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.

Oven Fries & the February Blues

Rosemary, fresh-ground black pepper, and kosher salt are all I needed just now. Dang. For those of you in more idyllic climes, we poor chumps in Minnesota have been experiencing some crazy low temperatures this week, and, frankly, it’s been getting me down.

Last night I was feeling real whiny, but this morning I decided to do something about it! I cleaned my room (even took some pictures for posterity), walked to Eastside co-op to buy some pantry essentials, and spent way too much time browsing apartment therapy for decorating ideas for my next place. Oh yeah, and made fries.

I don’t know why people and publications are always claiming that oven fries are a difficult thing to do. Or maybe my standards are way too low? All I did was slice up some potatoes, coat them in olive oil and seasonings, and popped them into the oven for a while. Flipped them over after 20 minutes and then forgot about them. When I finally remembered, they were done!

One month until spring… right? I can’t wait for picnics, bike gangs, farmer’s markets, late night carousing, swimsuits, asparagus…

Wh-What?

“How many times have you been trying to go to dinner with four or five people and you can’t decide because everyone wants something different?” Ringo asked me. “A lot of little authentic ethnic restaurants in Minnesota are, to be perfectly frank, in places suburbanites aren’t comfortable, or aren’t comfortable parking... [Too many insane quotes to post, just read it.]

No! NO!!!!!! What a fucking asshole! Even though I have some unresolved issues with the local foods movement, it’s a hell of a lot better than Sysco or U.S. Foods. Is this really what suburbanites want? Really? Are you people so daft? Do you really think that “ketchup is a spice”? Good lord.

The Compassionate Carnivore and Slow Food

I recently finished reading The Compassionate Carnivore by Catherine Friend — it’s an easily digestible memoir/self-help/environmental activist book centered on American meat consumption. Friend and her partner (FARM LESBIANS!!!) own and operate a sheep farm in Zumbrota, MN using sustainable practices, such as pasture rotation and unconfined lambing.

As a former vegetarian, I really had to do a lot of soul-searching when I decided to eat meat again. In Carnivore, Catherine Friend articulates that struggle really well, and presents a persuasive argument for being a conscientious omnivore over ethical vegetarianism. This summer I had to live right next to animals that  I was going to eat — their imminent demise became a confrontation that I had to work through. However, it was also reassuring: I knew what the animals had eaten, the conditions in which they lived and the way their fur or feathers felt to the touch. I could  be thankful when I finally prepared and consumed their meat, and I could feel assured that they lived lives that many others of their kind  could not. Knowing that I’m eating Daisy and Bessie is, morbidly, refreshing.

Because the lives of meat livestock are always cut short  by violence, I think that it’s important for consumers to ensure  that the animals they eat didn’t suffer at the end. Most people have probably read  Fast Food Nation, so you know what I’m talking about. I think reconciling oneself with the inevitable violence of food consumption is essential to appreciating good food. Friend offers up an anecdote of a chef who took his team out to a farm to see a goat slaughter; after the event, kitchen waste was drastically reduced. Even vegetables require some amount of violence to grow: wild animals are routinely killed off by farmers to protect vegetables that also thrive on dead animal compost.

More power to you vegetarians, but the ethical argument just doesn’t jive with me. To me, (and this relates to a quote I read by Van Jones, the former green jobs “czar” of the Obama administration) the model of vegetarianism as a critique or attack on the meat industry does much less good than Friend’s reconstructive approach. Compassionate carnivory is a creative solution to the problem of factory farming and cruel slaughterhouse practices that may result in real change. Giving your money to a livestock farmer whose name you know is a step toward that change. Vegans and vegetarians are, in a sense, leaving the bargaining table to the consumers who don’t care. Personally, I would rather help humane farmers and their philosophies thrive. If I’m not giving them my  business, I’d just be leaving all the meat consumption to Tyson and Smithfield! They would have no motivation to change their practices without competition. The real deal is that many, many people eat meat without caring where or how the animals died. Luckily, The Compassionate Carnivore has been gaining popularity in the U.S., and maybe more people will come around.

The farm interns all went down to the Elbow Lake library last week to meet Friend, who was doing a reading there. She’s the more reticent half of the couple, and she recounted her initial ambivalence toward farming in an earlier book called Hit By a Farm. The most striking part of the event actually occurred after she spoke (though she was interesting in her own right), when the farmers present in the room (library basement) were called upon to introduce themselves and their work. I also got my book signed, and Friend and I talked about how there needs to be a queer farmers’ union! All in all, a very cute happening.

Amanda (our coworker), Chris and I met Melissa (Friend’s partner) at a Slow Food Minnesota event on the Callister chicken farm this past weekend. Melissa drew us a diagram of a ewe’s uterus/eweterus in the dirt and made a llama face at us. Chris frightened a barn of Poulet Rouge Fermier chickens and an Italian chef cried for his mother. Amazing.

I would love to hear counterarguments to this whole meat thing, though. Any vegans/vegetarians want to throw any out there?

Hot Hot Dish

Like the esteemed “taco-in-a-bag” and “thing-on-a-stick,” hotdish is a Minnesotan delicacy. Though I have yet to try the first two on that lardtastic list, I can now proudly cross out the third, thanks to my farming compatriots Nicki and Sarah. For those not in the know, hotdish is basically a casserole, though the important elements are always present: a starch, cream of chicken/mushroom soup and a topping. The difference here is also encapsulated in the name change: a French name is too pretentious for the convenience that hotdish signifies.

To be perfectly honest, I have never been very comfortable with casseroles in general. Cream of mushroom soup, canned green beans and Velveeta don’t quite do it for me. As a compromise, we made our hotdish with organic and fresh vegetables from our farm: zucchini, new potatoes, broccoli and carrots! That’s not so bad, right? I’m still cool, right? (Sigh.) Of course, we still added the customary cream of mushroom soup.

All in all, it tasted fine. We topped the whole thing with gouda, which gave it a nice kick. Most of the work was in prepping the vegetables, so it’s really easy. Check it:

Step 1: Plop cream of _____ soup into ingredients.

Step 2: Mix!

Step 3: Top and bake!

(Thanks to Nicki for loaning her hands, and to Sarah for the lesson.)