Red Pepper, Mushroom Soup and Hamburger Stuffed Jumbo Shells

Here is a quick little Tuesday night dinner I made for my family last night and they loved it. Cut up 1/2 onion and 2 red peppers and saute for about 2 minutes over medium heat in a a frying pan with a little olive oil. Then add 1 lb of lean hamburger to the pan and cook until the hamburger is no longer pink. I added a little smoked paprika to the hamburger. It's not hot, but super and subtly flavourful. Then mix and add 1 can of low sodium/low fat cream of mushroom soup with only 1/2 cup of water (you're going to need one more can of mushroom soup for later) and 2 tbsp. of Parmesan cheese to the hamburger mixture and simmer for a few more minutes. Turn the element/gas burner off to cool the hamburger mixture a little so it's not burning hot when it's time to stuff the shells.

In the meantime bring a big pot of water to a rapid boil, and add 2 tsp. of salt to the water.

Add Jumbo Shells, a few at a time, to boiling water. Cook uncovered, stirring occasionally for 14-16 minutes or until the desired tenderness is reached. Drain thoroughly and put shells into a casserole dish and begin filling with the above mixture.

I then took one more can of mushroom soup, put into a bowl, and mixed with 1/2 can of water and drizzled the sauce over the shells evenly. Feel free to add some more spice or herb to the mushroom soup sauce.

Then I grated 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese and evenly spread it over the shells. Finally, put 1/4 cup of Panko bread crumbs into a bowl with a tbsp. of butter and put into the microwave just until the butter has melted into the Panko and stir with a fork or spoon to mix all the butter through the breadcrumbs and sprinkle over entire casserole. Bake at 350 for about 20-30 minutes or until the Panko breadcrumbs are nicely brown. Enjoy...my family sure did!

Post Script: Panko breadcrumbs are a really yummy breadcrumb used in Japanese cooking. If you can't find Panko breadcrumbs (though I got mine at Costco), using regular breadcrumbs is just as good.