Hot Beef Sundaes

Is it cold where you are?  I’ve got just the thing for you!  Hot beef sundaes are as quintessential to Iowa as cheesesteaks are to Philly or avocado toast is to Cali.  They are the ultimate comfort food and are served every year at the Iowa State Fair (don’t ask me why hot mashed potatoes and shredded beef with gravy are served in the middle of the August heat in Iowa), but I can never resist a bowl when I go to the fair.

I have to credit my mom with recreating these at home-a much-beloved treat when she makes it-so I made her walk me through how she makes it so I could write a recipe.  The best part of this dish-it’s meant to look like a (savory) ice cream sundae.  Essentially, you want to make the most creamy mashed potatoes you can (like these Ultra-Creamy Mashed Potatoes), layer on the most tender, flavorful shredded beef with a rich beefy gravy, a spoonful of sour cream, shredded cheese, chives and a cherry tomato on top.  Having a hard time relating this to your favorite ice cream sundae?  I’ll walk you through it…the mashed potatoes (ice cream), the beef with gravy (hot fudge sauce), sour cream (whipped cream), cheese and chives (multi-colored sprinkles), and cherry tomato on top (obviously the cherry on top!).  Whoever created this is the Willy Wonka of the savory comfort food world…I love how cheeky it is.

This hasn’t been a great week for me (hence my extended absence from posting…so sorry!), and this is the kind of food that feeds my soul.  And OMG, I haven’t told you that I keep discovering that I inadvertently deleted a bunch of pretty good, ready-to-use food photos from my computer when I was making storage space.  AHHHH! I thought I had lost these pictures, but a miracle happened and I found these in an old version of the photo editing software on my computer.  But alas, after scouring every possible place where the rest of the photos may exist, I did not find any of the other missing ones.  I will mark this as a small-and tasty-win for me (and you!).Go ahead, make this for yourself.  Your future self (like 3 hours from now) will thank you!  Oh and leftovers are pretty solid too, so you’ll keep yourself in the comfort-food zone for a few days.  Oh and oh-this will most definitely feed a family too-if you have that sort of thing!

[tasty-recipe id=”34339″]