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Teese Challenge #1:

In the Midwest there are casserole dishes, but there are not casseroles. There is hotdish. The essential kind of hotdish: tater tot.

Now, I’ll be honest with you- my mother never really cooked and I don’t care for tater tots, so I never dined on the authentic dish before, but I know that it usually goes something like this:

Sauteed onion + ground beef + can of condensed cream of whatever soup + tater tots on top = dinner. Blorch.

But when given the opportunity to play with some Teese recently, I wanted to think outside the box. No pizza, cheesy dip would do, this needed to be creative. Enter Teesy Tator Tot Hotdish.

Teesy Tator Tot Hotdish

Olive oil
1 small onion, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teas. dried basil
1 cup cremini mushrooms, chopped
1 medium zucchini, sliced into half moons
1/2 cup frozen peas (you must have at least one frozen vegetable in it for it to be a real hotdish)
2 veggie sausages, cut into coins
1 tube creamy cheddar Teese
1/2 cup milk of choice (I used almond)
Tater tots

Preheat oven to 375. Lightly grease an 8 x 8 or smaller casserole (I used a 5 x7, but 8 x 8 would work too, you could always increase your zucchini and mushrooms a little or add more tots!).

In a pan, heat olive oil. Add onion and garlic and sautee until onions become translucent. Add basil and sautee for another minute. Transfer to a large bowl. In same pan, sautee mushrooms until tender. Drain juice and add to bowl with onions. Add zucchini, peas and veggie sausages to bowl. Add Teese and milk and mix with a whisk or spoon until Teese and milk have incorporated and coat veggie mixture (it might look a little lumpy, but that’s fine). Pour into casserole dish and cover with frozen tots.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until tots are golden and cheesy mixture is bubbling. You may need to put a baking sheet with parchment under the casserole to catch drips. Allow hotdish to cool for about 5 minutes before serving.

Makes 3-4 servings.

It was darn tasty, dontcha know!

This year one of my goals is to have less “stuff”. I’m trying to consume less chemical grossness (just because it’s vegan, doesn’t mean you should eat it…like Baco’s) and to purge unnecessary junk from our house.

We’ve really been trying to focus on nourishing our bodies. And with a little prep, it’s too easy not to!

I make a rice cooker of quinoa or some other grain each Sunday and we’ve been eating variations on this bowl, with some raw veggies, avocado, maybe some beans and a shoyu/toasted sesame oil sauce that makes for a seriously satisfying meal. By chopping/shredding enough veggies at once to last a couple of days, and having the grains ready, there is no chronic Virgo indecisiveness plaguing our meal times and leaving us eating beans, chips and salsa for the eleventy billionth time.

Now, if you know Jim and I, we are professional hobbyists. Between the two of us, we have enough books, documentaries, instruments, technological stuff, craft supplies, tools and kitchen equipment to keep us busy for the rest of our lives! Add to that hectic schedules and, well, the clutter begins.

We’ve also been purging stuff! This was round one of several to the thrift store. Even after moving cross-country twice with each other, we’re still bad about holding onto things. While it can be hard, trying to emotionally detach yourself from your possessions is probably one of the healthiest things you can do. It can be hard to not beat yourself up when you see things you know you don’t want, but at the time you *had* to have, but there’s no point. Someone else will be delighted by it and you’ll have that much more physical (and mental) clarity. Just keep that gnawing feeling in mind the next time you try talking yourself into something you don’t need. (Like the ice cream maker I just bought on sale… wait, though, I need that, right?)

What are you trying to remove from your house this year, literally or figuratively? Stopping negative thinking, mean self-talk or the pile of junk that accumulates on your night stand? I’m terrible about leaving my dirty clothes on the floor of the bathroom after I take a shower, we’ve all got bad habits to shed!

Leave a comment about what you’re trying to eliminate from your life this year and you’ll be entered into a drawing for a copy of my cookbook, nom!nom!nom! buttons and some special secret goodies from Food Fight! Yes- more stuff!

Comment before Monday the 15th to be entered!

If there is something I love about fall, it’s baking. This sounds pretty obvious, no? But really, it is the OPTIMAL time to bake. The spices are so earthy and deep and it take very little to make your house smell better than any stupid scented candle ever could- and you get to eat the results!

I did come across something surprising at my usual hangout, Black Sheep, the other day. They are going pumpkin crazy and are baking it into everything they can. Pumpkin coffee cake, pumpkin pie bars and these little beauties:

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies, from my book! How cool is that? I’ve now discovered that the only thing better than homemade cookies you love is homemade cookies you love that you didn’t have to make! They just appear out of thin air!

With the season of pumpkin baking upon us, every other recipe calls for pumpkin pie spice. You probably have everything you need to make this blend in your own pantry, plus you can tweak it to your liking! I’m not a huge clove lover, so this recipe is bit subdued in that area. Make a nice big batch of it so you can just dip in as needed.

Pumpkin Pie Spice Blend

3 tbsp. ground cinnamon
1 tbsp. plus 2 teas. ground ginger
2 teas. ground nutmeg
1 teas. ground cloves

Mix well in a clean bowl and combine well. Transfer to an airtight bottle or container.

Books! I have not forgotten, just terribly sidetracked this week. Food will return next week, but the winners of cookbooks are:

Mo
Vijita
radioactivevegan

Drop me a line at nomblog at gmail dotty com.

Food, fun and kittehs to come!