Tater Tot Hotdish

Sometimes I just want to tuck myself into bed with a big, cheesy plate of whatever, only reappearing in polite society on trips to the grocery store for marshmallows and booze. The noncommittal early days of winter are definitely that kind of time. Luckily for me and my bear-like tendencies, the Wisconsin Cheese Board dropped off a ton of cheese samples at work and I’ve been slowly working my way through a wedge of Marieke whole-grain mustard gouda this past week. Mmmhmm.

Last weekend, I threw a shard of my pride out the window and decided to party, Lutheran-style, by making a tater tot hotdish! My earlier foray into hotdishery amounted to a vague kind of thing that wasn’t quite the real deal. I mean, we used cream of mushroom soup, which, given the low standards of Minnesotan cuisine, qualified it as a genuine article. But I wanted to go for something iconic this time.

Instead of using cream of mushroom soup (because I am a stuck-up bitch), I whipped together a Mornay sauce with the aforementioned gouda and some Parmesan cheese. It was great, because then I didn’t have to melt cheese on top of the tater tots, which would have made them less crispy than I wanted them to be. I also went a little farther with the food snobbery and used duck fat as the base for the sauce instead of butter. Honk honk.

Tater Tot Hotdish
Serves 1 big fat fatty or 10 people

• 1 bag of tater tots
• 1-3 lbs. of diced assorted root vegetables (i.e. parsnips, carrots, sweet potatoes, onions…)
• 1 lb. of mushrooms, sliced
• Random herbs (thyme works great, as well as marjoram and rosemary)
• 2 T Duck fat or butter
• 2 T flour
• 1 pint of cream/milk/half and half
• Grated cheese of some kind
• Salt & pepper
• Cayenne pepper

Brown the root vegetables in a heavy-bottomed pan or pot. Once they’re toasty, add the mushrooms and herbs. Put aside.

Make the Mornay sauce by starting a roux with the fat and flour. Scald the dairy in another pan. Once the roux stops tasting like raw flour, stir in the cream or whatever and reduce. Add salt, pepper, cayenne, and cheese to taste.

Spread the cooked vegetables onto a baking dish and pour the sauce over them. Then layer the tater tots on top and throw it all into a 375-degree oven. Once the tots crisp up, you’re done! Easy peasy.

On Dumpstering

16 Dumpsters

Originally uploaded by dgray_xplane

Last night, Chris pulled together a light dinner for two of chicken salad, multigrain toast, and bruschetta topping. Though I was initally skeptical of eating a mayonnaise-based dish that came from a dumpster, I am still indigestion-free and kickin’ it new school. Admittedly, I have been pondering the pros and cons of dumpster diving ever since I got to Minneapolis.

Fortunately for me, it was Chris who took the first step. He and his friends drove out to a particularly welcoming dumpster (location withheld to preserve the sanctity of the hoard) in the middle of the night and grabbed around $50-$80 worth of groceries, including tangerines, lamb, tons of bread, tomatoes, and convenience food.

One of our acquaintances — Chris’s dumpster field guide — boasts that he hasn’t had to buy groceries for a year now. The prospect is pretty tempting, especially now that Snowmageddon 2009 has already hit the Upper Midwest and the outside temperature isn’t even close to the danger zone for food (40-140 degrees Fahrenheit, last I checked). I’m also living paycheck to paycheck, so the added savings are a pretty big draw. As I’m writing this post, however, I’m chomping on a slice of dumpstered Asiago bread, so I think I’m dancing around a foregone conclusion: snobbery is overrated.

France 44 – The Cheesemonger Sandwich

It’s a blustery day in Minneapolis, but I’m glad to be here and not at the farm, where all of my former coworkers are frantically harvesting every single fruit (i.e. peppers, tomatoes) in the field in preparation for tonight’s frost. To ease my transition into civilian life, I’ve been biking a lot to try to familiarize myself with the city. It’s definitely a pain in the ass with 27 mph winds farting in your face the whole time, LET ME TELL YA.

I worked up an appetite so I cranked it over to France 44, a huge cheese and wine shop in Edina. Owned by a fellow NYC transplant, it stocks lots of artisanal products from Brooklyn and also got really good reviews from Citypages and Chowhound. Like any good cheese shop, it has a really appealing repertoire of sandwiches that feature both novel and classic cheese + stuff combinations.

The girl working at the counter was really knowledgable and friendly — she’s even going to apprentice at a cheesemaking farm in Vermont! I stupidly forgot to introduce myself, but maybe next time. Is it weird to want cheese-loving friends? I just want to meet someone with whom I can munch on cheese plates! Is that so much to ask?!

The sandwich pictured above (set against a tumultuous Lake Harriet) is their house special, “The Cheesemonger.” It features sopressata salami, provolone cheese and a pepper & onion relish in a six-inch piece of baguette. And with the student discount (hehe) it was only 5 bucks with change! The verdict? Fuck yes. They’ve got it down.

