Culinary experimentation
Mar. 6th, 2016 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
superbadgirlI made vegetarian tater tot hotdish tonight. First, tater tot hotdish is a casserole from back in the midwest - ground beef, cream of something soup (my mom liked potato - strangely hard to find these days so mushroom works for me, or a homemade cream sauce) and green beans on bottom (some used mixed veggies; no), with a delicious layer of tater tot on top. Cheese can be added to the tots, and of course the bottom is spiced however you like it. Usually just salt and pepper for me.
To make it vegetarian, I made a black bean crumble/meat substitute. I also swapped out the tater tots for cauliflower tots, though I suppose technically it still would have been vegetarian with regular tots.
Now, in no way does this actually replace a traditional tater tot hotdish, but I gotta say it was flipping tasty and I'd do it again. The black beans got a little more meatloafy than nice and gooey like a casserole usually is, so I'll have to play around with that. Might not ever get the right texture, but I don't care. It was pretty danged good, and a bag of beans* is far and away cheaper than meat.
*Canned can also be used, but dried beans are far cheaper and go a long way. Hooray for frugality! I've been trying to cut costs where I can. Started with switching litter from wheat to clay and nope, that one's not working or me or for Pickle. She's forever walking around with clay clumps on her butt.
To make it vegetarian, I made a black bean crumble/meat substitute. I also swapped out the tater tots for cauliflower tots, though I suppose technically it still would have been vegetarian with regular tots.
Now, in no way does this actually replace a traditional tater tot hotdish, but I gotta say it was flipping tasty and I'd do it again. The black beans got a little more meatloafy than nice and gooey like a casserole usually is, so I'll have to play around with that. Might not ever get the right texture, but I don't care. It was pretty danged good, and a bag of beans* is far and away cheaper than meat.
*Canned can also be used, but dried beans are far cheaper and go a long way. Hooray for frugality! I've been trying to cut costs where I can. Started with switching litter from wheat to clay and nope, that one's not working or me or for Pickle. She's forever walking around with clay clumps on her butt.
