Minnesota Hotdish

Hotdish? I learned a lot about Hotdish from fellow blogger Audrey of Minnesota Prairie Roots Blog. And yes, turns out we call it a casserole around here. This blog post is a collaborative effort as Audrey lives in Minnesota.  I wrote to her for enlightenment on Hotdish.

Audrey wrote when  I inquired about Hotdish 

Now, on to hotdish, which you likely know as “casseroles” in your area of the country. Same thing. Simply a mix of foods combined in one glass casserole dish or a 9 x 13 cake pan. Tater Tot Hotdish is Minnesota’s signature hotdish consisting of cooked hamburger mixed with a vegetable and a condensed creamed soup and then topped with tater tots and shredded cheddar cheese. I hope I got that right. I haven’t made it in years and actually seldom make hotdish, with the exception of Chicken Wild Rice Hotdish.
 
Hotdish has always been a staple of church potlucks and family reunions in Minnesota. Easy to make. Serves a lot. And everyone loves a good hotdish. My mom always made one with hamburger, noodles and tomato juice with cheese stirred in. It was a favorite growing up.

In 2006, the Minnesota Historical Society Press even published a book, “Hot Dish Heaven–Classic Casseroles from Midwest Kitchens” by Ann L. Burckhardt. And, yes, our DC legislators hold an annual hot dish competition. You can purchase cookbook online by clicking link. 

And guess what honor I received from Audrey?

The State of Minnesota does hereby grant honorary residency to Ruth Ella Hendricks upon successful completion of the unofficial state culinary dish, Tater Tot Hotdish. Congratulations! 

 

America’s Test Kitchen recipe for this Minnesota Hotdish was on the PBS channel the other night. Here is the link to the video from the episode. Although I don’t remember purchasing a single Tater Tot in my life, watching them put this Hotdish together made me think about making it. With just two of us in the house it seemed a good recipe to try on the larger family when I visited in Ohio. I used a 2 pound bag of Simple Truth Potato Puffs from their local Kroger grocery store. I saw the brand Tater Tots had cottonseed oil in them and I thought that can’t be a good thing. I doubled the amount of the meat to 3 pounds.  I omitted the mushrooms as several family members do not care for them but I read that if you needed to make if vegetarian you could use just mushrooms in the creamy bottom layer and no meat.

When I told my friend Joanne about the Hotdish she told me how growing up they didn’t have casseroles and she learned about them in high school cooking class. Her teenage son and his friends would devour her Tater Tot Green Bean Casserole when they lived in Omaha Nebraska. And after talking to her, I used the green beans instead of the frozen peas and corn in the original recipe.  

3 pounds of Angus ground round sautéed with chopped. sweet onion and four garlic cloves

My fellow blogger and friend Audrey of Minnesota Prairie Roots blog post says “Here’s a link to a story about small town Minnesota which includes a photo of a sandwich board advertising Tater Tot Hotdish”

Photograph of sandwich sign used with permission from Audrey

 

There is an event in Faribault Minnesota that sounds like a lot of fun

Audrey told me about the Flannel Formal 

At the Faribault Flannel Formal last Saturday, a Best Lumberjack Hotdish Contest was part of the annual event attended by about 500, all called upon to dress in flannel (like Paul Bunyan).

And a Snowplow naming contest too? “…as I’m watching the news last evening, I was reminded of another recent hotdish “thing” in Minnesota, the naming of a snowplow as “Blader Tot Hotdish.” Here’s a blog post I wrote about this Minnesota Department of Transportation contest and winners”

You can see why I asked Audrey to help me with my HOTDISH blogpost.  I could’t have done it without her. 

Walking in Zagreb City Center

Every Monday Restless Jo posts her walks (click to see Tróia) she has many blog followers sharing their walks. Jo often leaves a good word on my blog. Although I’ve been “walking along” with Jo for years, this is my first time to join the community of walkers, too. Total 5.6 miles walk but…..

I started on the tram. I had the four kuna ready.

Waiting for the tram
I made it on the tram!

I actually started my walk at the Zagreb Botanical Garden in beautiful autumn colors

A busy marketplace. You can buy all sorts of fruits, nuts, vegetables, and even a broom or woolly socks.

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Fellow Blogger’s Book is Here

I’ve followed Didi van Frits for years now. We even had the good fortune to be in Berlin visiting family at the same time and we got to meet in person. That’s was in June 2019. I dedicated a blog post to him in 2013

Berlin June 2019

He has just published his book and I ordered the English version and it has arrived from Germany.

Here’s the link for the details.

