Cheesey Potato Casserole

Have returned from the East coast where I had fun with my Mom and Sweetie, helped Mom with some organization in the sewing room, enjoyed face time with Next Sister Down and lots of family time at our Mothers' Day celebration, the wedding weekend, and the days following it back in Virginia.

Each time I spend time with the family members I'm reminded again how fortunate I am to be one of them even if now and then I find it hard to believe that I'm inside the circle of love and not outside looking in. With a few exceptions, I seem to lean further toward the intuitive and less toward the logical than my relatives. I often don't 'get' the humor but I sure enjoy watching the fun and joining in the laughter, not because I got the joke but because I love the merriment. It is never all sweetness and roses in families...we all know each other too well...but spending time with loved ones is often the most satisfying of times, ones I am grateful for.

By the way, I guess I was so immersed in good feelings that I stopped being careful. I left my camera in Virginia, so subsequent posts will have bad photos for a while. The one at the top was taken with a phone camera. Sorry.

One of the fun things about visiting my Mom is that there is usually at least one recipe made that I want to keep for making later at home.

This casserole is one that Mom says she always gets requests for, especially when it is pot luck time, so bookmark it if you do lots of pot luck events. We had it as part of a ham dinner for a mid-week celebration of Mothers Day...who says you have to celebrate it on Sunday, other than Hallmark?

This is not low-cal food, but it is delicious and a bit decadent, but also easy. Like the recipe that follows, it uses sour cream. You can choose to use full fat or low fat sour cream and it might even work to use Greek yogurt instead of the sour cream. We used light sour cream for both recipes.

The potato casserole uses frozen hash brown potatoes, grated cheddar cheese, chopped onions and some condensed cream of mushroom soup (although you could use cream of celery instead). It serves a crowd and is fairly addictive. People kept going back for 'just one more spoonful' until the dish was pretty much gone.

Potato Casserole

1 bag frozen hash brown potatoes, thawed
1 can cream of mushroom (or cream of celery or cream of chicken) soup, low sodium if possible
1/2 stick butter, melted and cooled
1 -16 oz. container sour cream or light sour cream
1 cup chopped onions
2 cups (8 oz.) grated cheddar (reduced fat is fine as long as it is extra sharp cheddar)
salt and pepper to taste

Set hash browns out to thaw beforehand, if possible. Preheat the oven to 375 degree F.
In a large mixing bowl mix the soup, melted butter and sour cream until thoroughly blended. Add the chopped onions, all the cheese except for 1/2 cup, and the hash browns, plus salt and pepper to taste, and mix thoroughly.
Put mixture into a greased 9-inch x 13-inch baking pan. Sprinkle the 1/2 cup cheese on top. Bake in preheated 375 degree F oven for about 1 hour, until bubbly and nicely browned on top.

Serves 8 - 10 people.