Meal Prepping From The Pantry - #1

 

Last month I picked up a bag of tater tots to do a meal prep I had in mind.  I had this HUGE family size can of cream of mushroom soup that has been in the pantry for ages and was just past its best buy date.  I have no idea when or why I decided to buy this but it needed to go.  What better use than to make tater tot casserole and since I have no idea how to make tater tots myself I bought some.

 

I had loads of leftover ground beef after Memorial Day so I used that as well as some open bags of peas and mixed vegetables, and some milk in the freezer to put together two mini Tater Tot Casseroles.  These are small enough to fit in my toaster oven and each dish contains three servings.

 

Tater Tot Casserole 

Pat 1 pound ground beef into the bottom of a 8 inch baking pan.  Spread one can cream of mushroom soup over the ground beef.  Top with two cups frozen mixed vegetables and gently press into soup with a spatula.  Lay an even layer of tater tots over the top of the casserole.  Bake in a 400° oven for 45 minutes until beef is cooked through, mixture is hot and bubbly and tater tots are crisp.

 

I still had half a can of the mushroom soup left so I browned up the remainder of the ground beef I had left and made up a batch of Hamburger Mushroom Gravy.  This is perfect to put over rice, noodles or mashed potatoes.

 

Hamburger Mushroom Gravy

Tater Tot Casseroles ready for the freezer

I divided up the gravy into three containers with two servings each for six future meals.  With the tater tot casseroles and the gravy I was able to add twelve easy meals to my freezer in less than thirty minutes, start to finish, including clean up.  I finally got rid of that can of soup and used up a bunch of leftover items I had in the fridge and freezer so they did not go to waste.  I’d say that was a pretty good use of my time and resources.