About

Here’s Didi van Frits Book

I’m 75 years old now. I’ve made a lot of music in my life since I was 12 when I started playing the banjo in a Dixieland orchestra. I studied theology, sociology, psychology, and finally philosophy. Of course, philosophy had the most lasting impact on me. But also painting, photography, caricatures (I love Sempe), and the weekly political debate or the science of history with its often frightening details. Where did I feel most comfortable? With the music.”
Videos at http://www.facebook.com/didi.vanfrits

You can hear my recording of him playing. Just a snippet of his playing guitar at his hotel courtyard when we met.

With his lovely wife Barbara in Berlin June 2019

https://youtube.com/shorts/3YjfQcxaWvs?feature=share

My photos turn up in unexpected places when I search

One time I explored various tags of mine on the blog posts over the years.

For example        Dogs was one. Cats was another.

This evening I went to search “soup rutheh” to see some other images of soup that I’ve posted.  And there are a lot. Soup season in upon us.  I like to make soup.

But here is what else I found.  There were at least eight other websites/blogs using photographs I’ve taken without having asked permission and there’s no photo credit.  Over the past decade I have received requests from magazines, textbook authors, CD producers and  brochure creators and a television show, asking to use a photograph and  I’ve granted permission for them to do so.

It’s something to see an early morning school bus headlights and recognize the scene as one I captured being used on a site to illustrate “The Impact of School Start Times” .  One of the sites with my jar of jelly beans photographed in my former Photo Class is on a website that is No Longer Found but still, how can they just take it and use it without even asking?  Another site of What Do They Eat? has all of my minestrone ingredients with my Spode dish on my kitchen table.  I get the idea of the Pinterest pins in different categories and somehow the internet knows they are my photos even though they are showing up on other’s sites and posts because there they are coming up in my search. I know my grandson saw their family dog on someone else’s website about Airedales.  Taken from the blog.

I guess one puts a photograph out there into the world and others think it is just fine to snare it and use it.

For all the people who give photo credit and request permission, thank you.  It means a lot.

Here are a few of the photos that come up when I searched “soup rutheh” and were found on other sites

Minestrone Ingredients Still Life

FoggyMorningSchoolBusStop

 

Guess How Many Jelly Beans in a Glass Quart Jar

We’re Talking Trash Now      Why trash comes up with a “soup” search is beyond me.

 

Pot of English Breakfast Tea   On this one they did include my name


I knew this was my photo too, on another site  Essie’s Orginal Hot Dog Shop

Oh well, you get the idea. There were a few others.

 

3500th Blog Post Today

3500th Blog Post Today

Thank you readers and followers and fellow bloggers for hanging in there with me all these years.

I appreciate your looking at the photos (hopefully right side up), clicking the like button and writing comments when you can, even when it’s been a hassle.

Wednesday afternoon view from the Heinz History Center.

It’s Spring Break at Grandma’s House for three of the grandkids.

I am fortunate to live in a city with so much to offer. 

The First Post of the Tenth Year of Blogging

Today is the ninth year anniversary of blogging. The start of year ten. Yikes!

Almost every day. Sometimes every 36 hours instead of 24. The times when there was no internet access, the hard drive crashed, the time I fried the computer with a glass of beer, traveling or feeling unwell. Many days I found a way, made a way to get a photo posted, somehow.

A friend gave me this Campbell Pottery (of Crawford County Pennsylvania) vase with a little brass frog to hold the flower stems. It’s a beautiful work of art. Thanks Debbie.

Being part of the blogging community and getting to know fellow bloggers around the world is the best. We share thoughts, ideas and images that inspire and we encourage one another to keep on blogging.

Thank you readers, commenters, guest bloggers and those who click the “like” button and those who visit anonymously.

Seven Years Ago I Started the Blog

Achievement7 Year Anniversary Achievement

  1. “Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!
                 You registered on WordPress.com 7 years ago.
    Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging.”

Seven years flew by.  Thanks for remembering WordPress.

And thank you to all of you who stop by to look, read, hit the like button and or leave a comment.

IMG_2957My friend Joan’s garden.  Hollyhocks remind me of my Grandmother Hendricks

 

Fellow Blogger’s Comment Spurs Action

It was Janet of Sustainabilitea blog, ( This,that and the other  thing/ Looking at life through writing and photography) who wrote in a comment  “these photos would make great puzzles”.

She was right.  Thanks, Janet, for the super idea.  (original post of the doll collection was just January 6th).

I went down the hill to give my friend the early birthday present and it was a cool surprise. Waiting until the actual birthday on the 29th was too long.  Barb was really thrilled with the origianl idea and I told her how a fellow blogger suggested making the photo into a puzzle.  Her husband thought the photo below would make a cool document of the idea come to fruition.

Here my friend Barb’s  husband Rich holds up the puzzle I ordered from the photo of her doll collection.

It came in a lovely tin. Ravensburger USA in New Hampshire did a super job.

How much fun it would be to photograph collections to be made into jigsaw puzzles.

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