When I cook, many times I will ask one of the kids to go down to the freezer to “bring me up something I can make for dinner”.  Sometimes they’ll respond with “what do you want me to get?”  I usually will respond “I don’t care just pick something”.  You see, I don’t cook with a menu, not typically anyway.  Having a large family there are times when we are “gifted” with foodstuffs.  So my cupboards and freezers are filled with food we have raised ourselves and food that has been gifted.  Tonight was a “gifted” night.

My daughter brought up 16 frozen Turkey burgers.  Her thought was.. hey we’ll have burgers.  I wasn’t too enthused about the prospect of Turkey Burgers on bread… so I pondered…. and pondered some more.  Then it came to me…. bread those badboys, fry ’em up, layer with mushroom soup, top with stuffing.. bake.  Easy Peasy!  Break out the Panko kids!!

No Panko :(…I love a good challenge… redirect…. hmmmm… no bread crumbs… I have it!  Stuffing!  Pound that till it’s crumbs, proceed as planned!

I was not closely supervising the frying end of things as I was rocking the “needy at this time” 2 year old, so while they came out ok, they were not as “crisp” as I envisioned.

Next step… mushroom soup… then I had an epiphany… greens, we need greens… “Chop up some spinach!”  I added the chopped spinach to the top of the “burgers”, covered it all with mushroom soup, then I had another epiphany (I’m good like that)!  Cheese, this bad boy needs Cheese!  Out comes the American cheese.

Covered the whole enchilada with prepared stuffing.

Baked at 375 till bubbly and browned.

Found a stray can of cranberry sauce, which is good because some of the kids don’t care for cranberry (more for me!)  Opened a can of peas (usually we use our own canned veggies or frozen, but was fresh out) and whalla!  Comfort food!

Overall, good call!  Kids weren’t too fond of the canned peas, not really what they are used to but…. We eat what we have and we smile 🙂

Disclaimer:  I should say “mostly” free dinner.  The spinach and cheese were part of my last grocery shopping endeaver.