Mother's Love on a Budget

It was 1973 and I was in the sixth grade when hamburger noodle casserole in its many variations became a staple dinner in our home. This simple meal balanced the budget and the new chaos that overtook our family life that year.

We were a large Catholic family. The five of us kids and our mom and dad lived in a three-bedroom, one-bath house in Flint, Michigan. It was a small, well-kept neighborhood a few blocks from the Fisher Body factory. Everybody knew everybody. We’d go out and play all day in the summer. At dinner time, my mom stood on the front porch and hollered for us to come home.

Life then was simple and predictable. At five-thirty or six, we sat down together as a family, said grace, and ate dinner. Our mother was not a short-order cook. It would not occur to us to say we didn’t like what she made or to ask for something else. A hot meal was on the table, and we ate it.

I was the oldest. That year, our youngest brother was born. He was kind of a surprise, and I believe he was the tipping point. My parents bought five acres in the country where my father would build our new house. I liked the old house, but dad said the city was going to hell and we had to get out.

On a bright Saturday, we all piled into the station wagon and drove to the country to see a field of weeds taller than us kids.

“This is where we’re going to live,” my dad said.

“Oh, God,” I thought.

The place was only half an hour from our old house, but it felt so far away and foreign.

Money, always tight, was tighter now. My mom put our school clothes on layaway. We seldom ate out. The big luxury in the new house was the telephone extensions in the bedrooms. No more sitting in the kitchen to talk on the phone for all to hear. My dad anticipated what I could not: by seventh grade, I needed privacy. I needed a phone extension in my room.

My parents were blue-collar people trying to build a five-bedroom, three-bath house on their salaries, a process that would take seven years. When we moved in the summer of 1974, the house was still drywall and subflooring. My dad would finish it room by room, completing it in time for my high school graduation in 1980.

Hamburger noodle casserole fit the budget and was on the menu often. Hamburger was cheap and so were noodles. Add a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup and a can of tomato soup, Worcestershire sauce, a few spices, mix, spread into a 9 x 13 pan, and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, add cheese to the top and heat for five minutes, and you had dinner.

Our mom would make the casserole early in the morning. She got up at 5 a.m., had her coffee and said her prayers, threw a load in the washer, made a casserole, threw the laundry in the dryer, and then got ready for work. With five kids, a full-time job, and a house under construction, she had to be efficient.

Mom left baking instructions for us. After school, one of us pulled the casserole out of the refrigerator around 4:30 and set it on the cupboard. At five or so, it went into the oven. Add an iceberg lettuce and tomato salad, a plate of white bread, and some oleo (now known as margarine), and we had a homecooked meal.

To maintain our interest, my mother figured out ways to vary the recipe. Whatever she had on hand could end up in the casserole. She had dozens of versions of hamburger noodle casserole. The answer to “What’s for dinner?” was frequently “casserole.” By high school, we made fun of it.

“You should write a cookbook,” I teased my mom. “You must have thirty hamburger noodle casserole recipes.”

The truth is hamburger noodle casserole is comfort food: it has the satisfaction of soft pasta, a little protein, and the gooeyness of a casserole. There was always enough for seconds.

By 1983, my sister Theresa, two years younger than me, was living in a house in Flint with two friends and attended college at the University of Michigan-Flint. As my father predicted, the city had gone to hell. Most of downtown was boarded up. I was at Michigan State an hour away eating lousy dorm food, but Theresa and her roommates survived on Lipton noodles, the ramen of the day.

Our mom drove from the country house to her job in downtown Flint. She popped into Theresa’s place one morning with a hamburger noodle casserole. The food we made fun of through high school was now a welcome feast. My sister and her roommates sat around the dinner table that night with a loaf of bread and a tub of margarine. They were fed body and soul. Hamburger noodle casserole was the taste of home, the taste of a mother’s love on a budget.

Here’s the magic recipe:

Hamburger Noodle Casserole

Once you’ve mastered this simple recipe, feel free to make up your own versions. Variations may include one cup of frozen peas or mixed vegetables; cooked green peppers; whatever cheese you have on hand. For maximum comfort, stick to the egg noodles and ground beef. Hamburger noodle casserole just isn’t the same when made with ground chicken or turkey.

Ingredients:

1 (12 oz ) package of medium egg noodles

1 pound of ground beef

1 can condensed tomato soup (do not dilute the soup)

1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup (do not dilute the soup)

1 cup milk

Salt & pepper to taste

2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1/4 tsp minced garlic (or garlic powder)

2 tbsp. dried onion flakes

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (or cheese of your choice)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare a 9 x 13 baking dish with nonstick cooking spray (in the old days we rubbed Crisco Oil in the pan instead).

Cook egg noodles according to package directions and drain.

In a large skillet, cook the ground beef and separate into crumbles. Drain off the grease.

In a large bowl, stir together tomato soup, cream of mushroom soup, milk, salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, and dried onion flakes.

Add the cooked noodles and ground beef and mix well.

Spread the mixture into the pan.

Bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Then top with Parmesan cheese (or cheese of your choice) and put it back in the oven for 5 minutes to melt.

Serve with bread and salad.