Day 6 - Ground Turkey Potato Casserole. AKA: "prison food"

Ingredients:

1 pound lean ground turkey

1 medium onion

1 medium green bell pepper

1/2 tsp table salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

8 oz canned mushrooms

10 3/4 oz Campbell's 98% Fat-Free Cream Of Mushroom Soup

4 medium potatoes 

Peel and slice 4 potatoes. Parboil potatoes, rinsing off excess starch. Saute' onions and peppers in 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil. Add turkey and cook through. Place potatoes and turkey with onions and peppers in a 3 qt. baking dish. Add remaining ingredients. Bake for 35 minutes at 400 degrees in oven.

The last time I ate a meal with this flavoring and consistency, I was sitting in the cafeteria of my elementary school. Saying this tasted like cat food would be insulting to the cat food industry. The potatoes were very starchy. The "casserole" didn't have the consistency of casserole. We tried desperately to "save" the dish by various means. Added a few shakes of garlic salt to a bite? Nope. Tony Chachere's didn't even save this dish. There's so many variances which would need to be made to this dish to make it palatable, it would become a different dish entirely.

I did, of course learn a few lessons from this dish. When a recipe says it takes 30 minutes in an oven to turn sliced raw potatoes soft, it's lying. Green bell pepper tastes nothing like sweet bell peppers. Salt and pepper doesn't go very far when it comes to seasoning dishes. Tony's seasoning can't make everything better. Last, but not least, you can tell who your real friends are when you serve something disgusting for dinner. If they don't make fun of you and still thank you for making it, they're worth keeping.

Dinner on the plate:

Dinner where it really belongs: