Ah yes, the hot dish. The one thing that could be the saving grace of any college student.

Hot dish mainly consists of three things: ground beef, elbow macaroni, and tomato sauce. Beyond that, you can add anything you want to flavor it more to your taste. My momma always put corn and onions in hers, and then I would normally sneak in a little garlic.

Preperation:

1lb. ground beef
1 box elbow macaroni
1 can tomato sauce (size of can depends on how thick or thin you like your hot dish)
Any other assorted ingredients you wish

First, brown your pound of beef. Be sure to get it nice and separated so it spreads out evenly in the mixture. Next, cook your macaroni. Get it nice and tender. Then, add the ground beef and macaroni to the tomato sauce in a microwaveable casserole dish. Then, add whatever extra ingredients you desire. Microwave until piping hot. Immediately refrigerate leftovers. But be careful! When hot dish goes bad, it really goes bad. Feeds a single person one meal a day for a week.

I was raised on the hot dish. It's truly the tool the lazy person uses to feed themselves. We always liked to spice it up with some garlic bread or maybe pasta salad.

Here's how I like to make my hotdish.

Take 1/4-1/2 lb hamburger (depending on your current state of hunger)

1 box of macaroni and cheese (or a similar amount of elbow macaroni)

1 can of tomato SOUP. Tomato sauce tastes wierd, and paste tastes like crap. I must stress the soup part.

1/4-1/2 can of corn. More if you like corn, I suppose.

Brown the hamburger. Add some chili powder, pepper, salt, and garlic as the grease first makes it's appearance but the hamburger is not quite done. Now add some tabasco sauce. Really add some. Save the grease, that's flavor!

Cook the macaroni, and set aside untill the hamburger is ready (with a little practice they should be ready at the same time).

Open a can of tomato soup, and pour the oddly thick tomato product into your macaroni pot (there's still macaroni in it, remember?).

Add beef.

Add corn. Add synthetic cheese flavoring from the macaroni pouch if desired. That makes it real good.

Stirrr.

Enough macaroni hotdish to keep your stomach full all day, and then some if you're hungry later.

A few notes:

Tabasco sauce really really helps this. It can't be too hot, because you should eat it with milk anyway. Milk's good for you.

Make sure you use a big enough kettle to accomodate a can of soup, some corn, and the macaroni/beef mixture. If it ALMOST fits, you get a huge mess.

If you don't like doing dishes, this can be made in bulk as previously mentioned. It can be a pain in the ass to clean up afterwards. It always tastes wierd when reheated though, it makes it too dry.

Do not give this to a dog, unless you like to clean up "surprises". Cats are naturally repelled.

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