What Dreams Are Made of

Flour, vegetable oil, water and salt. Well, shit.

During her time at Grinnell last semester, my anarchofreegan doom metal friend Emily instituted Tortilla Tuesdays, nights when she would make mounds of tortillas by hand in exchange for attendees’ fixins. Before then, I had never even contemplated making tortillas. It seemed like something that should be left solely to the specialists.

But it’s so simple! It’s like trying really hard to figure out what to get your mother for Christmas and settling for a generic candle that’s she’s kind of OK with when you could have just asked her in the first place. In the end your mother thinks you don’t love her. This is the same thing.

The recipe is so easy that I’m going to write it down from memory right here:

Flour Tortillas

• 2 C flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 C vegetable oil
• 3/4 C boiling water

Combine the first three ingredients in a bowl and mix them together while the water boils. Make an indent in the mixture and pour the water in. Mix it with a spatula for the first 30 seconds or so until it cools down, then use your fingers.

Once it gets to be the consistency of dough, roll it into little balls with a 1-inch diameter. Set them down in a baking tray or something and cover with a cloth for 45 minutes. Once their time is up, roll out each one to your desired thickness and toss ‘em onto a hot skillet. I believe the cooking time is 20 seconds, flip, 10 seconds, flip, 10 seconds and you’re done. [Edit: Actually, Emily corrected me on this one. It's 10/20/10 seconds.]

They come out really nice and chewy, just how I like them. And you can top them with pretty much whatever — Emily likes them with peanut butter and jelly, or you can go for more Mexican-inspired things.

This guy over here has homemade refried beans, guacamole and salsa. Fuck yeaaaahhhh these are so good when you’re drunk!

Real Quick, Now: Rhubarb-Strawberry Compote

Two posts in one day! Whooooa!

I just wanted to share the basic recipe for this compote, which is neither applesauce nor punch, thank you very much. In Russian, компот (kompot) is a drink made from an infusion of dried fruit, sugar and water, so my friend Natalie was all packed and ready for Disappointment City when I told her I was making compote. What I made was more like a fruit-based sauce, though the ingredients in my dish are pretty similar to what goes in hers. I found rhubarb growing wild on the streets of Grinnell and combined that with some frozen strawberries that the previous tenants of my apartment left behind.  Compote is probably not supposed to be as gloopy as mine, but fuck that because maybe I like eating things with the texture of ectoplasm!

Rhubarb-Strawberry Compote

• Rhubarb!
• Strawberries!
• Sugar!
• Water!
• Orange peel!

If the strawberries are frozen, throw them into your pan first. Over medium heat, I guess? Yeah, yeah! Let them melt down a bit, then throw the rhubarb, which you should chop up into 1-inch pieces, in along with the water, orange peel and sugar to taste. Let the entire concoction simmer for a while, at least long enough for the rhubarb to become tender. Let it cool and put it on all sorts of things like vanilla ice cream or oatmeal, or just eat it straight!

Pizza in Grinnell, Part 1

This will be part 1 of a series of posts about pizza in the town where I go to college.  In this one I am mad, but satiated.  

 

Out of the 6 or so places where one can get pizza in Grinnell, none of them will let you order by the slice!  What’s the dealio here, people?  If you’re craving pizza at 9pm and you only have $3 on your person, there’s not much you can do; your only option is to go to the Spencer Grill, which is on the first floor of the space station-esque student center.  The pizzas there are tiny, around 8 or 9 inches in diameter, and the wait is pretty long because they bake them on those conveyor belt-type ovens that you’d expect to see in a hilariously inept supervillain’s torture chamber.

 

I was craving vegetable pizza, but they ran out!  The bastards!  So my awkward acquaintance-but-not-really, who was working behind the counter, threw a bunch of green peppers and onions on top.  ”This is going to be the most incredible pizza you’ve ever had,” he boasted.  Was it?   It wasn’t too greasy, wasn’t too skimpy on the cheese.  The crust was chewy but brief.  I think I’m a fan.  The biggest drawbacks for me are the wait and the fact that it’s so small and poofy that you can’t really fold the slices.  Say what you will about college dining services, but they definitely got something sorta-good going here.

The NYC Foodie Roundup!

Dear Reader,

 

This winter break I’ve been kind of sluggish with updates, and for that I apologize.  As thanks for your patience, I’ll be presenting my one-day guide to getting the best and cheapest food in New York City, which is fast becoming a modern city in its own right — we’ve finally built our first public bathroom that isn’t in a Starbuck’s today!  I visited the majority of these places multiple times in the past, though the pictures were taken today as I was taking my friend Travis (of the Lone Star State) out and about the city.  Are you ready to feast your eyes on this?

 

Too late, you’re already dead!!