ANOTHER New Year! Welcome 2011!

Okay...here is another try at the family blog. For those of you out there who are interested! Why start again now? Well, it is January, the start of another year...and I wanted to share my delight in making Duggar Family Tater Tot Casserole. You know...the family that is featured in 19 Kids and Counting??? One of my private addictions? My own little family showed great enthusiasm over this casserole and I am taking delight in the variations I have created. Several of my CM ladies have had this at my extended workshops and now make it for their own families. Basically, it is comfort food...in the form of a really quick casserole you can make early in the day and cook at dinnertime, or even make two and freeze one for a busy week. And you could have most of the ingredients on hand to make this at any time. Here is the basic recipe found on the Duggar website:

Tater Tot Casserole:

2 bags Tater Tots

2 lbs ground turkey, cooked, seasoned and drained

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

2 cans cream of chicken soup

2 cans evaporated milk

Place browned meat in bottom of two 9 x 13 pans. Cover with tater tots. Combine soups and milk and pour over tots. Bake at 350 for an hour.

Okay...so the fun part is to play with the recipe. Here are some variations that have worked for me so far:

-Use ground beef

-Use 'healthy request, or low fat' versions of the soups and milk (okay...I know it doesn't negate the tater tots...but every little bit helps, right)?

-Use a bag of frozen veggies on top of the meat...I've used mixed veggies and also broccoli spears.

-When using frozen broccoli, use cream of broccoli and cheese soups. Tonight, I'm doing this one and adding some shredded cheese to the casserole.

-Can use any 'Cream of' Soups...have used celery...worked fine.

-Add 1 tsp dehydrated onion to the soup mix.

-I almost always cut the recipe in half...but when I experimented making the full recipe and froze the second casserole, it re-heated just fine...altho it took a bit longer...

Anyway...let me know if you try this and what you think! One of the karate moms was thinking of trying to do an asian version, using soy sauce in the cream of chicken soup, ground beef, maybe some water chestnuts and/or bean sprouts...could even top with crunchy noodles...but then it wouldn't be tater tot casserole anymore, right? Enjoy!