Cheesy Tator Tot Casserole

Some things never get old.  Like Dolly Parton and tator tot casserole.  Who didn't get excited as a kid to find out that  tator tot casserole was on the dinner menu?  It's just a classic.  I bought a bag of tator tots a while ago because they were on sale, and I can't resist a good sale.  I decided that it would be way more awesome to make tator tot casserole than to just have plain old tator tots.

Unfortunately, I hadn't made tator tot casserole in years.  And by years, I mean not since my college days with my old roomie Stefanie.  Stefanie made a mean tator tot casserole (and her and her husband just had their first baby two days ago, so congratulations!!!).  I remembered the basics of tator tot casserole.  It is pretty simple, after all.  But I wasn't feeling overly confident in my ability to recreate Stefanie's yummy version which I had loved so much.  

So I went to my old-school cookbooks thinking that somewhere in those pages of good old comfort food and casserole recipes I was bound to find at least one tried-and-true tator tot casserole recipe.  I was wrong.  In all my cookbooks, I didn't have one tator tot casserole recipe.  I guess all those church ladies and farmer's wives assumed that anyone with a brain in their skull and an oven in their kitchen just knew how to make tator tot casserole.  The good news is that thanks to a little invention called the internet, I knew I could scrounge up a tasty recipe in no time.  So I got to searching.