Recipe: Potato-Tomato Casserole

Potato-Tomato Casserole
rec.food.recipes/Heidi/1993

I'm a fan of rebaked potatoes, or potatoes in any form, really, and came home last night wanting to eat some but not wanting to wait 1 1/2 hours for rebaking. And I had a fridge full of tomatoes, for some reason. So I did the following, which turned out really yummy.

6-7 good-sized potatoes
6-7 garlic cloves
2 smallish or 1 big onion
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
2 carrots
1 tablespoon oregano
salt (some) and pepper (more)
6-7 tomatoes
1 cup (or so) grated cheese, your choice

Chop up potatoes (don't need to peel) into 1 inch chunks, plop 'em in a pot, cover with water, and boil for 20-30 minutes.

In the meanwhile, chop or press garlic into skillet or saucepan, chop onions fairly smallish, add olive oil and fry until onions translucent (not too high heat or you'll burn your garlic)

Peel and chop carrots into slices, add to pan, stir-fry for a few/couple of minutes, add oregano

Chop up tomatoes into bite-size chunks, add to pan, cook until all is heated through and tomatoes are starting to lose their shape.

Drain potatoes, add to pan (which i now realize has to be a good-sized saucepan) and moosh everything around, creating a chunky/mashed mixture, can be very mashed if you like, or pretty chunky, if you like. i did chunky, and it was good.

Add 1/2 cup grated cheese to mixture, mix in.

Place mixture in right-sized baking dish (used a lasagne pan), top with remaining cheese and bake at 375 for 15 minutes or so, till cheese is melted and everything is nice and hot.

Feeds 3 fairly hungry adults with leftovers, or i would imagine up to 5 adults with a side dish, or up to 6 or 7 adults as a side dish. You could also do this with rebaked potatoes - instead of boiling, bake the potatoes, chop 'em in half, scoop out the insides, mix up with other ingredients as above and refill the jackets, then bake for another 20 or so minutes. A rebaked potato hint that has saved me much grief is to make a 1/4-inch incision around the potato where you will cut it in half before you bake it - the skin won't tear that way, and will pull back leaving you a nice chopping guide as it cooks.