to Super 88 - a Chinese supermarket in Allston and the next door Shaws supermarket to top up some vegetables and meat. K and I still have very much the Chinese palette, so we can't survive only on the ang moh vegetables like squash, brocolli and cauliflower. I still need my leafy vegetables like Xiao Bai Cai and Cai Xin. But ever since I found that Market Basket in Somerville (about 10 mins away) is so much cheaper in meat and other staples, I have been going there to stock up my freezer with meat once a fortnight.

It was about 3 weeks since I went to Market Basket. So, on Monday, my freezer was almost empty except left 2 packs of chicken thigh meat and ground beef. Since we had chicken for lunch and I do not like to cook the same thing for dinner too. I decided to do something with my ground beef, which I usually reserve for cooking pasta. Thank goodness, there is thing called Internet!

Being a SAHM in US really makes me appreciate the Internet, which I have been scounging around people's food blogs and recipe sites. It is really my lifesaver here and helps me out when I'm running out of ideas to cook. K has now been constantly praising my cooking and my baking efforts :> At least, it makes me feel worthwhile to make sumptuous meals for the family and honing my culinary skills here.

I googled around and found the beef casserole recipe, which seemed easy enough to make and allowed me to use up the remaining potatoes too. To complement this one pot dish already with meat and veg, I decided to fry eggs too. This is also to make sure that Ry has something to eat if he doesn't like the casserole and eggs never fail. Fortunately, Ry loves it and he finished his whole portion. K and I also had Hainanese Chicken Rice made with the ready Prima Deli sauce to go with the dish and it went surprisingly well! Yummy!

The following recipe has been slightly modified as I want to incoporate some spinach and I do not have shredded cheddar cheese, so used 2 slices of American cheese and grated parmesan cheese instead.

Ground Beef Casserole

Ingredients:

1/2 pounds of lean ground beef

1/4 cup of chopped onions

1-2 potatoes peeled, sliced (depending on size of potatoes)

6 mini carrots, shredded

1/4 cup of baby spinach

1/2 can cream of mushroom soup

2 slices of American cheese (cut into strips)

grated parmesan cheese

salt and ground black pepper

1/2 tsp canola oil

Steps:

1. Heat the oil in the skillet and the brown ground beef in a skillet with chopped onions until the onions are tender
2. Transfer ground beef and onion to casserole dish.
3. Add a layer of sliced raw potatoes and sprinkle them with a dash of salt and pepper. (Not too much salt as the canned mushroom soup is quite salty itself. I also added some dried parsley flakes too)
4. Cover the potatoes with the shredded carrots.
5. Top the carrot layer with baby spinach.
6. Pour the canned soup over the spinach.
7. Bake at 350 F for 40 - 50 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
8. Sprinkle the cheese on top and bake for an additional 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted.