Kitchen Sink Casserole

     I'm pretty sure most people have some sort of variant of a "Kitchen Sink Recipe." There's just something fun about grabbing all sorts of stuff you need to get rid of and putting it together in a meal. Maybe you end up with soup or stew. We ended up with a casserole. I have no idea what compelled me to make a "crust" with mashed potatoes. I just needed to use them because they had all sprouted and were approaching sentience. Surprisingly, this wound up being an extremely tasty meal. I feel it benefited from a tableside dousing of hot sauce, but it was pretty flavorful as is. The fun of this is that you could swap in or out just about anything. Go crazy. Take out the green beans and add Jolly Ranchers. I'm not here to judge. Actually, I'm totally judging, but quietly. Behind your back. I never said I was a nice person. All right. I may have said it, but I lied. As always, notes are in blue.

Kitchen Sink Casserole

Ingredients

• 6 potatoes (peel them or don't. I like the peel. At the very least, wash them.)
• 1/2 pound yellow or green beans
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 ounces mushrooms, chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, cut into 1" squares
• 1 yellow bell pepper, cut into 1" squares
• 1 can (about 10.5 ounces) cream of mushroom soup 
• 1-1/4 pound ground beef
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1 tube biscuit dough (at least 7.5 ounces if you want it to completely cover the casserole)
• 2 tablespoons butter
• another 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 teaspoons Milwaukee Avenue Steak Seasoning (available at The Spice House. If you don't want to buy it, it contains: salt, hickory smoke powder, Hungarian sweet paprika, garlic, Tellicherry black pepper, cardamom and marjoram.)

Directions

1. Cut potatoes into large cubes and boil in salted water until fork tender (the potato, not the water. The water is already fork tender.) Remove the potatoes from the water and mash with the butter. 
2. Take a 9"x13" baking dish and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Spread the mashed potatoes in an even layer across the bottom.

   

   Blinding speed is the key to good potato spreading.

3. In a pan, heat the olive oil and add the ground beef, mushroom and onion. Cook until meat is browned. Drain all but a bit of the oil and move the meat to a bowl. With the heat still on the pan, add the wine and scrape up all the brown bits in the pan. Boil off about half of the liquid. Add the peppers and beans. Simmer for about 5 minutes. 

   

   These fresh vegetables will balance out the 9 Guinness Stouts I'm going to have with dinner.

4. Add the contents of the pan to the bowl of meat and onion. Add the cream of mushroom soup and seasonings. Stir it all up and spread it evenly over the mashed potatoes.
5. Have someone brave pop the tube of dough (I will freely admit that I am a grown man, but I am scared shitless of opening a tube of biscuit dough. It never pops when you'd expect it and I jump out of my skin every time. I just hand the tube to The Wife and leave the kitchen until it's all over). Flatten out the biscuits as much as possible. Wad it up and roll it out in a big sheet if you'd like. The plan is to lay that sheet of dough over the top of the casserole. 
6. Spread the other 2 tablespoons of butter over the biscuits. Put the casserole in an oven at 375F (190C, Gasmark 5) for about 20 minutes, or until the biscuit dough is golden brown.
7. Cut yourself a big old hunk and slather that bastard with hot sauce. Now get to work. 

Good times!