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By LEE SVITAK DEAN

McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

MINNEAPOLIS--Would you trade your haute dish for a taste of Beef Chow Mein Hot Dish?

Ann Burckhardt is counting on it. She is the author of the new "Hot Dish Heaven," a collection of classic casseroles from Midwestern kitchens.

In this day of takeout, many cooks have forgotten the inexpensive standbys of dinners past, the fare that kept families blissfully content without too much effort from the one in charge of the kitchen. This was a time when mealtime didn't come with a menu. It was simply dinner, the only option being whether to eat it--or to go hungry.

Burckhardt, 73, a former Minneapolis Star Tribune Taste editor, remembers those meals fondly. Whether for a potluck at church, a ladies' lunch with the neighbors or an after-funeral meal, a hot dish was always appropriate--and, for that matter, always welcome.

It's a good thing there were so many recipes, what with all the reasons there were to get together. Among the standard options: scalloped potatoes with ham, corn casserole, Reuben bake, ham-and-broccoli bake, tamale pie, sweet potato casserole, turkey tetrazzini, macaroni and cheese and, of course, Tater Tot hot dish. Each was notable for a simplicity of flavors.

Even the names evoked that mind-set, the list of ingredients including not much more than what was in the name of the recipe, often bound with condensed cream-of (fill in the blank) soup.

Burckhardt offers 70 of those recipes in "Hot Dish Heaven," along with one for cream sauce, an item that any self-respecting cook of the '50s would have known by memory. But we need those reminders today, some of us too many years from home-ec class--and others wondering, "What is home ec?"

The book, in its second printing, has struck a chord with cooks nationwide, helped along by a favorable review in The New York Times that enabled national distribution.

"I'm thrilled to death," said Burckhardt, who lives in Burnsville, Minn. "The idea of going back to what they loved in the '50s and '60s appeals to a lot of people, and not just people who remember it, but younger people, too"--like a young friend of hers who, prompted by the book, asked for casserole dishes for Christmas.

What's the benefit?

The advantage of hot dish is about as basic as the ingredients: It's easy and tastes good.

But is it healthful? Well, says Burckhardt, anything with creamed soup is not totally healthful, as it automatically is high in salt. But, she notes, a hot dish isn't everyday fare these days, either. Back in its heyday, no one worried about fat grams and sodium content.

To make the dishes as healthful as possible for today's dinners, she put in as many vegetables as she could.

"I started with an old favorite, then doubled the vegetables," she said. Ditto for the fruit in the fruit desserts that are part of the collection. And she tried to steer clear of cream-of-whatever soup as much as possible, substituting egg or cheese mixtures or cottage cheese to serve as binders.

"If you are totally hipped on healthy, you have to do stir-fry and steamed vegetables and no starch and no cheese," she said.

But where's the comfort in that? And that's really what we're talking about.

Burckhardt knows comfort food. She was a cookbook editor and recipe developer at General Mills from 1956 to 1963--prime hot dish days. She later freelanced recipes for food companies such as Creamette.

"I have files and files and files of recipes," she said. "They are oldies but goodies, some of them quite old." That includes the recipe for kugel, which she got from comedian Al Franken's mother back in 1956. Or the '60s standard hot dish recipe made of cream soup, milk, dry macaroni and any kind of meat. The pasta soaked in the milk overnight. "The pasta doesn't get as nice that way; it gets a little gluey," she said. Nonetheless, that recipe made the rounds for years.

Her own favorite hot dish is harder to determine, partly because she's made many of them so often.

Burckhardt ran a bed-and-breakfast in St. Peter, Minn., for eight years, and many of the morning-style hot dishes made their way onto the menu, such as the hash-brown quiche (made every Sunday for eight years; bridal couples were served it in individual casseroles); a cheese-rich oven omelet (Saturday morning breakfasts at the B&B, zillions of times); and new-fashioned fruit crisp, a B&B dessert in wintertime (all these are in her book).

You get the drift. These are recipes she's prepared for years. And that's what's most comforting about the book, especially if you have a potluck to go to.

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