Sloppy Joe Tater-Tot Casserole

This is the casserole that says "I have other things going on tonight." You brown a pound of ground meat, add tomato sauce and a few spices to fake a from-scratch sloppy joe filling, top the whole thing with frozen tater tots, slide the skillet into the oven for 25 minutes, and walk away. It comes out in one pan, golden on top, with the tots arranged like little crisp pebbles over a stew of sloppy joe filling that's been thickening underneath.

It's not air-fried (the only one in this set that isn't) — the tots brown best in the oven where the heat is more even and the filling underneath doesn't dry out. But it's the spiritual cousin of the air- fried potato recipes, in that the tots come out shatteringly crisp from having sat over the bubbling-meat moisture for the whole bake.

The photo shows the finished skillet: tater tots arranged in a tight circle, deeply browned at the tips, scattered with sliced scallions for green flecks. A bottle of hot sauce (Cholula, in this case) sits next to the pan because that's how this gets eaten — you spoon out a portion into a bowl, hit it with hot sauce, eat it standing up. It's not refined. That's not what this is for.