Today I was browsing good ol' Recipezaar for a new recipe to try. I do have some cookbooks, but there are so many more recipes online to try and I like how I can search by multiple ingredients at a time online.
Anyway...I was looking for a recipe with ground beef since the pack I bought yesterday was marked down for quick sale. I filtered the search for ground beef and one of the first recipes I saw was for Tater Tot Casserole. I have heard of this before, but never tried it. It also looked really easy. I had plenty of leftover tater tots from yesterday's burger and we didn't use all the Cream of Mushroom soup I bought for the Creamy Crockpot Chicken we had last week, so I figured I'd give it a shot!
It was also perfect for the timing of my meal. I was talking to my friend about sides for meals, since I'm rubbish at getting in vegetables, although I'm trying to be a lot better. I ended up complaining about the timing of dinner since I have to pick up my boyfriend at work and there are a lot of meals I want to cook that can't keep cooking while I'm out. She felt so bad for us when I said we don't usually eat until well after 7, and I like to eat at around 6. She suggested that I get dinner ready before I go get him and just either turn off the oven when the food is close to finishing, or put the oven on warm while I run out to get my boyfriend at work. Well, I couldn't decide what to make for dinner tonight, and since this only needed about 10 minutes prep, and I had to leave in 10 minutes, it was perfect timing! The cooking time was 35 minutes, which is about the time it usually takes by the time I get to Shaw's, wait a few minutes for him to get out, and then drive back home. My boyfriend was pleasantly surprised that dinner was ready when we walked in the door...we were both starving!
When I told Lee we were having something called Tater Tot Casserole for dinner, he made a disgusted face! He liked the tater tots we had for dinner, but couldn't imagine how it could taste good! I said that I guess it's similar to a cottage pie...that it might not be too bad, but I was skeptical too. Worse case scenario, we end up cooking up some spaghetti.
We ended up loving this! We were so surprised at how tasty (where did this word come from anyway, I feel so strange using it!) this was! I tried it both with ketchup and without, and I did prefer it with ketchup when eating bites with more tater tots. The Cream of Mushroom soup make this so creamy. I also think I'm really starting to like the smell of cooking onions. The scent that just starts to waft up from the skillet, especially when mixed with just the ground beef, is just incredible!
Tater Tot Casserole
1lb. ground beef
½ onion, chopped
1-10¾oz. can Cream of Mushroom soup
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1lb. tater tots
- Preheat oven to 450°F.
- In a sauté pan, brown ground beef with onions.
- Drain, return to pan and mix with soup, salt, and pepper.
- Pour into a 2 quart casserole dish.
- Top with layer of tater tots.
- Bake for approximately 35 minutes.
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