Pork Potato Casserole

briellethefirst

Jun 24

What to have for dinner...? I've got potatoes I need to use! I stick 'em in the microwave and nuke them for about 5 minutes while I rummage through the fridge. Leftover roast pork. A smidgen of cottage cheese. Some spaghetti sauce leftover from making a pizza and some chopped olives. Well. I guess this, again, isn't so much a recipe as a set of directions on how to use stuff you have around to make other stuff. Yes, I'm being a bad influence again and of course you'll try this because who wants to follow a good influence? That's no fun. So what next?

Slice an onion (we always have onions!) and peel and slice the potatoes. Well, you don't have to peel the potatoes, but I needed something to feed the chickens so I did this time. I prepped 4 small spuds in the microwave but only needed 3 so the chickens got the extra. I cut it up and let it cool, first, of course.

Put some sauce in the bottom of a casserole. Layer 1/2 the onion on the bottom, then start laying the potato slices on the onion.

Some potato slices are nicer than others and they're hot, so be careful. Just use the little bits to fill in here and there.

Pour more spaghetti sauce on top

Cut up and spread a layer of pork on top of that. Since I haven't had tome to make tepenade out of the olives I'll toss them on, too.

Then spot on the remnants of the cottage cheese. Yes, if you happen to have ricotta you can use that. Or feta or any cheese that suits you. Yup, even provolone, but I forgot I had it so I didn't use it. Oh well.

Lay on the other 1/2 of sliced onion.

Pour on the last of the spaghetti sauce (I forgot to take a picture) and smother the whole thing in mozzarella.

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until everything's hot and melty. If you want the cheese to be brown around the edges (yum!) let it go a bit longer.

While you're waiting you can put together some good bread or garlic toast and a salad while also letting whatever nice red wine you have breathe. You can also cut up some strawberries to work down into their own sauce with sugar to spoon over cake or ice cream for dessert. I'd wait til after dinner to whip the cream, is is summer and we wouldn't want the whipped cream to collapse while waiting for dessert. You might also want to let it set a bit before you tuck into the piping hot casserole. Set it on a trivet, set the table and enjoy your salad before dishing it out. If you harvested your first bunch of grapes or basket of berries you can show off and put them on the take to nibble while waiting for the casserole to cool enough to serve. Any excuse for another story and pleasant conversation over dinner time!

If I'd had regular brown gravy I could have used that instead. Different flavour but nice. No mozzarella? Use cheddar or jack cheese or even Swiss, Gouda or blue. Need to use up leftover peas, carrots, spinach, broccoli or whatever? Layer those in, too. This is more about cleaning out the fridge, making do and using up leftovers. Yes, it'll taste different every time you make it but that's part of the adventure of cooking.

White table cloth and silver candlesticks? Sure, why not? Red check table cloth with a candle in a Chianti bottle? That's nice, too. TV trays in front of the TV and your favourite movie? Sure. It's your dinner, enjoy it however you want.

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