Sausage Rice Casserole

For Sunday dinner today, without pre-planning or shopping yesterday, I remembered all the years making this particular casserole.  It was a meal in my food storage rotation because I could easily store all the items, dehydrated. 

From a prior journal entry- 2009-   I am trying to get a couple of the meals totally freeze-dried so I don't even have to rotate them. For instance, although delicious fresh, for the Sausage Rice casserole, I store freeze-dried sausage, rice, freeze-dried celery and onions. I also store Lipton’s Dry Noodle Soup which is in the recipe. Other than rotating the dry soup, I don’t have to rotate a thing. We are so lucky we live in a day and age where freeze-dried food is available and delicious.

But today, for dinner, I didn't have to use any freeze dried.  T and T's family dropped by with 3 cousins and although they were going to their "other grandma's house" for dinner, I gave them a little "appetizer" bowl of casserole and they all loved it!  (I didn't do nuts since Boston is highly allergic.)

 

Sausage Rice Casserole

 1/4-1/2 cup diced celery or 8 oz. can drained diced water chestnuts

1/2-1 cup onion, finely diced

1 lb. pork sausage (mild or spicy)

1 envelope Lipton chicken Noodle Soup mix

1 cup rice

2 1/2 cups hot water

slivered almonds, optional

Brown the sausage with celery and onion.  Add soup mix and rice and hot water.  Simmer covered until rice is tender (about 25-30 minutes) or bake in an oven for 1 hour.  May be topped with slivered almonds.