Cooking Cheap

I wanted to cook Saturday night but I didn’t want do any hard work. Some sort of comfort food. Meat loaf is is in the freezer so reheating that wouldn’t be cooking. I found some cube steaks in the freezer that I’d bought and after leaving them for two days in the fridge I froze them for later use. Now it’s later.

Now that I can actually do a half decent chicken fried steak, I need a new recipe for the cubes. What I really wanted to make was this crock pot ham/onion/potato and cheese bake but it was way too late in the day for 6 hours of crock pot waiting. What to do? Search Google and take your chances! That qualifies as “cooking” because you don’t know what’s going to happen. I modified a simple recipe. It doesn’t have a name, it’s good but not good enough to have a name. Yet I need a name or I can’t post it here. It’s perfect for the beginners section of the cookbook. I suppose it could feed two if you had a bunch of side dishes.

The original recipe calls for onion slices. I didn’t want to drive to the store for onion but I did have that package of el-cheapo no-name onion soup mix I bought for another recipe I didn’t make. I only have a half pound of cube steaks (2 steaks) and the recipes are sized for four to six steaks to one can of mushroom soup. Adjustments are needed. Meat, potatoes, onions, mushroom soup. It’s not going to be bad. I still need a name….

Really Generic Meat Casserole
2 1/4lb cube steaks. That would be 1/2lb in total.
1 large baking potato (or two wimpy ones)
1 small can of mushroom pieces, generic brand.
1 can of mushroom soup, generic.
1/2 of a package of onion soup mix
1/2 soup can of water

Procedure
Set oven to 325. Place the steaks in the bottom of a casserole dish. Peel potato(s) and slice into 1/4 inch thick rounds. Alternate the potato slices and mushroom bits on top of the steaks.

In a 2 cup bowl, mix the mushroom soup, one half a package of dry onion soup mix and a half of the soup can of water. Pour over the top of the casserole. Bake for 1 and 1/2 hours, let rest a few minutes and serve.

Comments
The steaks had a nice beefy taste. A little mealy texture but it’s cube steak. The potatoes were fabulous.There’s a lot of “soup” gravy. I grew up on canned mushroom soup, I still use it as soup so there’s nothing excess for me. All the salt you need is in the onion soup mix.

It’s comfort food in a trailer park way. Sure it can be punched up with an addition here and there. It’s an excellent base to learn from. For the hard core, it’s worth checking to see if you roots are touching ground.

Next time
Pour some of the gravy mix in the bottom of the casserole, then add the meat and taters so there’s some liquid at the bottom. Real onions chopped or sliced wouldn’t hurt if you have them. Add chopped garlic if thats your nature.

Two bone in pork chops could be used instead of cube steaks. That’s what I’m going to try next.

Add a layer or two of shredded cheese (what ever is in the fridge and about to go green). A little chopped fresh parsley might be nice in the soup mix and nobody has been hurt by some chopped chives for a garnish