Tater Tot Casserole

Saturday was January fourteenth. One year.

I woke up at 5 AM and lay in bed and counted. Three hundred and sixty-six days. Leap year ╬ôçö 2016 had an extra day, which means I got one more day of the year Grace died in, and I don't know if that's a gift or a cruelty, and I've decided it doesn't matter, because the calendar doesn't care what I call it.

I pulled the funeral potatoes from the freezer Friday night and let them thaw in the fridge. Saturday morning I put them in the oven at 350 ╬ôçö one hour, covered for forty-five minutes, uncovered for fifteen to brown the top. The recipe is Mom's. The recipe is every LDS woman's. Cream of chicken soup, sour cream, hash browns, cheddar cheese, butter, cornflake topping. You could make them blindfolded. I have made them blindfolded, essentially ╬ôçö through tears so thick the kitchen was a blur, measuring by feel, by muscle memory, by the hands that know what to do when the rest of me doesn't.

The kids knew something was different. Ethan was quiet at breakfast. Olivia set the table without being asked. Mason sat at the kitchen counter while I cooked and didn't say anything ╬ôçö just sat, eight years old, watching me, his legs swinging because they don't reach the floor yet. Lily drew a picture of a baby and left it on the fridge. Noah climbed into my lap and said, "Mama sad?" and I said, "A little, baby," and he put his hands on my face the way toddlers do ╬ôçö too hard, fingers in my eyes ╬ôçö and said, "All better," and it wasn't, but it was the closest anything came all day.

Brandon went to the garage after the kids went to bed. I heard the door close and I didn't follow him. He grieves there ╬ôçö in the dark, among the tools and the camping gear and the lawn mower, in the space that is his and private and separate from me. I grieve in the kitchen. We are ten feet apart and a thousand miles from each other, and I love him and I miss him and I don't know how to reach him and he doesn't know how to let me, and this is the thing nobody tells you about losing a child: you can lose each other too, slowly, in the same house, and the losing is so quiet you almost don't notice until you're standing at the sink and he's standing in the garage and the space between you is the size of a grave.

I ate the funeral potatoes alone at the kitchen island. They were perfect. They were terrible. They tasted like January fourteenth, which is the taste of love and loss and cornflake topping, and I will make them again next year, and the year after, and the year after that. Hi, baby. One year. I'm still here.

The recipe I made that morning was my mother’s — hash browns, sour cream, cream of chicken soup, cheddar, cornflakes — and I’ve never written it down because it lives in my hands, not on paper. But if you want to make something close to what I made, something warm and heavy and forgiving, this tater tot casserole is the nearest thing I can point you toward: the same logic, the same comfort, the same belief that a bubbling dish of potatoes and cheese can hold the weight of a day you don’t know how to survive. Make it covered, then uncover it at the end so the top goes golden. That part matters.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 55 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 (32 oz) bag frozen tater tots
1 lb ground beef
1 small yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 (10.5 oz) can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup whole milk
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish and set aside.
Brown the beef. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook the ground beef and diced onion together, breaking up the meat, until no pink remains, about 7–8 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more. Drain excess fat.
Make the sauce. Reduce heat to medium-low. Stir in the cream of mushroom soup, sour cream, milk, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Mix until smooth and heated through, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat.
Layer the casserole. Spread the beef mixture evenly in the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle 1 cup of the shredded cheddar over the top. Arrange the frozen tater tots in a single layer over the cheese, covering the surface completely.
Bake covered. Cover the dish tightly with foil and bake for 40 minutes.
Uncover and finish. Remove the foil, sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of cheddar over the tater tots, and bake uncovered for an additional 15 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the tater tots are golden and crisp on top.
Rest and serve. Let the casserole sit for 5 minutes before serving. Serve directly from the dish.

Nutrition (per serving)

Tater Tot Casserole — The Dish That Stays When Everything Else Goes