Stuffed Pepper Casserole

On the menu for today is Stuffed Pepper Casserole. Basically, it’s just a super easy deconstructed stuffed pepper casserole recipe made in the pressure cooker. If you like stuffed peppers (we love them), ,this is a great recipe. But . . see how much it makes? This is one recipe! One pound ground beef, three bell peppers, rice .. I followed the recipe exactly except instead of adding “a handful of spinach leaves”, I added a whole bundle of chopped kale because we were in the grocery store in Abilene that has really good kale. I was going to get two bundles. Vince said “Oh, we love this stuff. Let’s get three bundles.” I said “ok”. He said. “Maybe we should get four.” I said “whatever”. I think he put five bundles in the cart. Two down, three to go.

Stuffed Pepper Casserole

We would have to eat stuffed pepper casserole for 10 days in order to eat all that. This is where I’m hoping the freeze dryer comes in handy. My plan is to freeze dry extras, then all I’ll have to do is boil a bit of water and pour over the freeze dried food, heat and eat.

The trays that fit into the freeze dryer are 7.5″ W x 18″ L x .75″ H. Any food to be freeze dried has to fit into those trays. I ordered additional trays so while the freeze dryer is running, I can be freezing things to go into the freeze dryer. I figure I’ll free leftovers, then remove the frozen food from the freezer tray, pack them into long bags with parchment paper between the layers and then when I want to freeze dry savory type food, I can load it up with something like green pepper casserole, scalloped potatoes, crack chicken, etc. – try to keep savory things together and sweet things together.

The front two dishes shown above are close to the size of one tray so if I dump the frozen contents from both dishes, they should fill up one tray.

There will be a learning curve but I’m so excited to try it.