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edenfallingI mentioned a few days ago that I had some sour cream sitting around. Tonight I used it to make au gratin potatoes.
I find cooking unspeakably tedious, so any recipe that involves more than two steps is probably not going to happen in my kitchen. I am not interested in pre-cooking this and browning that and so on and so forth. I want to prep all the ingredients, mix them once, dump them into a dish, and be done with it. This particular recipe is slightly more complicated than that, but only barely.
Ingredients: 1 cup sour cream, 1 can condensed cream of celery soup, 4.5 cups peeled and shredded potatoes (this is roughly two Idaho potatoes, btw), 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese, 1/2 cup chopped green onions, 1 cup cornflakes, 1/2 cup unsalted butter.
Instructions: Preheat oven to 350F (175C). In a large bowl, stir together the sour cream and soup. Add the potatoes, cheese, and onion. Mix well, then pour into an 8-inch square baking dish. Cover the dish with a lid or aluminum foil. Bake for 45 minutes. Then, in a small bowl, melt the butter and mix in the cornflakes. Sprinkle over the top of the potatoes and return the dish, now uncovered, to the oven. Bake uncovered for another 20 minutes, or until the top is bubbly and the cornflakes are golden brown.
My thoughts: Okay, first of all I was not about to buy cornflakes just for this. That's silly. So I used crushed Ritz crackers instead. Secondly, shredding potatoes is ridiculous, so I just sliced them. (Also, I need to buy a potato peeler. Peeling potatoes with a knife is really annoying.) Thirdly, I used half a yellow onion instead of buying scallions, because I loathe scallions. Also I tossed in some cubed ham, because ham and cheesy potatoes, perfect together. Am I right? Of course I'm right.
You can't really subdivide this recipe, because a single can of Campbell's soup only comes in one size. You are going to end up with a LOT of au gratin potatoes. (The recipe is not kidding about needing to mix this stuff in a LARGE bowl.)
I don't have an 8-inch baking dish, so I used two smaller Corningware dishes. Actually, I'm not sure an 8-inch dish is really big enough either. If you have a 9-inch square dish, use that instead. Or maybe even a 9-by-13 dish. Whatever. Also, the baking times are too short if you're using sliced potatoes. They might work fine if you're genuinely willing to shred the things, but with sliced, I think an hour is best before you add the topping... unless you're using a larger dish, in which case everything will be more spread out and will therefore cook faster. Food. Why so complicated???
(Oh, side note: the recipe suggests coating the dish with vegetable cooking spray before filling it with the potatoes-and-whatever mix, but I had no trouble without it. YMMV depending on your type of baking dish.)
A half cup of butter is SERIOUS overkill for the topping. A quarter cup should be fine. As it is, I was draining stupid amounts of buttery-cheesy gloop out of the bottoms of the Corningware dishes after I'd dumped the potatoes into Tupperware for storage.
I think I might be able to turn this into even more of a hotdish/casserole by adding some broccoli into the mix -- extra vegetables are a good thing! -- but the helping I just had for a belated dinner tasted fine as-is. So all in all, I declare this experiment a success. :-)
I find cooking unspeakably tedious, so any recipe that involves more than two steps is probably not going to happen in my kitchen. I am not interested in pre-cooking this and browning that and so on and so forth. I want to prep all the ingredients, mix them once, dump them into a dish, and be done with it. This particular recipe is slightly more complicated than that, but only barely.
Ingredients: 1 cup sour cream, 1 can condensed cream of celery soup, 4.5 cups peeled and shredded potatoes (this is roughly two Idaho potatoes, btw), 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese, 1/2 cup chopped green onions, 1 cup cornflakes, 1/2 cup unsalted butter.
Instructions: Preheat oven to 350F (175C). In a large bowl, stir together the sour cream and soup. Add the potatoes, cheese, and onion. Mix well, then pour into an 8-inch square baking dish. Cover the dish with a lid or aluminum foil. Bake for 45 minutes. Then, in a small bowl, melt the butter and mix in the cornflakes. Sprinkle over the top of the potatoes and return the dish, now uncovered, to the oven. Bake uncovered for another 20 minutes, or until the top is bubbly and the cornflakes are golden brown.
My thoughts: Okay, first of all I was not about to buy cornflakes just for this. That's silly. So I used crushed Ritz crackers instead. Secondly, shredding potatoes is ridiculous, so I just sliced them. (Also, I need to buy a potato peeler. Peeling potatoes with a knife is really annoying.) Thirdly, I used half a yellow onion instead of buying scallions, because I loathe scallions. Also I tossed in some cubed ham, because ham and cheesy potatoes, perfect together. Am I right? Of course I'm right.
You can't really subdivide this recipe, because a single can of Campbell's soup only comes in one size. You are going to end up with a LOT of au gratin potatoes. (The recipe is not kidding about needing to mix this stuff in a LARGE bowl.)
I don't have an 8-inch baking dish, so I used two smaller Corningware dishes. Actually, I'm not sure an 8-inch dish is really big enough either. If you have a 9-inch square dish, use that instead. Or maybe even a 9-by-13 dish. Whatever. Also, the baking times are too short if you're using sliced potatoes. They might work fine if you're genuinely willing to shred the things, but with sliced, I think an hour is best before you add the topping... unless you're using a larger dish, in which case everything will be more spread out and will therefore cook faster. Food. Why so complicated???
(Oh, side note: the recipe suggests coating the dish with vegetable cooking spray before filling it with the potatoes-and-whatever mix, but I had no trouble without it. YMMV depending on your type of baking dish.)
A half cup of butter is SERIOUS overkill for the topping. A quarter cup should be fine. As it is, I was draining stupid amounts of buttery-cheesy gloop out of the bottoms of the Corningware dishes after I'd dumped the potatoes into Tupperware for storage.
I think I might be able to turn this into even more of a hotdish/casserole by adding some broccoli into the mix -- extra vegetables are a good thing! -- but the helping I just had for a belated dinner tasted fine as-is. So all in all, I declare this experiment a success. :-)
