Saturday Supper - Cheese, Potato and Egg Bake

Afternoon Everyone ...

... from a very wet, windy and cold part of the UK! So no Saturday Saunter round the garden today ... it's just too nasty out there! I don't know about you but when the temperature drops I turn to comfort food to warm me up. And this is a dish that does the job for me.

This recipe is based on the vegetarian dishes my mother made for us when we were young. WWII was well over by the time I was born (1947) but a lot of food was still on ration, or just plain scarce, so dishes where the main ingredient was potatoes were a staple. My mother was a whizz at dressing our veggies up with tasty sauces, cheese being our favourite, that had us clamouring for more.

Cheese, Potato and Egg Bake

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 medium onions – peeled and sliced 
• 1½ (680gm) new potatoes – washed and sliced 
• 4 eggs, hard boiled, shelled and quartered 
• 1 pint cheese sauce already prepared 
• ½ cup of chopped parsley
• a small bunch of chives, chopped
• 2oz Grated cheese 
• Salt & pepper to taste 
• A large buttered ovenproof dish 

This is what the bake looks like before the oven works its magic and gives the dish a lovely golden topping. 

Directions:

• Set oven to moderately hot temperature (190°C in electric fan-assisted oven) 
• Lightly butter the ovenproof dish 
• Layer potato slices and onion– finish with a layer of potato slices, adding salt & pepper to taste over each layer. 
• Add the egg quarters, pushing them down into the layers of onion and potato 
• Stir the chopped parsley and half the chopped chives into the cheese sauce - reserve the other half for later
• Pour prepared cheese sauce over the layers, making sure to cover everything as evenly as possible
• Place in oven and cook for about 45 minutes - check regularly as all ovens are different, some will cook faster than others. 
• Remove dish from oven and sprinkle the grated cheese over the top and return to oven for a further 15 minutes, or until melted and browned 
• Remove dish from oven and check with skewer to ensure potato is thoroughly cooked through
• Sprinkle the remainder of the chopped chives over the top of the dish before serving

The finished dish served with some chard I grew in my herb bed - it's been wilted in butter - delicious :) The parsley and chives used were home grown too. You might like to try baking some vine tomatoes, sprinkled with olive oil, salt and chopped mixed herbs, to serve up with it too ... just put them in the oven for the last 20 minutes or so of cooking. 

The recipe is enough to feed four hungry people. For two Senior Citizens, who now have very much smaller appetites than they once did, it makes two meals. The dish I used to bake it in comes with a plastic lid, very useful for covering and storing the leftovers in the fridge.

I make the cheese sauce from scratch, using butter, flour, milk and a strong flavoured cheese, grated, because I can regulate both the consistency and how cheesy it tastes ... we like it very cheesy ... but for those of you pressed for time there's no reason why it can't be substituted with a pre-made cheese sauce. If necessary, a bit more grated cheese can be added to improve the flavour. 

As always, these recipes take longer to write up than to make. I hope you will give this one a try and enjoy.

Happy Cooking!