Bacon-Wrapped Cheese-Stuffed Tater Tots

I got this recipe out of my campus newspaper. Obviously I was attracted to absolutely everything about this recipe - bacon and cheese together? How could I not attempt to make this?

Stuff you should obtain:
24 Tater tots
12 strips of bacon
Cheddar cheese
Toothpicks

Notes about ingredients: The recipe gives exact numbers, but what happened was I just used up all of the bacon in the pack, which was 15 pieces I think. You will have tater tots left over.

What you should do:
1) Preheat the oven!
Whaddaya know, I actually managed to remember this time! 450 degrees, do it! Also, spray a baking sheet with Pam, although that didn't really help me in the end. And make sure the baking sheet has sides! This became apparent to me after I took the tots out of the oven. But more about that later.

2) Prepare the tater tots!
You're supposed to cut a slit into partially defrosted tater tots and put a "chunk" of cheddar cheese inside. I put the bag of tater tots in the fridge to defrost, but that didn't really help until the tater tots had been left out for a good 10 minutes. So for the first few, I was hacking into the tater tot and ended up slicing them in half. As for the "chunk"s of cheese, I just grabbed some shredded cheese and shoved it in the slit, or between the tater tot halves. Shredded cheese got everywhere, so there was also cheese on top of the tater tot as well.

3) Prepare the bacon!
Take the strip of bacon and slice it in half. Take the half of bacon and wrap it around the stuffed tater tot. Stab a toothpick through it and place on the baking sheet.

4) Cook the deliciousness!
Place the baking sheet in the oven for 15 minutes or until the bacon is crispy. For me, this was until the bacon was crispy, which was probably more like 20-25 minutes than 15.

5) Take out the tater tots!
Remember when I told you to make sure the baking sheet had sides to it? Well, if it doesn't, the grease from the bacon will begin to drip off the sides of the sheet onto the bottom of the oven. This will then cause smoke, which will then cause the smoke alarm to go off, which will then cause your apartment to smoke up and smell like bacon grease for the next three days. Then you'll need your friend with ninja skills to get the pan out of the oven without smoking up your apartment more and in the process he'll drip grease all over your kitchen and you'll end up serving the tater tots over your sink. So, yeah, make sure that doesn't happen.

6) Eat!
If you like bacon and cheese, you will like this recipe. If you don't like bacon and cheese, you'll still like this recipe, or at least that's what my bacon-hating friend told me.

Leftover Capability:
There were some tater tots leftover from the party, but I don't think this recipe will reheat very well. So no leftovers for you!

But What About My Money?:

Baon	$3.99
Bag of tater tots	$2.59
Shredded cheese	$2.50
Total:	$9.08

This recipe made about 30 bacon-wrapped cheese-stuffed tater tots, so it comes out to about $0.30 per tot. Maybe not the cheapest thing, but definitely worth it for a cool party food.

Final Grade: A-
This recipe loses points for being really messy to create and for making my apartment smell like bacon grease for days. But it does make a delicious party snack and will earn you lots of points with your bacon loving friends.