Friday, September 4, 2015

My Eight Pound Bag of Tater Tots

Occasionally when I shop at Sam’s or Costco, I feel like I really need a big bag of something.  Ordinarily I am a paleo or at least a soaked-grains-a-la-Nourishing-Traditions kinda gal.  But, sometimes I am utterly possessed by a large bag o’ unhealthy.  Tonight, after a long afternoon of putting together quotes for our business, I really, really didn’t want to cook dinner.  I figured I’d call my husband and ask him to bring home dinner from one of the myriad (like three) of restaurants in our town of 1200 .  Well, it turns out he is under a house (he’s ok, I promise) and won’t be home until after bedtime.  Ok freezer, what can you do for me?  Oh yeah, there is that eight pound bag of tater tots sitting there in my freezer; the big bag of I live nowhere near a city, but I’m in the city at a Sam’s Club, need to feed my  family of five boys, but I know this really isn’t healthy, purchase.
Voila, a Tater Tot Casserole, recipe from AllRecipes.com:

Tater Tot Casserole

I doubled everything and threw in a bag of frozen vegetables (its healthy now, right?)  I kept the condensed soup to one can of cream of mushroom, but I also added a can of condensed cheddar cheese soup.  I also added some finely diced jalapeno peppers I had in my crisper.  I think an excellent New Mexico addition could be green chili.  I might try that in the future if I find myself with tater tots needing to be eaten and am making this again.  Top with shredded cheddar cheese during the last five minutes of cooking.  Instead of adding tater tots around “the edges”, I topped the whole thing with tater tots.  Actually, my five year old topped the whole thing with tater tots because he was looking for a job at dinner time.  And that led to this exchange:

Sam: “You know, tater tots are not actually healthy”.  Me: “Yeah, I know.  They are kind of a treat.”  Sam: “Like for dogs?” Um, yes.  But our dogs eat very well.  Bon appetite!