Cheesy Broccoli Potatoes au Gratin

I have a favorite recipe for a tater tot casserole that I wanted to try and adapt for storage cooking. The past few weeks I've gotten a lot of my purchases in including freeze dried veggies, cheese, and also have got lots of other miscellaneous items from my local Winco store like powdered cheese sauce, dry potatoes (hashbrowns, sliced and instant mashed), even instant refried beans.

Tonight I decided to make an adaptation of my tater tot casserole. It turned out really well, though I'll make a few tweaks next time but my husband said he liked it better than the original :)

Cheesy Broccoli Potatoes au Gratin (this is the tweaked version that I'm pretty sure will be excellent next time)

3 cups freeze-dried broccoli
2 small cans cream of mushroom soup
1 pint canned ground beef (or 2/3 cups hamburger rocks plus about 1 cup more of water)
1 1/5 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
2 Tbs onion flakes
1 Tbs garlic flakes
4 cups warm water
7 cups dry sliced (au gratin) potatoes
1 cup dry cheese sauce mix
1 2/3 cups warm water or milk
2 cups freeze-dried cheddar cheese shreds

Oven 375*

This actually comes together quite quickly. Mix the broccoli, mushroom soup, beef, and seasonings in a large bowl. Add the 4 cups water, mix thoroughly and let it set for 5 minutes or so to hydrate the broccoli.

In a 9x13 pan, place the dry potatoes in the bottom. Mix the cheese sauce with the 1 2/3 cups milk/water and pour it over the potatoes. Over that, pour the broccoli mixture.

Top with freeze dried cheese shreds. There is enough liquid in the casserole at this point to hydrate the cheese but some of the shreds did not get fully hydrated so I would advise spritzing it with water after the cheese is on top just to ensure it gets hydrated (and then can therefore melt).

Cover with foil and bake in a 375* oven for 1 hour. Remove foil, then back for 20-30 more minutes until the cheese on top is bubbly and melted.

All the ingredients in this are something I can stick together in a big ziplock back and store in a bucket in the basement. And again, my point of pride is that my hubby said he liked this better than the original :) The original is similar except using tater tots instead of the au gratin potatoes, frozen broccoli instead of freeze-dried, and no cheese sauce mix.

This was also my first time cooking with freeze-dried veggies and also home-canned beef and I must say I am pleased with the result. You could barely tell the beef was canned (in fact I bet if I had not already known I wouldn't have picked up on that slight "canned" flavor) and the broccoli was pretty good. I bought it at Emergency Essentials but I think I will shop around a bit, it was mostly small bits and broccoli "dust" which was OK but not what I prefer. The taste, though, was very similar to frozen. Not quite the same, but close enough.

The freeze-dried cheese blew me away completely. I would have had no idea it was freeze-dried if I had not already known. The parts (most of it) that got fully hydrated melted beautifully just like fresh shredded cheese, and the flavor was outstanding. This is definitely something I will stock up on - it was so easy! My husband remarked after dinner that if we ever needed to subsist on our stored food, he'd be eating like a king as long as I make food like this :)