Potato Lasagna

I am always looking ways to work on side dishes, especially potatoes and other starches. Here is one I haven't made in a while, but I am thinking of doing it for Thanksgiving. Actually since my wife has another project for Turkeyday morning, I get to do the whole dinner!

Ingredients

• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled ·
• 2 large Idaho baking potatoes, peeled ·
• 2 large red skinned potatoes, skin on ·
• 1/2 cup olive oil, in a bottle, for drizzling. or to taste ·
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped garlic ·
• 1 cup grated Cheddar cheese (preferably yellow) ·
• 1 cup shredded Mozzarella ·
• Salt and black pepper
  

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
   
2. Oil bottom of an 8x10-inch baking dish.
   
3. Using a vegetable slicer or very sharp knife, slice sweet potatoes as thin as possible.
   
4. Slice baking and red skin potatoes as you need them, to prevent browning.
   
5. Cover bottom of dish with a layer of Idaho potato slices, slightly overlapping.
   
6. Drizzle with oil, sprinkle with garlic and cheeses and season with salt and pepper.
   
7. Top with sweet potatoes, then red skin potatoes, seasoning and sprinkling each layer.
   
8. Continue layers until all potatoes are used up, reserving enough cheese to fully cover top layer.
   
9. Cover with foil and bake until potatoes are fork tender. Remove and let sit before cutting.

I can't remember where I got this recipe, looks like something from the Food Network for some reason. In any event I plan on building it the night before so I'll let you know how it turns out.

Sweet Potato Pudding

Planning a carry-in? How would you like something sweet, easy, and can be served hot or cold? Works for me! My sweet potatoes are baking right now because I need to carry it in to the office tomorrow.

Pudding Ingredients

• 4 medium baked sweet potatoes mashed
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoon maple syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 cup pecan pieces
  

Topping Ingredients

1. 1/2 cup pecan pieces
2. 1/2 cup light brown sugar
3. 4 tablespoons of softened unsalted butter
   

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Grease a 1 1/2-quart baking dish.
3. With an electric mixer, beat together all the pudding ingredients until smooth and light.
4. Pour the pudding into the baking dish.
5. Mix the topping ingredients in a small bowl
   
6. Dot top of pudding mixture with the topping mixture
   
7. Transfer to the oven and bake for 45 minutes (checking after 30).

It's done when it's nice and bubbly and the center reads about 165F. I found if it's less the center doesn't set, but if I wait until a knife comes out pretty clean, the outer edge is overcooked.

Cool and then cover. Refrigerate overnight. Can be reheated before serving, or served as is.

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Update: The carry-in was today and an nearly empty dish and several recipe requests make it seem like the Sweet Potato Pudding was a success. I am usually a little disappointed about anything left in the dish, but you should have seen the pile of food. Toward the end we were inviting over offices over! We left 3/4 of a cheesecake on the table! That rarely happens. Well actually it's in the frig for tomorrow.