Recipe request

[Solana]

Hey, everyone, I came to ask a favor if anybody is interested.

For my birthday coming up, I'm asking my family for a nice binder to put together a collection of recipes, my own and those of family and friends. It'll be something practical as I'm working on learning more about cooking, and sentimental to cook things from and hopefully for those I love.

I'm asking my pod members if interested to submit one recipe- your own creation, the famous family recipe that you're always required to make for gatherings, or something that looks cool. Don't worry about my food issues- I'll appreciate it as a gift if I can't figure out how to modify it.

Thanks for your consideration. I'll be adding the famous chocolate cake that only my parents can make, the curry soup recipe I've been bothering a coworker for for two years after a Christmas potluck, and even another coworker's Ethiopian sambusas. (My buddy Cha warned me that many of the ingredients will need a photo, as he doesn't know the English words for them or even Romanization. I love a challenge!)

[Rune Lai]

I'm not much of a cook, but this is an extremely lazy slow cooker recipe I made several times before I got sick last year. It reheats well in the microwave so I'd sometimes make a batch at the start of the week and bring it to work for lunch for the next few days. (And put some fruit on the side to balance out the carbs and protein.) It's not special occasion food, but maybe it's cool if you like tater tots (I do).

Chicken Tater Tot Casserole

Ingredients:

1 (32 oz.) bag frozen tater tots
1 (3 oz.) bag turkey bacon pieces
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced
4-6 oz. shredded mozzarella or mild cheddar cheese
3/4 cup milk
¼ tsp salt
⅛ tsp black pepper

In order, put in:
Half bag of tater tots.
⅓ cheese
⅓ bacon
All chicken
Salt and pepper
⅓ cheese
⅓ bacon
Other half of tater tots
⅓ cheese
⅓ bacon
Milk

Cook 5 hours in slow cooker on low.

[Solana]

Ooooh, thank you! No cookbook in MN is complete without a recipe for tater tot hotdish!

[Rune Lai]

I feel like the instruction for the order of putting in ingredients looks rather silly, but I found if I didn't list it like that I would do things like forget the salt and pepper until everything was already in the slow cooker, leaving me with the option of trying to dig back through to the chicken, or just hoping the chicken didn't turn out too unseasoned if I sprinkled the salt and pepper at the very top. >.> I can be very forgetful, even with things I've made multiple times.

[Solana]

I asked my researcher friend Liming for a recipe for the cookbook as she's from Taiwan. She just looked at me funny, because she doesn't use recipes. Her mother had owned a seafood restaurant back home (which I never knew), and the idea was to use fresh ingredients and just add a bit of seasoning to complement it. You cook things until they're the right color, fragrance, or you have a sense of when it's done.

She did break down and tell me how to cook shrimp. Leave the heads on, or they get dried out. Boil them with a little ginger until they change color, then serve. That was it.

I laughed and told her that my Hmong buddy Cha had said the same thing about his family's cooking, and that I had had food in Bali and Singapore that was just like that, celebrating the freshest ingredients instead of burying everything in sauce. (Which is nice as there are so many sauces I can't have.)

This has been a delightful adventure so far.