Sausage & Potato Bake

If you are a reader of Today's Parent magazine, you may recognize this recipe. It's one of the 'Dinner's in the Oven' recipes from the current issue (April 2010). I was really excited about this because I am living in a city now where I can easily find turkey sausage (traditional pork sausage does not agree with me at all) so I knew I could adapt the sausage and be able to eat it. Here's the recipe...then read on to see what happened.

1 tsp veg oil
1 lb raw Italian-style sausages (I subbed turkey sausage here)
1 3/4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 jar (about 200 ml) alfredo pasta sauce
1 tsp dried parsley
2 lb waxy-potatoes, washed (I really don't know what waxy potatoes are, I just used white potatoes)
1 small onion, peeled

Preheat oven to 375*. Heat oil in a deep 12 inch ovenproof frying pan (medium heat). Lightly brown sausages (6 minutes) - set sausages aside onto a plate, drain excess grease from pan. Add broth, alfredo sauce and parseley to pan. Whisk to blend. Bring to a simmer, remove from heat and set aside. Slice potatoes & onions thinly. Spread evenly in pan, nestling into broth mixture. Transfer to oven, bake for 40 minutes, add sausage, bake for 20 more minutes (check sausages are cooked through). Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

*I did all as asked and my recipe turned out nothing like the picture. The potatoes were still crunchy and the broth was really thin, not at all creamy so here's how I saved it. I took the sausages off and set them aside on a plate. I then melted 1/4 cup margarine in a cooking pot, added 1/4 cup flour and blended to a paste, I then drained off the liquid broth mixture from the potatoes and added to the cooking pot. I whisked it all together and brought to a boil. This thickened everything up nicely. I poured it back over the potatoes, turned the oven heat up to 350* and baked it all for another half hour. It worked and was pretty yummy. I think if I were to make this again, I would add a flour mixture to begin with to be thicker to start. I would also up the cooking time to let the potatoes cook really well. The flavor was nice.

Scalloped Potatoes

Shortly after we were first married, my husband went away on a college work trip to the Mirimichi. He came home with this recipe. He swore it was for the best scalloped potatoes he'd ever had. I tried the recipe and sure enough they really were the best scalloped potatoes I'd ever had too.
*Just as a side note of cultural interest, I call these scalloped potatoes. I'm originally from the western part of Canada. My Maritime friends who are true New Brunswickers call these potatoes scallop. I don't know why.

1/4 cup margarine
1/4 cup flour
1 14 oz can chicken broth (Campbell's Herb and Garlic is what was recommended to us)
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/8 tsp pepper
5 large potatoes, peeled and sliced
1 med. onion, finely chopped
8 oz Monterey Jack Cheese, shredded (can use light)
paprika

Melt margarine in saucepan. Add flour; blend well. Add broth, mayonnaise and pepper. Cook over medium heat until thick and bubbly. Remove from heat. Alternate layers of potatoes, onions and cheese in a 9x13 baking dish. Pour sauce over top. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 350* for 1 1/2 hours or until golden brown.

Twice-Baked Potatoes

I apologize for the terrible picture, trust me the food tastes much better than it looks! I first saw these done on Emeril years ago (at least 10). It was one of those "I saw him make it that day, I made it that night" recipes. I don't even know how true it is to the original anymore, but I really enjoy them. Just give yourself the time to make it.

Baking Potatoes
your favorite baked potato toppings (these ones were fairly plain, just butter, sour cream and cheese - you can also use chives, bacon bits or whatever you like)

Step 1 - scrub your potatoes clean and bake at 350* for close to an hour
Step 2 - Slice a little top off the potato lengthwise (save the top!)
Step 3 - Be really careful with this part! - scoop most of the potato out of the shell (I've broken the shell doing this, try not to do that :o)-one of the reasons the picture looks so wobbly!) - put all the potato filling into a medium bowl. Add your favorite potato toppings and mash everything together.
Step 4 - Stuff the shells with the potato mixture (you will have more mixture than will fit into the shells)
Step 5 - Set the Potatoes onto a baking sheet (or dish), cover with the little tops you set aside earlier - bake for another 15-20 minutes
Enjoy!

Pierogy Lasagna with fried peperoni

This was something I had once at a potluck and always wondered about. I love pierogies. For those of you who don't know what they are, (and there are those of you out there, I know), they are a kind of dough filled dumpling, usually filled with a potato mixture. They can be boiled, and fried, sometimes baked too. You can find pierogies pretty easily in the potato section of your freezer section at your grocery store.
A pierogy lasagna has a similar idea, getting the flavour of the potato filling, but using lasagna noodles for the dumpling dough part. I didn't have a recipe to do this, so I made one up.

12 lasagna noodles, boiled as per box directions(this was the first time in a long time that I'd bought regular lasagna noodles instead of whole wheat - I didn't think whole wheat would give it that pierogy taste I was going for)
8-10 potatoes, peeled, cut into chunks and boiled until soft
1 tbsp margarine
1 onion, diced
1 cup cheese (I used swiss in the filling, but any hard cheese would work)
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup cheese (I used cheddar for the topping) - grated

Pre-heat oven to 350*. Drain the boiled potatoes. Add margarine and mash thoughroughly. Add onion and grate the 1st cheese into the mixture. Mix well, so cheese melts in. Add salt and pepper and mix again.
Grease a lasagna pan with oil or margarine. Layer 1st layer with 4 noodles. Spread half the potato mixture over top. Layer next 4 noodles. Spread rest of potato mixture on. Layer last 4 noodles, grate cheese on top. Bake for about half an hour. Serve with sour cream.

Fried Peperoni

Cut a peperoni stick into medallions. Add a little bit of cooking oil to a frying pan (just a tsp really). Swish oil around to grease pan. Cook peperoni over low-medium heat, browning both sides.

Greek Potatoes

I had a really good Greek potato recipe a while back, but I couldn't find it. I found this one online today to add to our meal.