a waffled tot

From a Pinterest post, I had a brief view of some tater tots being cooked in the waffle iron and immediately thought, "Yes! of course! why the hell not?" The photo being on Pinterest, there were no instructions and the link after link led to a dead end. It's okay, I'm able to figure out these things and I'm not afraid to experiment.
I happened to have a bag of frozen tater tots in my freezer. When I reached for my waffle iron, I realized I had not cleaned it after the Thanksgiving experiment. Oops! Boy am I glad for non-stick surfaces.
While the iron was heating up, I wondered if the tots needed to be frozen when I put them in or thawed out? I couldn't tell from the picture. Once I got the green light, I started placing frozen tots on the grates one at a time, close to each other like I saw in the picture. Then when one side was full, I closed the lid slowly. I heard the hissing and popping noises from the ice being assaulted. Finally, with the lid closed and locked, I wondered how long to wait. Two minutes seems to be a magical number, so I went with that. The hissing and popping subsided and I lifted the lid. The tots seemed to be browning okay, but the whole thing seemed watery, so I tilted the iron and drained the water onto a paper towel on the counter. I closed the lid and waited another minute. This time when I lifted the lid, I found browned tots that had been mashed into a crispy hash brown! I was able to lift the whole thing out with a fork and place it on a plate. I squirted ketchup on top and stuck in my fork. They were cooked all the way through and a little crunchy on the sides.
Now with a few tots semi-thawed, I placed those in the waffle iron and closed the lid. Not as much popping and hissing this time. When I lifted the lid, there was less water, but I still had to drain it a bit. These new tots tasted the same. So, placing frozen tots in the iron works well. You might not feel the need to drain the little drops of water, but I wanted to.
I give this one 4 squares. A good experiment and tasty!