Tator Tot Casserole

One dish I started making, thanks to my friend Melissa, is Tator Tot Casserole.  I like this dish because (i) you can make it from your freezer / pantry; (ii)  it is inexpensive; (iii) one more way to stretch ground beef; and (iv) it is a kid friendly dish that adults love too.

If you keep a few ingredients on hand, you can make this dish without much planning.

• 2 cans of mushroom soup
• 8 oz cheese (double if you love lots of melted cheese on top of your casseroles)
• 1 to 2 pounds of ground beef (ground turkey works too)
• frozen tator tot potatoes
• small chopped onion (optional – I don’t use)

To make the dish from your freezer, partially thaw meat in your microwave.  While meat is thawing, spray bottom of a 13 x 9 casserole dish with non-stick spray.  Line bottom with tator tots (about 20).  Then cook ground meat in a skillet.  If your family likes onion, you can add a small chopped onion and cook with meat.  Season with garlic powder, onion powder and pepper.  Once cooked and fat is drained, add two cans of mushroom soup to the meat mixture.  Taste mixture and add salt and other seasonings if needed.    Spread the meat mixture over the tator tots.  Then sprinkle cheese on top.

Cover with alum foil and back at 350 for 40 minutes.   Uncover and bake another 5 to 10 minutes.  Let rest for 5 minutes and serve.

Get ready for flu to spread in August

We haven’t heard much about the swine flu lately.  Once MJ and the angel died, much of America’s focus was on Hollywood.  However, the flu is still spreading and once school starts, I expect to see an increase in the spread.  Are you ready?

It became personal this morning.  I haven’t been thinking about it much lately.  You can’t sit around and just wait to get sick – you’ve gotta live and be productive with each day God gives.  However, I received an email last night that got my attention.  Last week the girls attended VBS at a fairly large church in Houston.  Yesterday, a 5 year old child that had also attended the same VBS program (and is same age as my little one) was diagnosed with swine flu.

The last time we could have been around this child was Friday noon, which was several days before the sick child’s symptoms appeared.  I’ve read that you are contagious one day before showing symptoms.  The time line is looking good for us, but there is still a small chance we were exposed.  No symptoms from any of us, so that is another good sign.

Had we all gotten sick, I would not have had to run to the store.  I have easy to prepare food like canned soups.  I have juices and over the counter meds ready.  This is not only good for me, but for others.  The last thing I should do if I’m contagious is run to Walgreens to get our supplies / meds and infect many others.  That is just cruel when we can prepare now.  We know the chances are high of it spreading, even gov’t officials are calling it a pandemic.

I’m not alarmist.  I’m not losing sleep we’re gonna die from the bug.  But I am realistic and see the need to be prepared for illness.  It just makes common sense.  However, in our society it seems that common sense is flying out the window and many expect others to run to their rescue.  I saw that first hand during Ike.  As soon as folks could leave their house, they were screaming for supplies.  This panic wipes out the stores’ inventory and you could be without what if you wait.  For example, once the news hit from Mexico about the flu last April, you could not buy face masks in Houston.  I don’t know that these masks will do much good, but the herd ran out and collected all that were available.  Same with hand sanitizer.  You couldn’t find it after the news spread.

We cannot also ignore the possiblities of a more serious and widespread strain that could cause a quaranteen.  Are you ready for a 90 day quaranteen?  That gets a little more serious.  Again, I’m not being alarmist.  Even our gov’t is telling us to be prepare for no help for at least 2 weeks.

If you’ve done nothing, then I suggest you consider what you’d need if you got the flu tomorrow.  It would be nice if you wouldn’t leave your house and infect my family.  Is that too much to ask?

• Do you have meds?
• Do you have food / liquids?
• Do you have communication in case you need help?
• Do you have entertainment while you’re recovering (books, TV, etc?)

There are more thorough posts in Internet Land giving lists of items to have on hand.  You can search and find these easily.  But you don’t have to spend hours researching, rather (i) use common sense; (ii) and assume you’ll get the flu tomorrow; and (iii) acquire what you think you’d need.  Pretty simple.  To my friends who are prepared, thanks in advance for staying home and not spreading to me.