RECIPE: Comforting Beef Pot Pie

This recipe is sort of reminiscent of Shepherd's Pie, only without the mashed potatoes. And it's sort of reminiscent of Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding, only without the roast beef. Or, er, the Yorkshire Pudding.

What it mostly is, is one of those Bisquick Impossible Pies that your granny made in the 1940s and I don't care what anyone says, those Impossible Pies are winter comfort food that simply can't be beat. They're easy, too, requiring little thought and many boxes and cans and bags of frozen vegetables, so if you're like me and you'd like to make a hot family meal that requires little energy and forethought, yet yields a tasty meal-in-one that everybody likes, try this one. I made it last Thursday out of some thises and thats I had in the kitchen and got a thumbs-up from the whole gang of them.

COMFORTING BEEF POT PIE

2# ground beef, cooked until no longer pink with one medium sized chopped onion and two cloves of chopped garlic. (Or if it just snowed again and you spilled some latte down the front of your favorite winter coat and the mail consisted of nothing but bills, sprinkle the beef with one teaspoon of onion powder and half a teaspoon of garlic powder and we won't tell Kayte. It will be our little secret. Sssh!)

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

2 cups beef broth

2 packets brown gravy mix

1/2 cup frozen peas and carrots

1/4 cup frozen corn

1/2 teaspoon salt

For biscuit topping:

2 cups Bisquick

one stick of butter, melted

2 cups milk

1 tablespoon dried parsley (optional)

Preheat oven to 400^o. Brown the ground beef in a skillet with the onion and garlic. While this is cooking, put the soups, the beef broth and the packets of brown gravy mix into a 9x13 casserole dish that has been sprayed with non-stick spray. Stir ingredients together into a thick gravy; add the frozen vegetables and salt, stir and set aside.

In a microwave safe mixing bowl, melt the stick of butter. Stir in parsley. Stir in the biscuit mix and milk. Combine all until non-lumpy. Set aside.

When ground beef is completely cooked, drain carefully and then add to soup mixture in casserole dish; stir. Pour biscuit mix over the top (it will be liquidy and will disappear into the meat-and-veggie mixture; that's where the "impossible" part comes in), place in oven and bake for one hour. At the end of this time, the biscuit dough will have cooked and risen to the top of the casserole. Yay! It's like magic! Makes eight servings.

Serve with tall glasses of very cold milk. Leftovers are even better the next day for lunch.