Cooking with Elli: This Little Pig Cheeseburger Casserole

Looking through my go-to cookbook, Taste of Home 1999 Quick Cooking, I found a recipe for Cheeseburger Casserole. It called for a grand total of four ingredients. I was all over it like Elli on cheese.

Cheeseburger Casserole

2 pounds ground beef

1 can golden mushroom soup

1 can cheddar cheese soup

1 10 oz package of frozen crinkle-cut french fries

Brown meat in a skillet; drain off fat. Add soups and mix well. Grease 13x9 baking dish and spread mixture into pan. Top with french fries, spreading evening over top of mixture. Bake at 350 for 50-55 minutes or until fries are golden brown.

Not only did the limited ingredients and prep time appeal to me, but so did the fact it called for two pounds of meat. Normally, I might not have been so giddy at the prospect, but I had just been gifted a third of a pig--literally. It's one of many blessings of being a farmer's daughter. So, needless to say, I had some freezer overflow to contend with. I also have a frozen turkey, but that's a whole other blog post in the making.

Instead of ground beef, I used ground pork, cooking it up and letting it cool a little before bringing on the toddler.

Instead of pouring the soups into the skillet, I transferred the meat to the baking pan. Elli's first job was to pour the soups onto the meat.

The soups decided to be uncooperative in sliding out of the can. Elli had an interesting way of handling that situation.

That's her slamming the can into the meat as if the can were a cookie cutter. I think she thought that if....who am I kidding? I have no idea what she was thinking. Bottom line, it didn't do much to win her victory. Mommy retrieved the scrapper and on we went to mixing it all up.

Once the meat had a nice, glistening coat on it, I showed Elli how to gently pat the mixture into a more even level. Ladies and gentlemen, a toddler's definition of "gentle":

Can you even see the scrapper in her hand? Had I taken the picture two seconds later, the camera would have picked up the divets. And let it be known for the record that the scapper is actually black and blue (but not from the beating it took in this instance), and had it not been wildly waved about, it more than likley would have shown up clear on film.

After I did a bit of smoothing over, we started on the spreading of the fries. What happened? Why write it when I can show it:

Five minutes later, with the "inch fies" in place, she watched as I put the casserole in the oven. "Ahh done!" she said with triumph. All done indeed. The casserole was a big hit and very likely will find its way into the Family Recipe Box. Things Elli Could Do: pour (if you want to call it that) soup into pan mix meat and soup together pat (if you want to call it that) the mixture into an even level spread french fries on top of meat mixture

Overall Cheeseburger Casserole Ratings: Elli-friendly cooking: 5 Elli-friendly eating: 5 Simple: 5 Fast: 4 (long baking time) Frugal: 5 (especially if you have a third of a hog in your freezer)