February 21, 2011

WOM WEEKEND: Hometown Favorites, Part 1: Hamburger Casserole!

Posted by Ethne and Lori~
There is roughly a six hour drive between Lori’s little city, ND town and Ethne’s big city, MN city!  But that doesn’t stop us!  We look for any excuse to get together, and we were lucky to find a weekend in February to do just that.
Mission:  Make a home-cooked meal full of our childhood favorites.  It took us literally 10 seconds to have the menu planned.

First off—Hamburger Cream Cheese Casserole (Ethne lovingly refers to it as Pizza Hot Dish).  This is a Crafty G-Ma specialty (Lori’s mom).  The origination of this recipe=a very cute story.  Crafty G-Ma and Thrifty Nana are both teachers by trade.  G-Ma taught first grade for MANY YEARS and recently retired.  This recipe came courtesy of one of her first classes.  The students were asked to bring a recipe and the recipes would be compiled into a cookbook of “First Grade Favorites”.  And this has been our favorite ever since. Of course casseroles and hot dishes are a staple of ND and MN cuisine.    

Hamburger Cream Cheese Casserole:
Supplies needed:

1 lb. hamburger

1 onion chopped

1 T. butter

1 T. salt

½ tsp. pepper

2 (8 oz.) cans tomato sauce

1 (8 oz.) pkg noodles

1 C. cottage cheese

1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese

¼ C. dairy sour cream

¼ C. sliced green onion

¼ C. chopped green pepper



Chop o' Matic!


Brown your hamburger and chopped onion.  Add butter, salt, pepper, and tomato sauce.
Browning burger in style!
Boil the noodles until tender.
Mix the cottage cheese, cream cheese, sour cream, green onion, and green pepper.

In a 3 quart casserole, spread ½ of the noodles.  Cover with cheese mixture.  Top with remaining noodles.  



Cheese if you please!


Pour hamburger mixture over the top.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  The hot dish serves 8 to 10 people. 

Ready to bake!
TIME-SAVING TIP:  This recipe can be prepared the day before and stored in the refrigerator until it is ready to cook.
QUICK SUBSTITUTION:  When we made this, Ethne had a jar of spaghetti sauce so we used that instead of the tomato sauce.  The jar had a few more ounces in it than called for in the recipe, but it tasted GREAT.  

O. M. G.
Watch for Hometown Favorites, Part 2 and Thrifty Nana’s specialty—you are going to LOVE IT!

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