By August. The shift is happening — the shift from summer to school, from loose to scheduled, from barefoot to backpacks. The stores have school supplies in the front aisles and the notebooks are seventy-five cents and I am buying forty-seven of them because four kids times multiple classes equals a quantity of notebooks that would make a paper mill weep with joy. I buy the off-brand everything because I am a trucker and a mother of four and the difference between a Mead notebook and a store-brand notebook is a logo and forty cents, and forty cents times forty-seven notebooks is nineteen dollars, and nineteen dollars is three gallons of gas, and three gallons of gas is my priorities in mathematical form.
Amber needs new jeans. She has grown two inches this summer, silently, the way teenagers grow — you do not notice until the pants are too short and the girl inside them is suddenly taller than you remember, and you think: when did this happen? When did the twelve-year-old I took from Kearney become this tall, quiet, capable fifteen-year-old who reads books and babysits and runs the 800 and looks, sometimes, so much like Darla that I have to look away?
I hauled to Council Bluffs and back mid-week. The Iowa border is ninety miles from Grand Island, which in truck-time is nothing, which in car-time is an eternity, which in Nebraska-time is just how far apart things are. The slow cooker had beef stew — chunks of stew meat, potatoes, carrots, onion, beef broth, a little tomato paste. Truck stew. The kind that simmers for six hours while I drive and fills the cab with the smell of home, which is what the cab is — home, at sixty-five miles per hour, with a slow cooker and a woman who has been doing this for twenty-one years and still finds comfort in the routine.
I made tater tot casserole for dinner. The Novak family recipe, such as it is: ground beef, cream of mushroom soup, corn, cheese, tater tots on top. Baked until the tots are golden and the cheese is bubbling and the house smells like every Tuesday of my childhood. This recipe has been in the family since Gayle invented it in approximately 1978, and no one has improved it because it does not need improving. The tater tot casserole is perfect. I will not be taking questions.
The tater tot casserole I mentioned — the one Gayle invented in 1978 — is really just this: crispy potato puffs on top of everything warm and good, baked until golden. Potato Puffs are the version I’ve leaned on when I need the smell of Tuesday night and I need it fast, after a haul or a back-to-school run or a week that asked more than it gave. It is not complicated. That is the point.
Potato Puffs
Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 40 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 can (10.5 oz) condensed cream of mushroom soup
- 1 cup frozen corn, thawed
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- Salt and black pepper to taste
- 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided
- 1 bag (28 oz) frozen potato puffs (tater tots)
Instructions
- Preheat oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.
- Brown the beef. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook ground beef until no longer pink, about 7–8 minutes. Drain excess fat.
- Build the base. Stir in cream of mushroom soup, corn, sour cream, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Mix until combined. Spread evenly into the prepared baking dish.
- Add cheese. Sprinkle 1 cup of the cheddar over the beef mixture.
- Top with potato puffs. Arrange frozen potato puffs in a single layer over the cheese, covering the surface completely.
- Bake. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes, until the potato puffs begin to turn golden.
- Finish with cheese. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup cheddar over the top and bake an additional 8–10 minutes, until cheese is melted and bubbling and the potato puffs are crisp and deeply golden.
- Rest and serve. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 520 | Protein: 24g | Fat: 28g | Carbs: 43g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 890mg