tastes like home
I forgive you if you think I'm a little schizophrenic in my food choices after you read this post.
You see, in my last post I bragged about how I try to avoid processed foods when buying groceries for my family.
And in this post, I'm going to tell you about a delicious meal that I made for my family this week, a meal that I love, a meal that is (unfortunately) chock full of highly processed foods with unpronounceable items on their nutrition labels.
It's Tater Tot Casserole. And it's soooo good.
I haven't made Tater Tot Casserole in quite a while. Because of the whole food snobbery-avoiding processed foods thing. But then, a commenter on my friend Mike's Facebook wall mentioned Tater Tot Casserole. And I knew as soon as I read it that I needed to have some. Soon.
Tater Tot Casserole is so simple to make, you barely even need the recipe--though I do have it, all written down in my mom's handwriting.
You take a pound of ground beef, and brown it on the stovetop. While it's cooking, you take a packet of dried onion soup mix, and a can of cream of mushroom soup, and dump them together in a bowl, and mix them up until you have a delicious, salty, brownish gray sauce.
You stop browning the ground beef before it's quite all the way done--you don't want it overcooked in the oven later--and drain the fat off. Then you dump the ground beef into a casserole dish, and spoon the onion-mushroom sauce over the top, and then you get out your bag of frozen tater tots.
You take your tots, and you put a nice healthy layer of them over the top of everything, completely covering the beef and sauce. Then you pop it in a 350-degree oven and bake it for about 35 minutes.
And that's it. You're done.
When you pop it in your mouth and taste the savory ground beef and hot, salty tater tot goodness on top, you'll probably understand why I am so fond of this recipe. But just in case the taste alone doesn't do it for you, I offer further explanation of why it is near and dear to my heart.
When my sisters and I were teenagers, we were each responsible for making dinner one night each week, which of course works out to about four times a month. This means that I knew how to make exactly four recipes: sour cream chicken enchiladas, tacos, breakfast-for-dinner (usually scrambled eggs, ham, and waffles), and tater tot casserole.
Over, and over, and over, I made tater tot casserole. It was my favorite dinner EVER. And when I got married, my mom gave me the gift of a recipe box containing a bunch of family recipes, including this one.
And now, every time I eat it, I'm not just savoring a good hearty casserole, I'm also reliving my childhood, and the comfort and happiness we knew around our dinner table.
So you'll have to excuse me for my occasional lapse from healthy-whole-food-goodness. Sometimes, food isn't just about food. It's about love.
You see, in my last post I bragged about how I try to avoid processed foods when buying groceries for my family.
And in this post, I'm going to tell you about a delicious meal that I made for my family this week, a meal that I love, a meal that is (unfortunately) chock full of highly processed foods with unpronounceable items on their nutrition labels.
It's Tater Tot Casserole. And it's soooo good.
I haven't made Tater Tot Casserole in quite a while. Because of the whole food snobbery-avoiding processed foods thing. But then, a commenter on my friend Mike's Facebook wall mentioned Tater Tot Casserole. And I knew as soon as I read it that I needed to have some. Soon.
Tater Tot Casserole is so simple to make, you barely even need the recipe--though I do have it, all written down in my mom's handwriting.
You take a pound of ground beef, and brown it on the stovetop. While it's cooking, you take a packet of dried onion soup mix, and a can of cream of mushroom soup, and dump them together in a bowl, and mix them up until you have a delicious, salty, brownish gray sauce.
You stop browning the ground beef before it's quite all the way done--you don't want it overcooked in the oven later--and drain the fat off. Then you dump the ground beef into a casserole dish, and spoon the onion-mushroom sauce over the top, and then you get out your bag of frozen tater tots.
You take your tots, and you put a nice healthy layer of them over the top of everything, completely covering the beef and sauce. Then you pop it in a 350-degree oven and bake it for about 35 minutes.
And that's it. You're done.
When you pop it in your mouth and taste the savory ground beef and hot, salty tater tot goodness on top, you'll probably understand why I am so fond of this recipe. But just in case the taste alone doesn't do it for you, I offer further explanation of why it is near and dear to my heart.
