It's not eating from the Pantry that's the challenge; IT'S COOKING FROM IT!

That's right...now, I knew last Sunday when I was planning the menu for this week that there were going to be days that we had to get creative.

Today was one of those days. This is what I had to work with:

1 lb. of ground beef, in the form of patties that my husband had been given by a sales rep.

1/2 lb. of Tri-tip that we found in the freezer that had to be used or tossed, it was dated way back to April 09.

A bag of egg noodles.

And after that, I didn't know what was going to happen. So, my mom and I were talking this morning about what was going to be for dinner and she went into the office and found this cookbook.


It's old, published in 1961. I couldn't remember where I picked it up at. Back track for a second here, I am a cookbook whore. I have a big box full of them that I have picked up at Thrift Stores and Yard sales for the last 20 years. I only recently boxed them because I started using Cooks.com, it is so much easier to search for recipes on this site then to dig through a million books looking for one.

So, she started reading it and found a recipe called Burger-Noodle Bake. Perfect!

Here is the recipe:

1 lb. Ground Beef
1/2 lb. Ground Pork
2/3 c. finely chopped onion
2 cans of condensed Tomato Soup
3 oz. cream cheese, cut into cubes
2 TBLS sugar
2-3 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tsp. salt

8 oz. wide noodles

Topping:
1/2 cup corn flake crumbs
1 TBLS butter, melted.
Mix and set aside.

BTW, that boy that keeps showing up in my photos was not part of the ingredient list. He's just the resident camera ham.

I didn't have any ground pork, so I just used the hamburger patties (crumbled) and the Tri-tip that I ground up in the food processor. I didn't have any cream cheese, so I used some Mascarpone (Italian Cream Cheese)that was left over from the Holidays. And, I didn't have any corn flake crumbs, so I used regular old bread crumbs. I also reduced to sugar to 1 TBLS since the Mascarpone is a bit sweeter then regular cream cheese anyway.

Here is how it goes together:

Combine the meats and brown in a skillet, drain off the fat. Add the onion and cook till tender. Add soup, cheese, sugar and salt. Simmer uncovered for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, cook the noodles in boiling water until tender, drain and combine with sauce. Put the mixture in a greased casserole dish. Top with the crumb mixture, bake for 20 minutes or until hot at 350 degrees.

Here is the result. It wasn't that bad. It was actually quite good. We had it with baked Acorn squash and green salad. There is enough left over that we can toss some shredded cheese on it and re-fashion it for tomorrow. I think...this might actually be the original Hamburger Helper! What I really liked about this recipe is that it had a lot of wiggle room. It was still tasty even though we didn't have the exact ingredients called for, and as far as I am concerned that makes it a Pantry Winner!!

So, since I am on this Pantry kick, I thought I would share another winner I devised this week.

While inventorying, I found a bag of Peanut Butter Cookie Mix I got when I did my Fred Meyer Give Away last summer. Couldn't let that get wasted. I added some Party Peanuts (purchased at Walgreens a couple weeks ago for .99 cents) and some chopped up little Nestle Crunch Bars left over from Halloween.

Then, I rolled out walnut size cookies and froze them for later use. I don't need 3 dozen cookies just sitting around here waiting to get stuck to my butt.

If I do say so myself, they turned out pretty good too :) I am the first person to admit that I can't don't won't bake, so I actually did impress myself.

If anyone was wondering, here is what that freaky Raisin Cream - aka - Rat turd Pie looks like. My dad loves it though, my poor mom has made 2 already this week, as well as 2 Pumpkin Pies and 1 Apple Pie. The man loves his pie, and I'm sure the ladies down at the Franz store are missing him!