A couple weeks ago, I was trying to figure out what to make for a family birthday dinner. I decided that I wanted to try making a “Minnesota Hot Dish” in honor of the brave people of Minneapolis who stood up to ICE in the coldest weather imaginable for weeks on end. I have never been to Minnesota, but I was intrigued by their hot dish recipes that Tim Walz, Amy Klobuchar and others were always talking about during the last election cycle.

Being a typical East Coast liberal, I went straight to The New York Times to find a recipe and this one sounded good: Tater Tot Casserole. Everyone liked it. There were no leftovers. I forgot to take a picture, but it looked identical to the photo in the recipe.

As some of the recipe commenters noted, the point of a Minnesota Hot Dish is to make something delicious, filling and easy. (That’s why a can of condensed soup is a typical ingredient.) Commenters said that only the NYT could find a way to make it hard. BUT it really wasn’t that hard. In the NYT version, you basically make your own condensed soup, which took a bit of doing, but I really liked that it didn’t come out too salty. It tasted very good. (I didn’t add any of the optional salt listed because I used 4-5 of those little beef bouillon granulated packets for the base and I was already worried they would make it too salty.)

For dessert, my husband requested a double layer chocolate cake. And, since it’s the Year of the Knee, I felt bad for him and decided to make one from scratch. Again, I went to the NYT and attempted the richest, most chocolaty, most decadent birthday cake imaginable. This, I would NOT make again. Too hard! And waaaay too much butter. There are five sticks of butter in this thing (two in the cake and three in the frosting), plus tons of cacao and melted dark chocolate. I mean, it was very good, but it was a lot.

Here’s the recipe, in case you are a true chocoholic. And yes, I did serve it with vanilla ice cream, because what is even the point if you skip the ice cream?