Sue's Cheesy Potatoes

(Note: the recipe below is for a 9 x 13 pan but this photo is 9 x 9 so I used a little less  half and half and potatoes)

36-40 ounces frozen shredded hash browns (I’ll explain about this at the bottom)

1 stick salted butter

1 quart half and half

¼ cup Kraft parmesan cheese

Salt

Pepper

In a large sauce pan combine the butter, hash browns and half and half. Cook over medium heat until butter is all melted. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour into a 9 x 13 baking dish and top with the parmesan cheese.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour depending on how accurate your oven temperature is.

The final result should be golden brown and bubbly on the top and the potatoes should be semi firmly set. Not soup but not concrete either. If they are not set, consider covering the top with foil to prevent further browning while baking a little longer to firm things up.

The casserole  can be mostly made ahead and stored in the fridge (follow steps up until the addition of the cheese) but you have to add an extra hour to the baking time if everything is cold.

A word about shredded hash browns.

When I got this recipe it was for those shredded hash brown patties that Ore-Ida used to sell. And the recipe was calibrated for those specific hash browns.

Of course, those patties have been discontinued  and there are no patties on the current market quite like them.

( (here is what they looked like)

For one thing, despite the image on the box, the patties inside were completely unfried and pale and the potato shreds were really big and when you thawed them you could take them apart. Which is what made the recipe work.

Current, dense, prebrowned patties do not, I repeat, DO NOT work at all.

The closest thing I have found to use is a bag of shredded hash browns. The cheaper the better.

And, to get the casserole to “set”, you have to be sure to have enough potatoes to absorb the liquid so as to not just get potato soup."

Hence the 36-40 ounce suggestion. You might even need more than that. The best thing is to get all the non-potato ingredients into the pot and then add hash browns until the saucepan is so full you literally cannot fit in one more shred.

Comments

[Jane H Heide]

Anne, thanks for sharing the potato casserole recipe but I also would like the recipe for the Belgian truffle cake pictured in your most recent blog post. Looks scrumptious.