From the Pantry: Tater Tot Casserole

Last weekend, I cooked up a bit of a storm. After getting back from New York, I was on a simple food kick, mainly because of all the time I spent flipping through my aunt's collection of Real Simple magazine. I also wanted to do a last round of comfort food on a day where it was cold enough to run the oven, so I ended up with a number of items including this ultimate comfort food, tater tot casserole. I've been needing to eat more fruits and veggies, and this recipe has plenty: a box of frozen corn, a box of frozen peas, and a couple of onions. I also just happened to have a bag of tater tots in the freezer, so it used those in a way that balanced out fried with healthy. I modified the recipe from this one by Jael Baldwin. I actually did intend to include beans (black) but I completely forgot them! It didn't really matter, though.

Vegetarian Tater Tot Casserole

1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 bag frozen tater tots
1 can water
2 small yellow onions
1 small box frozen peas
1 small box frozen corn
onion powder
garlic powder

Stir together cream of mushroom soup and water in 13×9 pan. Add approximately 1/4-1/3 of the tater tots, and the frozen veggies. Roughly chop the onion and sprinkle over. Shake on some garlic and onion powder. Spread the remaining tots in a single layer on top. Bake in 375 oven for about 45-50 minutes. You should have crispy tater tots on top without them being burnt, and the mixture beneath should be happily bubbling.

Comfort Food

What does comfort food mean to you? Meatloaf? Mashed potatoes? A big tray of sticky buns? I think that for most people, comfort food has roots in childhood. This scrambled egg and toast with butter combination is something that makes me think of my father, and breakfasts that were never spectacular but were warm and filling nonetheless. Most of my other comfort foods weren't something I ate much as a child though. Biscuits and gravy, grits, veggie pot pie, mac and cheese, grilled cheese... you may notice a carb theme, here.

Another major comfort food for me is chocolate cake. Dense, delicious, terrible for you chocolate cake, preferably with soda, which I rarely consume otherwise. This is the cake and root beer I mentioned plans to pick up for my blogaversary. Sadly, the vegan chocolate cake slice was not nearly as good as vegan cake normally is. There's just something about the icing that I usually love in vegan cakes, but New Pi didn't do too well with this one. Ah, well.

Before I moved, I had some puff pastry I needed to take care of, and I developed this comfortingly fatting pastry pocket for a tasty dinner treat. It's basically just rectangles of puff pastry stuffed with canned mushrooms, whole grain mustard, and cheese. Boy is it tasty! Sometimes I just need a little fat and salt to get me through my day.

A New Favourite Standby

Admission: I'm still posting recipes from October. Yes, I know, I know. School has been kicking my arse lately, so please forgive me. But the good news is that I'm cooking lots and still have plenty to post, probably more quickly after December 19th.

Can I just say how much I love this macaroni? No, love is not a strong enough word. Worship. Am infatuated with. It's simple, actually, very simple, but three good experiences with it is enough to call it a winter. The first taste was back in May, when my friend Audra brought it cooked in a crockpot and shared the recipe (warning me not to freak out because she didn't use any meat). I kept meaning to make it, but finally got around to it early in October. I used white wine instead of broth, which I highly, highly recommend. It gives it a very sophisticated taste. I used Pinot Grigio, and as you can see I like a glass with my macaroni. I also only used 1/2 a cup each mozzarella and (freshly grated) parmesan and rounded it out with 1/2 a cup each havarti and fontina. I didn't do the extra cheese on top, and I used a 13 x 9 glass pan. This is the result.

The second time, a couple of weeks later, I repeated the recipe but used the fantastic Sortie Sara cheese I told you about receiving for Blogging by Mail. Oh. My. God. This blew me away, quite seriously. I can conjure the taste up in my mouth perfectly now, two weeks later, and wish I had a plateful. You have to like strong cheeses, but if you do, it's perfect. I did put the extra cheese on top, which was a good move. Well, you can clearly see that. Would you like a little macaroni with your cheese, sir? Yes, this macaroni does involve a teeny tiny bit of work in terms of grating cheese and making a sauce on the stove, but not too much. With the Sortie Sara, I just diced it, and you could do that with any soft cheese. Play around with cheeses and combinations, and don't be afraid of the strong stuff. Bon appetit!

(Oh, and speaking of that - do you know how happy I am that Bon Appetit has budget recipes this month? I haven't looked at them yet, but I've been disappointed with Bon Appetit since I ordered it a few months ago and hopefully this will change my mind.)

It's That Comfort Food Time of Year

I'm embarrassed to say that I'm so far behind in posting to this blog after all the actual cooking I've been doing (gleefully, as the weather has become cold enough to enjoy it) that I'm at a point where I can't even remember what recipe I used for the casserole I'm showing you today. I do know that it was quite simple, and I thought fairly tasty, though I could imagine some improvements (creamier, cheesier, more packed into the dish). I used some very tasty yellow squash from the farmers' market, which had an unusual shape but was fairly easy to slice nonetheless. As you can see, this particular casserole has a crumb topping. I believe the one my grandmother used to make, which to me is the emblem of comfort food, had either cheese or maybe some crackers on top. It's been a while, so I don't quite remember, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't bread crumbs and parmesan. In any event, I'm thrilled that comfort food days have rolled back around and am already eagerly anticipating my menu for the Thanksgiving holidays. Though I'm not actually making a Thanksgiving dinner for anyone, the three days off of classes mean that I probably will be using the time to prepare a few fall dishes. Yum, yum.

ps - If you didn't get the message on Twitter and want to share a favourite pumpkin bread recipe or spice cake recipe, please pass it on! I have some good ideas but more never hurts.