Cheesy Chili Hashbrown Bake

Recipe: http://www.publicradio.org/columns/prairiehome/sundberg/2013/01/17.shtml


Well! 5 stars for a great, comforting, cold night dish that warmed not only me, but my next door neighbors up nicely last night! That was amazing! My Mr. is on work travel, so I took the easy way out, and got chili from the deli at my local supermarket and a bag of hashbrowns from the refrigerator section. If I had made it from scratch, I would have had a LOT of chili, so I opted for ready made, to test out the deli version, and I have to say, it was wonderful. Probably way too much sodium, but I will be making this again with my own chili recipe.

This is it before baking. I added more potatoes and cheese than the recipe called for, but I come from the Land of More, and more cheese and potatoes in a dish is the way to go....and I'm not sorry I did that here!

It baked up all crispy around the edges with the chili bubbling up through the topping, and that potato and cheese topping was so good. I kind of stirred it together a little in the bowl, but really liked having more chili in one bite, and more potato/cheese in the next. So dragging my spoon around the bowl gave me the different combinations. This was SO good. And SO easy. I added parsley because I didn't have cilantro, and I added a sweet southwest mesquite seasoning. I also gave the top a dusting of chipotle chili powder before baking. I made mexican cornbread to go with, and there were three happy faces at Julia's house, along with mine at home.

Thank you, Mrs. Sundberg.  :-)