Putting the "fun" in funeral

Here it is! I'm finally posting the recipe for my Ward famous funeral potatoes.
It might seem strange of me to put this recipe here since practically everyone that lives in Utah knows how to make these, but my sister who lives in a different state has told me that she knows tons of people that have never even heard of funeral potatoes!
Can you believe that? They have never heard of funeral potatoes.
It's really quite sad when you think about it.

I like to think that my recipe is just a little bit better than everyone else's. I'm not sure why, because I think that for the most part the ingredients are the same, but for some reason mine is just better. It's probably because I make them with love.
Whenever we have a Ward pot-Luck, and I sit my potatoes next to the other 16 casserole dishes with funeral potatoes, mine always look the best, and are the first ones to be eaten.
When anyone tells me how wonderful my potatoes are, I act very gracious and say that mine aren't really that good, there are plenty of other potatoes that are so much yummier, because humility is one of my best qualities. (but we all know which potatoes are superior)

To start, take a 2 lb bag of frozen hash brown potatoes and thaw them in the microwave.
Next, open 2 cans of cream of chicken soup. You don't have to use cream of chicken, cream of pretty much anything will work. For this batch, I used 1 can of cream of mushroom and one can of cream of celery, and it was yummy!

I just want to take this opportunity to tell you how much I don't like the easy open tabs on the top of the soup cans. It makes it much too easy for a small child to go in to the pantry and pull the tab up on about a dozen cans, and not have me notice for several days so we need to throw away all of the cans because the soup has gone bad. We got one of those fun plastic doorknobs on the pantry door now too.

Mix the two cans of cream of whatever soup with one pint of sour cream. Be sure to rinse out the sour cream container and save it. There are so many things that these can be used for! I like to keep a stash in the back of the van for when we have some sort of ward dinner, and there's food left over. I get those empty containers out of the back of the car, and we fill them up with food and send them home with everyone. I can't tell you how many craft projects we've made with empty sour cream containers. Their uses are endless!

My recipe calls for one cube of melted butter or margerine. Several years ago, we had a nutritionist come and talk to us for Enrichment meeting and she told us that the only reason to add the butter or margerine was to add more fat to the potatoes, and we probably didn't want to do that. I haven't used the butter in the potatoes since then, and I haven't really noticed a difference. If you really want to use the butter, go ahead. It will just make your hind quarters larger.

Next, add 1/2 teaspoon salt and 2 Tablespoons of dried onion. Sometimes, I just use onion powder instead, but not 2 Tablespoons of onion powder, more like 1/2 teaspoon.
If I'm making these the same night as a combined activity for Mutual, I might sometimes add just a little extra onion powder to the potatoes. No need for the girls in the ward to get too close to my boys now is there?

Next you add 2 cups of grated cheddar cheese, and mix well. Sometimes I use a bit more.
Stir in the hash brown potatoes and put them in a 9x13 pan. Be sure that your name is on the pan if you're taking it somewhere. I really hate it when I take a pan of potatoes somewhere and when I get the pan back, its not mine. I really don't understand how this happens because I have "L Pearson" written in large letters with a sharpie on every casserole dish that I own.
Now the very last thing you do is to put a heavy layer of corn flakes over the top of the potatoes. The recipe says this is optional, but it really isn't. Don't skimp, use plenty, this is what makes them good.

Now bake them in a 350* oven until hot and bubbly. I think about 20-30 minutes. I just watch them until they look right.

When they are done baking, they should look like this.




Yummy! Yummy! Yummy!

I got a phone call while I was trying to write this recipe. It was the Ward Executive secretary brother Peterson, asking if I could meet with Bishop Christiansen after church this Sunday. I wonder what he wants to talk to me about. I hope it doesn't have anything to do with that song that the Sunbeams were singing in their class last Sunday. Honestly, I wonder where these little kids learn songs with inappropriate lyrics like that. They probably have cable television in their home. Oh well, at least by the time I meet with the Bishop, the Primary program will be over.

Tonight, is the Father's and son's campout! LaMar is taking the 7 older boys and I'm staying home with Mosiah and Alma. I will put them to bed early then do something by myself. I invited Sariah to come over so we could do some scrapbooking together, but she has a date.

I think I'll make myself a batch of brownies. This is the first pregnancy since I was pregnant with Sariah that I have craved chocolate this much! With most of the boys gone tonight, I might be able to eat as many as I like.