Recipe of the Week: A Prepper’s Pierogi Casserole, by Mags

Recipe of the Week: A Prepper’s Pierogi Casserole, by Mags

This recipe can be made with fresh ingredients, leftovers, or with freeze-dried/canned ingredients. There are lots of options for personalizing it, too. You can use whatever meat you prefer– beef, bacon, ham, turkey, venison, or even chopped jerky that’s left over after a hunting or camping trip (if it’s even possible to have leftover jerky).

Ingredients:

• 9 lasagna noodles, uncooked
• 4 cups of mashed potatoes, hot or reheated (or use about 1 1/2 cups of potato flakes mixed into about 3 1/2 cups of hot water)
• 4 ounces of herb & garlic cream cheese (or use reconstituted powdered cream cheese and add 1/2 tsp. garlic powder, 2 tsp dried basil, 2 tsp dried parsley, and 2 tsp dried chives)
• 1/2 cup finely sliced or chopped green or red onions (or use freeze-dried onion or freeze-dried garlic chives)
• 3/4 lb of cooked meat bits (hot dogs chopped up, ham chunks, cooked bacon pieces, crumbled and cooked ground beef, cooked turkey sausage, venison jerky pieces, beef jerky pieces, cooked turkey bacon pieces, spam cubes, or whatever you have on hand)
• 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese (or moistened freeze-dried cheddar cheese)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and coat a 13×9 inch rectangular baking dish with cooking spray. Set dish aside.
2. Bring a large pot of water to boil; add 1/2 tsp salt and add lasagna noodles, cooking noodles according to package instructions.
3. While noodles are boiling, combine all of the mashed potatoes, cream cheese, and onions, plus 2/3 of the meat and half of the cheese. Stir together well.
4. Spread three of the cooked noodles across the bottom of the oiled baking dish. Then, spread a total 1/3 of the mashed potato/meat/cheese mixture over the three lasagna noodles.
5. Lay three more lasagna noodles on top of the potato/meat/cheese mixture; spread 1/3 of the mixture on top of these three noodles, and repeat once more with the final three noodles and final 1/3 potato/meat/cheese mixture.
6. Sprinkle the remaining meat on the top layer of potato/meat/cheese mixture. Then, sprinkle the remaining cheese over the meat.
7. Cover with a lid or foil. Bake 30 minutes or until thoroughly heated throughout and cheese begins to brown a little. Serve warm.

From the Survival Blog