Our family is dividing the holiday feast this year between turkey - and everything else. Since my mom does a wicked turkey, we are doing... everything else ha!
She said to me, let's not do mashed potatoes. My first thought was *Gasp! But okay, scalloped potatoes it is.
I always think of them as a difficult dish, time consuming and overall pain in the ass. But I found this recipe strategy in a great cookbook 'Canel House: Cook Something' by Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer. I used this concept, with our own spin on it.
It felt easy and achievable, but still time consuming.- you'll want to plan ahead a little. Low and slow here, and it didn't disappoint.
We incorporated our Sunshine Blend; full of earthy turmeric and subtle hints of lemongrass and apple cider vinegar. It's a powerhouse of blend that's both light and complex. Yes, it was perfect.
We used gruyere cheese to seal the deal for the cheesy, gooey factor - highly recommend. Topped off with a little green onion to bring on some colour for ultimate presentation.
2 lbs russet potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/4 inch rounds
1.5 cups whole milk
1.5 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons Sunshine blend
salt
2 cups gruyere cheese, shredded
Optional: green onions, diced up
Directions
Preheat the oven to 275 F
In a 10" cast iron, or other oven safe pan, start layering the potato slices, overlapping them a bit as you go. Lightly sprinkle some salt on each layer - you should get about 2 layers.
In a bowl, mix together the milk, cream and 1 1/2 tablespoons of sunshine blend. Pour over top of the potatoes.
Bake in the preheated oven, uncovered, for 1 hour. Pull it out, it should start looking like it's starting to set, perfect time to sprinkle the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of Sunshine Blend evenly over top. Add it back to the oven, uncovered, for the last hour. It should be nice and browned by then and beautifully set.
It will taste delicious just like this, but we took a step further and added the shredded gruyere cheese and diced green onions on top.
So turn on your broiler now and put the potatoes back in the oven just until the cheese is melted and delicious (set a timer because you know you'll walk away for too long and get totally distracted, try 2-3 minutes at first)
Allow to rest for 10 minutes before serving, it will help everything set a bit better.
