The "whatever is left in the fridge" casserole

So... I had some ground turkey that was nearing that point of "cook it or lose it".... I was looking around for some recipes for ground turkey, found a lot of good ones but they all either included ingredients I currently don't have in the house (and I'm too lazy to go to the store for only a couple of items) OR the calorie count was too high.  Ground turkey (or ground beef) can be used for a lot of good food creations, but I have a particular concoction and if I have other vegetables in the fridge that are nearing their final due date.

There's really no recipe for this one. I just kind of whip it together from anything I have in the fridge and use it either for a pizza topping, a pasta sauce.... or tonight, I added some BBQ sauce to the basic mix and we used it for sloppy joes, which was more calorie appropriate than pairing it with pasta (at least for tonight...).

This is my base:

1 lbs ground turkey (or beef)
1 medium sized onion
3-4 tablespoons tomato paste
Various vegetables, per choice of the cook!

Chop up the onion as well as any vegetables you may decide to toss in.  Spray a pan with oil (or if you prefer to use actual oil, go ahead and heat it up :-)), toss the onion in.  When the onion is a golden brown, throw in whatever other vegetables you have decided to use and let sizzle together for awhile, until veggies are soft.  Add the ground turkey/beef and mix it in with the veggies.  Keep chopping and stirring the meat until everything is browned.   Once the meat is cooked all the way through, add 3-4 tablespoons of tomato paste along with about 1/2 cup of water.  Let simmer together for a few minutes, just so the tomato paste flavoring soaks into the meat.

This is where you can get creative and pull out whichever spices will go good with whatever purpose you intend to use the meatsauce for.  I usually add some salt and pepper, sometimes some oregano... cinnamon (I like adding cinnamon to almost everything I cook....).  Tonight I wanted to use this for sloppy joes, so I added a couple of table spoons of BBQ sauce.  I also like pouring some of those mixed spices in there (like the pork seasonings or poultry seasonings).  I just say "season to taste".... Make sure to taste along the way and for the love of god, edit yourself.  Don't pour ALL these suggested spices in at once.... lol.
The only vegetable I had in there tonight was mushroom, so I added some extra spices to make up for the lack of flavorful veggies.

Anyway.... it's hard to place a specific recipe on the table for this sauce as it's just something I normally toss together, but you get the general idea....   :-)

Here is my finished sauce on a whole wheat bun.  About 300 calories.

This is comfort food! I love whipping this one together.  If you're feeling brave, this can also be used as base for various pasta bakes.  Just whip it together with some pasta noodles and drizzle some cheese on top, slide it in the oven and bake on 350 for a for a few minutes.   Sometimes I will make a cheese sauce that I blend into the meat before baking.... I promise that when I make a pasta cheese bake next time, I'll be sure to post the cheese sauce recipe along with this random recipe.  (Although if I post a pasta bake recipe, I'll make sure to take better notes so I can give you a detailed recipe instead of this.....lol)

Anyway....  I'm nice & satisfied tonight, and the best part is I've got leftovers for another night ;-)