Don’t leave us hangin’ dawg!

It’s been a while since I offered up a recipe for my blog-reading pretties. Apologies for that but I haven’t been cooking a lot of normal food lately. I guess that’s the curse of baking for a business – you spend so much time in the kitchen making baked goods that the last thing you want to do when you’re done is cook dinner. But without further ado, please enjoy this recipe for Baked Cheesy Mashed Potatoes. It is quite yummy. Dave and I ate almost half of it – just the 2 of us.

Baked Cheesy Mashed Potatoes
1 tablespoon butter
4 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup whole milk 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons plain dry bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Coat a 13 by 9 by 2-inch baking dish with 1 tablespoon of butter and set aside.
Cook the potatoes in a large pot of boiling salted water until they are very tender, about 15 minutes. Drain; return the potatoes to the same pot and mash well. Mix in the milk and melted butter. Mix in the mozzarella and 3/4 cup of the Parmesan. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper. Transfer the potatoes to the prepared baking dish. Stir the bread crumbs and remaining 1/4 cup of Parmesan in a small bowl to blend. Sprinkle the bread crumb mixture over the mashed potatoes.

Recipe can be prepared up to this point 6 hours ahead of time; cover and chill.

Bake, uncovered, until the topping is golden brown, about 20 minutes. I turned on the broiler for the last 2-3 minutes of baking to brown up the bread crumbs into a nice crunchy crust. Yum!