Great basic recipe. I omit the half and half, but puree one of the cans of creamed corn so it is smooth. This makes the texture silky without adding all the fat. I also use packaged REAL bacon bits (from Costso) to save time and mess--just add the potatoes and onion to them in a pan and crisp up a bit. There is far less bacon fat this way and we dont notice a diference in the taste. That said, however, I do add about a cup of leftover diced chickn at the end of cooking and also about an ounce of grated cheddar on top. This makes it seem like more of a "real" meal to us. I have also used some smoked ham to punch up the flavor and ALWAYS use chicken stock rather than water.

Reviewed On: Nov. 3, 2009

Made these as per the recipe and they were great. Did cut back a tiny bit on the cherry juice and placed a half a pitted FRESH cherry on top of each square. If I had a nice pitter, I would use the whole cherry with stem for presentation. ALSO made the same recipe using the grated rind of one fresh orange in the "crust" Omitted the cherry juice and frosted with orange buttercream frosting and a dusting or cocoa powder insead of chocolate drizzle--this cut the overwhelming sweetness and got raves too.

Reviewed On: Aug. 13, 2009

For those of you afraid of ostrich--DON'T BE. It tastes like the best ground beef...beefier even. We love it at my house. I have to admit t hat I didnt start out telling my daughter it was ostrich--Just called it Bird and let her assume turkey the forst couple times. It makes a great, juicy and super lean burger. I didn't have any fajita seasoning, but my plan had been to make good ole SOS anyway. This was great. I did add a bit of garlic and extra fresh ground pepper. served on toast triangles. Will try againwith the fajita seasoning idea another time. Thanks for a new twist on ground bird.

Reviewed On: Jun. 28, 2009