Blizzard 2010 Weather Update

17 Inches of snow, according to the reports! I think it's finally stopped snowing but now we're dealing with gusting winds and drifts! This continues to be awesome. Here are some pictures of the backyard. Sorry they're bad - I lost my camera so I'm limited to using the camera on my phone :)

You can tell in this picture that we've almost lost our adirondack chairs under the snow.

Here the drift against the fence is about three feet high. We've had to shovel this little path throughout the day otherwise we really would be trapped in the house!

The day around here has been pretty good, Calhoun and I both have a lot of work to do before the end of the semester so we've spent the day shoveling, cooking, procrastinating and doing some work.

We cooked lunch, modifying one of the hotdish recipes we got from Calhoun's mom.

Pizza Hot Dish

2 cup uncooked egg noodles

1 pound ground beef

1/2 cup diced onion

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon oregano

15 ounce can of tomato sauce

1 cup water

Grated cheese for the top

Grease a 9x9" pan; line with uncooked noodles. Brown meat and onions and add to noodles. Mix liquid and seasonings and pour over. Make uncovered 45 minutes at 350. Add grated cheese and bake 10 minutes more.

We sometimes add or substitute pepperoni, making it taste more like pizza and even easier to make!

But today, given that we were snowed in and not really prepared, we made it with 1/2 pound hamburger and 1/2 pound sausage and substituted marinara sauce from a can for the tomato sauce and water. It tasted a bit more like lasagna than pizza but was still amazing and a perfect lunch for our snowed in day!

Then, Calhoun walked to the corner store to get a dozen eggs and I made chocolate cookies while he shoveled the cars out! Great day.

Important Note Re: Tater Tot Hotdish

One of my classmates made tater tot hotdish the other night and reported that it was not delicious. She actually said it was like prison food! Horrified, I asked her where she had gotten her recipe and she said that she had found it online and it had said to layer the tots on the bottom and on the top, but she didn't have any tots left over after layering the bottom so there were none on top.

Bottom tots are

simply not

the tots you want!

Always layer some tots on top

Hotdish Season

The weather has cooled, and it is September. While most Minnesotans are lamenting the return of the chilly weather I am excited, because it means the return of hotdish.

While some regions may refer to hotdish as casserole, that's just plain old wrong in Minnesota. Hotdish is an amazing standby that can feed dozens, freeze for months and, best of all, is CHEAP!

Standard hotdish is made of a starch, meat and usually some kind of canned soup mixed in. The reason that hotdish is more of a cold weather food is because it sits like a rock and must be baked. My favorite hotdish is tater tot hotdish which is made of tater tots, ground beef, canned cream of mushroom soup and if I want to pretend it's not a heart attack in a pan I add some frozen vegetables. Calhoun's favorite is pizza hotdish, which is made of egg noodles, canned tomato sauce, pepperoni, cheese and some herbs and spices.

The return of fall also marks our return to graduate school. I am in my last year of law school and Calhoun is starting his fifth year of a PhD program so we're a little busier come fall. Now, don't get me wrong, I could eat grilled meat and fresh vegetables all year but hotdish is the easy meal that my small family needs when we both go back to school. You'd be amazed at how much work can get done during the 60 precious minutes during which a hotdish is baking in the oven.

The other thing about hotdish that I must mention is in reference to a cookbook given to me by my mother-in-law. She collected recipes from family and friends and handed me an amazing three ring binder full of Calhoun's favorite foods, easy recipes and generally cheap eats. And the tab that is all hotdish is the most plentiful and well used portion of the cookbook.

I'm thinking it's hotdish tonight!