When my sisters and I were teenagers, we were each responsible for making dinner one night each week, which of course works out to about four times a month. This means that I knew how to make exactly four recipes: sour cream chicken enchiladas, tacos, breakfast-for-dinner (usually scrambled eggs, ham, and waffles), and tater tot casserole.
Over, and over, and over, I made tater tot casserole. It was my favorite dinner EVER. And when I got married, my mom gave me the gift of a recipe box containing a bunch of family recipes, including this one.
And now, every time I eat it, I'm not just savoring a good hearty casserole, I'm also reliving my childhood, and the comfort and happiness we knew around our dinner table.
So you'll have to excuse me for my occasional lapse from healthy-whole-food-goodness. Sometimes, food isn't just about food. It's about love.
15 comments:
I too got a book of family recipes when I got married! Love it!
Food is about making memories. Smell is one of the things that bring back more memories than anything else! I am working on gathering recipes from my grandma to put together a recipe book of more family recipes.
I'll be leaving that very casserole for my family tomorrow night. We put (yummy,yummy) corn and green beans into the meat mixture. That makes it so much healthier doesn't it? :)
Our version is a bit different too. I don't use the onion soup mix,add greenbeans to the cream of mush soup, and sprinkle cheese on the soup layer before putting the tots on. We love it. Great comfort food.
Your mom was brilliant having you cook & learn the kitchen skillz!
I love Tater Tot Casserole too. With green beans. I didn't know about the onion soup mix added. Sounds even better!
I have a very similar recipe, which I didn't learn about, alas, until adulthood! It's two pounds of very lean ground beef (raw), mixed with about a cup of chopped onion and two cans of cream of mushroom soup and about a half a cup of milk. Throw all that in a 9x13 and cover every inch with tater tots (a 32-ounce bag just about fits every tot). An hour in the oven and bam, dinner. Top with ketchup!
I had never heard of tater tot casserole until Jason and I were dating. His mom made it for us pretty regularly; she included peas and pearl onions in the mixture.
I remember thinking, "This is good, but sort of odd," since the whole concept of having tater tots as a topping blew my mind.
I've never made it because Jason doesn't actually care for it, but one of these nights when he's gone I'll have to try it out. My girls love tater tots :)
We love us some tator tot hit dish in MN :)
I have a recipe for tater tot casserole too, but I've never made it. Now I think I have to. I am all for whole unprocessed foods, but sometimes you just need that which is not.
I totally do not remember making dinner once a month. Did I do this too?
Wow, who knew there were so many variations of tater tot casserole? I'm going to have to try some of these changes to my recipe next time. Thanks for the ideas, everyone.
@ Jennifer: I love that you said: "Bam! Dinner." I think I'm going to start saying that from now on when I set dinner on the table.
@ Cheryl: I thought we were both supposed to make dinner once a month...I doubt it was just me! I don't think we necessarily made the entire thing ourselves--like if I was "making" tacos, I was the one who decided what was for dinner, and mom made sure the ingredients were on hand, and then I was sort of in charge of the preparations, but you and Mom still helped grate cheese or chop tomatoes or whatever. Same with breakfast-for-dinner, we all pitched in with that. I think I made tater tot casserole by myself, though...because who needs help with that?
Well said! I love the recipes my Mom gave me when I moved out too. Such wonderful memories. No tater tots in it though...bummer, cuz it sounds yummy.
And now I must have some... soon :)
If you want to alleviate your processed food guilt a little, throw in some vegetables--whatever you have frozen from your summer produce--on the bottom layer with the meat. It's de-lish, I can tell you. We ate it all the time growing up.
Yum! That looks so good! My mom makes such good Tater Tot Casserole.
And we have been eating mostly whole, unprocessed foods too long, I think. A looked at the photo on this post and asked what it was. When I told him he asked, "What is a Tater Tot?" Pathetic. I feel like I have failed him. We will have to have a tater tot night! ;-)
@ Heather: I don't think there is such a thing as eating whole unprocessed foods for too long! Although I know what you mean--Beth didn't know what a Twinkie was. I explained it to her, but I still don't think she's ever had one.
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