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Boxed potatoes aren’t always scary | Cabin Fever Cookbook - Chico Enterprise-Record

When I was 10 my parents would leave me by myself after school while they went to work or did other boring grown-up things. Sometimes I would get hungry and raid the cabinets. I’ve always experimented with meals, but the limits to what I could actually do at 10 were extraordinary and my creations would sometimes consist of dry corn flakes on a hot dog bun slathered in pancake syrup.

One day I was going through the cabinets when I found a box of scalloped potatoes. I opened it up, looked inside, and decided the dried potatoes couldn’t be that much different from potato chips, and popped one in my mouth.

They were nothing at all like potato chips.

But now that the box was open I may as well make them, right? I couldn’t use the stovetop, but the microwave was sort of the same thing. I grabbed a plastic bowl, poured in the bag of dried potatoes and covered it all in water. Into the microwave it went for however long it normally takes a non-microwavable plastic bowl to melt.

I did not eat scalloped potatoes that day.

Since then I’ve had a healthy distrust of any potato that comes in a box.

A couple of weeks ago I got into a discussion with one of my friends about ground beef and potatoes, how we both somehow always had them for meals.

“Were we poor?” she asked.

While the economics of cheap ground beef and even cheaper potatoes certainly played a part in meal planning in my home, mainly I think parents were just unimaginative.

I started thinking about all the different variations you could make with a pound of ground beef and a few large potatoes, and besides the obvious diced potatoes with ground beef, you could use those two ingredients to make mashed potatoes and meatloaf, hamburgers and fries, Salisbury steak and roasted potatoes, and of course shepherd’s pie.

And I suddenly wanted shepherd’s pie.

I gathered up all the ingredients and started cooking the beef, adding in different seasonings and ingredients as I went, and when I was ready I transferred everything to a large casserole dish. I went to the cupboard to grab some powdered mashed potatoes to make the top real quick, when I saw a box of scalloped potatoes.

I followed the instructions on the box — on the stovetop this time — and once they were ready I spread them on top of my ground beef mixture and into the oven they went.

It was one of my better experiences with boxed potatoes.

Shepherd’s pie with scalloped potatoes

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 1 14.5 ounce can of peas and carrots
  • 1 tablespoon of black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon of dried parsley
  • 1/2 tablespoon of dried marjoram
  • 1/2 tablespoon of dried oregano
  • 1 cup of white wine
  • 1 box of scalloped potatoes
  • Salt to taste

Directions: Brown ground beef in a frying pan with a little bit of oil over medium heat. Add seasonings. Open can of peas and carrots. Drain into a colander and rinse, then add to ground beef. Add wine, then lower heat to simmer. Prepare scalloped potatoes according to box. In casserole dish, add ground beef mixture, then add scalloped potato mixture. Cook in oven according to directions for scalloped potatoes.

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