You want a quick, simple meal that cooks up in no time?  And is palatable to the kids?  Check out the Beef Casserole that we routinely whip up... it's turned into a "go-to" meal when kids are circling and ready to go.  Plus, it's not so kiddy that adults won't kill a couple of helpings themselves.

Starting with the ingredients...

~ 1 lb of ground beef, parmesan cheese, tomato soup, cheese soup, garlic, onion and elbow noodles.

Now look, you can use fresh garlic and onion if you have them... but it just adds steps to this otherwise simple item... but if you gotta have 'em, go for it. 

Get your skillet going with the ground beef...

Throw on top some onion and garlic (tablespoon each).  Now, you could start with fresh stuff and a little bit of oil and simmer some onion and garlic to boost their flavor some.  But if you are a "I gotta drain my meat" type of person, don't waste the good stuff down the drain... just use the quick and simple jar stuff.

There she goes... pretty much done

Get some water boiling while the meat is cooking.  Hey, realistically, meat cooks faster than water boils in my house, so get the water started just before the meat hits the pan.  If it boils for a bit while you tend the beef, don't worry, just start off with a good amount, you'll never miss a couple of minutes worth of steam.

Back to the ground beef... pour in the can of Tomato soup

That's half a bag of elbows... 6 oz from a 12 oz bag that is

Mmmh, stir the tomato soup in with the meat... you could just about eat this as is with some additional seasoning.

Get yourself a casserole dish ready.  A 9x13 is a bit big and ends up thinning out the casserole.  This is more like a 7 x 10.. damn odd size dishes...

When the noodles are done (follow package instructions for al dente since these go into a casserole, no use having extra soggy noodles... if you know what I mean) drain and put back into the original pot

Add cheese soup and mix

Now, put the cheese noodles into the tomato beef mix and stir some more

Now, dump into the casserole dish and spread out even

Top with some parmesan cheese to your liking and pop into a pre-heated oven (350F) for ~20 minutes... or until bubbly.  Now remember, unless you did a prep ahead, you are starting with hot beef and noodles, you just want to get this heated through and get the cheese on top all ready to go.

It's just so pretty!

Money shot time...

How can you resist?  It is very good.

Now some notes:

1.  Yes, this uses 3 "dishes" but the clean up isn't bad at all with the basic non-stick

2.  I didn't drain the beef... because I start with 93/7 and don't feel it's worh losing the onion and garlic.  If you got to drain, then consider sprinkling in some onion and garlic powder afterwards to bring back the seasoning.

3.  No, you don't have to use parmesan... I think mozzerella would work great.. and maybe a good cheddar if you are so disposed... but use good stuff to prevent the oily puddles from showing up.

4.  Yes, you could add the tomato to the beef, then add the noodles to the beef and then add the cheese to it all, or whatever order you want... but one reason to put the cheese in the noodles seperate is to get a bit of that cheese inside the noodles so it carries over to the main dish.  Feel free to switch around the tomato and cheese if you want the red stuff in the noodles.. might be kinda cool.