Upside-Down Pizza Casserole

This morning before leaving for work, I moved a package of ground turkey from the freezer to the fridge with hopes of making something with it for dinner.  The apartment didn't see me again until 6 pm, when I walked in the door with no good ideas as to what to make for dinner and certainly no ingredients to help.

Now what?

Consult with the trusty Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, of course!  I opened the checkered wonder to the section on ground meat and found a recipe for an Upside-Down Pizza Casserole, perfect.  Bryce and I ran to the store for the rest of the ingredients: 

• 15 oz can of tomato sauce - splurging 20 cents for the organic kind
• 4 oz can of sliced mushrooms - which I've never, ever bought before!
• Sliced, pitted ripe olives - I used a small can full, the recipe called for 1/4 cup
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1 package of refrigerated biscuits - our store only had the JUMBOs, score!

We used the ground turkey instead of ground beef and, since I can't leave well enough alone, I added a few other ingredients to my liking:

• 1/3 of an onion, chopped 
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 egg white - for the egg wash

Our oven heats up pretty quickly so I started in the pan with a bit of EVOO (that's not trademarked by Rachel Ray, is it!?), the garlic, and onion and softened those for a few minutes while I opened all of the cans and drained the 'shrooms and olives.  Next I added the ground turkey, salt, and pepper and cooked it until it was perfectly browned.  There wasn't any fat to drain since the turkey was lean so I skipped that step, but does that mean the meat is from skinny turkeys?!  Anyways...  It's about time to turn that oven to 400 to preheat, isn't it?

I added the sauce...and the mushrooms...and the olives!   

Once that was well combined and heated through it was transferred to a 2 quart baking dish and topped with mozzarella cheese.

The fun part was flattening, stretching, and pulling the dough for topping the upside-down pizza!  The leftover dough couldn't be thrown away, so I filled all the nooks and crannies.  I'm not too familiar with the biscuits, but I think those yellow specs are butter flavor - gross and delicious.  Finally, I brushed the egg wash on top of the "crust" and put 'er in the oven.  

The timer was set for 15 minutes, although I took the casserole out early because the smaller pieces of dough were turning golden brown quickly!  This made the biscuits turn out wonderfully.  If I had only one word to describe them, it would be BUTTERY.  The tops were flaky but the bottom was still slightly doughy and gooey and so perfect!  

The cheese stuck to the dough and the hot "pizza toppings" were saucy and very good.  The combination of the sauce, meat, mushrooms, and olives with a large piece of biscuit and stringy cheese all around the fork made for a perfect bite.  My favorite right-side-up pizza toppings are mushrooms and black olives, anyway!

My first instinct told me to add pepperoni to this recipe and I wish that I had, it needed a little added kick.  This recipe is really easy and would be perfect for a week night dinner for a family with young kids... or a bunch of 20-somethings after a long night out :)