Upside-down Pizza Casserole

Daily recipe emails are a marvelous thing. This wasn't one of the recipes from the email, but it was included in "best Casseroles" slides on the recipe site. We are pizza lovers here (who isn't?) and I decided this would be a nice, easy and HEALTHIER twist on traditional pizza. In fact, this was SO yummy, my husband asked to take it to work with him the next day, and the leftovers didn't remain in the refrigerator for long. Both of my children loved this one too! I served it with uncut green beans steamed and added butter and herbs.

• 1-1/2 lb lean ground beef
• 1 15-oz can Italian-style tomato sauce
• 1-1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (6 ounces)
• 1 10-ounce package refrigerated biscuits (10 biscuits)*
• 15-20 slices of pepperoni (optional)
  

Seasonings I used: Italian Seasoning (to taste in the meat while it was browning), Tony Chachere's, Chef Paul Prudhomme, salt/pepper. I also added a small amount of chopped onions and green peppers to the sauce before mixing it with the meat.

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In a large skillet cook beef until no longer pink, stirring frequently. Drain off fat. Stir in tomato sauce and pepperoni; heat through. Transfer mixture to a 2-quart rectangular baking dish. Sprinkle mixture with cheese.

2. Flatten each biscuit with your hands; arrange the biscuits on top of the cheese. Bake in the preheated oven about 15 minutes or until biscuits are golden.

*I used an 8 count package of Pillsbury Grands, the big fluffy kind. Next time I think I would actually go with the 10 count package, because it left some gaps between the biscuits.