I Hate Patricia Burroughs!

Don’t get me wrong, Patricia and I have been online friends a number of years. She’s a damned good writer and probably a very nice lady in person. In fact, anyone reading one of Pooks’ novels will say she’s a damned good writer and probably a very nice lady in person.

The trouble is, she’s taken her Nicholls award-winning script (trust me, that’s a Big Deal™) called “Redemption” and turned it into a page-turner called La Desperada.

While perusing (fancy word for browsing) Pooks’ blog one day I got hooked on Bill Chance’s review of La Desperada, which lead to reading sample chapters (I’d read Redemption a while ago, but books? Feh!), which lead to wanting to read the rest of the book (she’s devious that way), which lead to the realization I’d have to buy a Kindle to read the ebook, which forced me to admit I really needed to slouch into the 21^st century a little less casually, which lead to the title of this week’s blog.

So yeah, look out Pooks, I'm comin' for you!

Also, Pooks hails from Texas, where, and in certain other parts of the country, casseroles are called “hot dishes." So, for all you people who hate the C word (I'm talking to you, Terry Hughes), tell your mom, BFF or significant other this week’s recipe is a tasty hot dish.

How’s that for a segue?! Hah!

Our tastiness du jour features cheese and Tater Tots. What could be ManChow'ish?

(although I’ve been thinking, if I could somehow involve bacon in the process it might transcend earthly delights to become a regular thing at seraphim pot lucks...)

There are few ingredients, and very simple to fix. That's the ManChow credo: Few ingredients cuz we’re very simple. It does involve one of the items I first recommended you buy (and now finally get the chance to use): An 8 X 8 baking dish! If you can steal one from your mom (who probably has several), so much the better. Not because it's good to steal, but because I hear older baking dishes are better, as they've changed the compounds in the glass itself recently.

TATER TOT HOT DISH

(courtesy of the lovely and talented Rebecca Loreck,

a Technical Educator for Scruples -- the hair care

company, not the soap opera -- and primo hair

stylist at Cin City Salon in Las Vegas)

To begin, pour one glass of dark lager. Drink. Repeat as necessary.

Ingredients

1 - 1 1/2lbs ground round

1 yellow onion, peeled & chopped

1 can green beans

1 can corn

1 can cheese soup

1 can mushroom soup

Tater Tots

Paprika

Shredded Mexican-style cheese

(I get the burger and cheese at Costco, everything else at my local 99-Cent Store except the potato rounds, making this an extremely economical dish)

Cooking Instructions

Brown the burger (cook till it starts to turn brown, duh). About halfway through add the chopped onion and cook till translucent. If you’re bored (and alone) you can stand in the kitchen, point your wooden spoon at the pan and shout: “You’re so transparent!”

Um … yeah, I'd never do that, either.

In the meantime, pre-heat your oven (oh yeah, buy an oven) to 350°. You might think pre-heating allows an oven to “ramp up” to the desired temperature, but nooo, just the opposite! Pre-heating makes an oven go all blast furnacey on you immediately, so the right temperature is quickly reached, then it backs down and holds steady.

That bit of trivia should get you a free drink at any bar in town...

Also, now’s a good time to pop the tops on those cans (which isn’t anything like what you do on Spring Break). The choice of ingredients is up to you. Becky's original recipe called for two cans of green beans, but I changed one to corn. It also called for any cream soup (potato, leek celery, whatev) but I like good ol’ mushroom, and my 99-Cent Store has a great nacho cheese sauce I use for the 2^nd can of soup. Because it’s … y’know, cheese.

Speaking of, at this time bring out the cheese and potato rounds (as Albertsons euphemistically calls them).

When the burger and onion is cooked, drain the grease, add all four cans of stuff, stir and bring to a small gurgle.

Next, pour half the mixture into the baking dish.

This recipe makes enough for two meals, so you can either save the other half in your handy Glad plastic container for next time or, if the party's large enough, pour it all in a 9 X 11 baking dish. So, yeah, you’ll have to steal two dishes from mom. She won’t mind – she’s just happy you’re finally learning to cook.

Okay, assemble everything else thusly:

Atop the burger mixture sprinkle a layer of cheese. Use your own discretion. I love cheese, so I have no discretion. If you're lactose intolerant leave this blog immediately.

No ... that's a jk! There are plenty of non-dairy cheeses that works perfectly well. And soy soup, I imagine, as well.

Next add a layer of potato rounds (in a pinch you can use hash brown. I know...). Cover all this with more cheese because, hey, cheese duh! As Martha says, “It’s a good thing."™

I like to sprinkle  paprika on, too, for the color and a little zest. YMMV. Pop all that in the oven for a half hour. Uncovered. As most of the ingredients have been precooked, this is mainly to warm the potatoes and melt the cheese.

Oh yeah, garlic bread. While you’re out shopping buy a small baguette (long, skinny loaf of French or sourdough bread).

Depending on how many you're feeding, cut enough off so everyone can have 2-3 portions, then slice diagonally into 1-inch thick pieces.

Melt about three tablespoons of butter and a tablespoon of garlic salt in a small dish. Add some dried cilantro for color. Put the slices on a cookie tray (hi mom) or piece of aluminum foil, and using a cheap, throwaway paintbrush (NEW! geez, you guys…),  “paint” the bread inside and out with the garlic butter, then sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Mmm, cheese…!

Or no cheese at all. Your call.

Put the tray or aluminum foil with the bread into the oven about 2/3’s of the way through cooking the hot dish (i.e., 20 minutes) so the bread can heat thoroughly. Right at the end, say a minute or less, stick the bread under the broiler so the top browns up. If you have a blowtorch in the garage, that works, too.

BTW, the broiler is that thing at the bottom of the oven where you dry your socks. Heat from the gas flame or electricity is directed downward onto the dish instead of upward around it.

Watch this part carefully or you’re going to have to do it all again with a new batch! Trust me on this.

When the time's up your hot dish should look like this:

 Too bad you can't see everything bubbling away because it's quite something!

Serve manly scoops of your hot dish, with garlic bread on the side (all the veggies you’ll ever need are already in the dish). And pour yourself more dark lager, you've earned it

If you have, like, real people over you can use china dishes. As this was just for my roommate and myself I went to the standard fallback paper plate.

Enjoy!

P.S. My farm wife friend, Kari Dell, who writes steamy romance novels and blogs hilariously and with love and exasperation about her life on a working Montana ranch, suggested I use my phone camera for better pictures. Kari obviously has a much better phone or more tenuous grip on reality. I apologize for the blurriness -- I'll go with a real camera next time. But at least I discovered a new facet of ManChow!