In the seemingly neverending quest to sustain myself, I often rely on food ideas culled from various foodie magazines I receive via snail mail as well as those that come to my email box daily. There’s always something interesting to try. 

For example, a recent chow mein recipe in my inbox had me boiling and then deep drying ramen noodles to give crunch to a chow mein stir fry. As I began deep frying – really, it was more of a shallow fry in a skillet – I wondered while trying to untangle the cooked noodles that I’d coated in potato starch why I was bothering doing this when I could have bought a bag of chow mein noodles for less than the cost of the oil to fry the ramen noodles in.

And then I tasted the result and realized I’d never had a chow mein noodle this light and still crunchy. Yes, ultimately, it was worth making my own chow mein noodles. In the future I will try the technique on some other pastas.

But on a recent Friday, after a long and busy week, I wanted something simple and tasty. There was a nip in the air, so something warm and comforting, too.

The answer came to me like the “conjured” responses in a Magic 8 Ball, from the dark depths of my subconscious, one dish floated to the surface – Tater Tot Hot Dish!

There are a million recipes out there, but not a lot of variety in them. You’ve got your basics – ground beef, cream of mushroom soup, processed vegetables (either canned or frozen), cheese in most but not all and, of course, the tots themselves. The variations I saw were minor – switching cream of shroom soup for cream of celery or going completely crazy with cream of chicken and swapping the protein for chicken (now you’re just ruining a perfectly good thing – like chicken on pizza. GROSS!).

I opted for roasted garlic cream of shroom soup because I also planned to roast a whole head of garlic and add that as well.

I chose ground round for its slightly fattier content rather than my usual lean ground sirloin. I bought a bag of organic frozen vegetables – carrots, corn, green beans and peas. But that didn’t seem like enough. Then I saw a bag of frozen chopped green pepper and thought that would go well with the onions I’ll fry up with the meat.

While shopping I remembered that I still had a bag of big, juicy jalapenos that my cousins from Arizona gave me when they had to get rid of grocery supplies after a visit here. A couple of those will add to the flavor. 

I also recall a bag of locally grown thyme in the fridge, so I don’t bother picking up any fresh herbs, and the aforementioned cousins also left me a big chunk of cheddar cheese that will work. Oh, and some celery, too, left over from a turkey soup made earlier in the week (from 67 cents worth of turkey back and neck on sale).

I start by cutting the top off a giant garlic head, pout some olive oil on it, wrap it in foil and pop it into a 275 oven. While that’s roasting, I start chopping onion, celery and, at the last minute, I decide to chop up several pickles to add into the mix.

After getting the ground round frying, I toss in the onions, let them go for a bit before adding the green pepper and celery. Once that looks ready, I add the chopped pickles, throw all of that into a bowl with the two cans of soup. I sprinkle a couple splashes of Worcestershire sauce, then grate about a cup of cheddar cheese into the bowl. I add the roasted garlic cloves and give it all a good mix.

I pour the mixture into a 9x13 pan baking dish and then top it with tater tots. The bag of tots exactly covers the filling.

Then I brushed the tops of the tots with olive oil, hoping that gave them an extra crunchy top, and then ground a good amount of black pepper on top.

I’m all set for a Friday night Tater Tot Hot Dish. Bake the works at 400 for 35 to 45 minutes – done when tot tops are browned.

The result was the best tater tot hot dish I have ever tasted.