Scalloped Potatoes

By xoXmuffinzXox

Nana's recipe; haven't tried it yet.

Ingredients

• 8-10 small red potatoes (others would cook up too mushy and gritty, so they are supposed to specifically be red potatoes)
• Shredded mild cheddar cheese (16 oz should do). The better quality the cheese, the better.
• Half and half (a pint or half pint should do)
• Salt
• Flour (for thickness and to help absorb some of the half-and-half)
• Butter (a generous amount... up to 2 sticks, possibly), cut into very thin slices

Details

Preparation time 45mins
Cooking time 60mins

Preparation

Step 1

- Preheat oven to 350

- Fill a large pot with water and bring it to a rolling boil. Salt the water with two or three tablespoons of salt (potato slices will boil in here, so it's just to taste).

- Wash and peel the potatoes. Cut them into slices, approximately 1/3 inch thick. (Too thin and they will get mushy, so she stressed the importance of this several times)

- Boil the potatoes in the salt water. Maybe 10 minutes or until a bit underdone. Not quite crunchy still, but not done. Just check them with a fork. If they're actually cooked to completion, they'll become too mushy and fall apart later because they also have to go into the oven.

- In a glass or ceramic casserole dish (approximately 8-10 inches), very lightly dust the base with a light coating of flour (think putting your flour in a sifter and shaking it a couple times).

- Make one layer of potato slices in the dish, slightly overlapping the pieces.

- Dust potatoes with a super fine layer of flour. Place several butter pieces over various parts of the potato layer. Over the butter, sprinkle just a little bit of shredded cheese. (Most of the cheese will go on at the end). Maybe around bout 6 pieces of butter per potato layer.

- Repeat the potato layer, flour, butter, and cheddar steps until you have three or four layers of potatoes total.

- Place a couple pieces of butter on top on the top potato layer. Completely cover the top with a generous amount of cheese. Maybe 1/8 to 1/4 inch layer.

- Shake and pour the half-and-half into the dish (on the side of the dish somewhere, not over the potatoes/cheese) until the liquid comes up to 1/3 to 1/2 way up the potato layers. Make sure to tilt the dish around gently so the liquid disperses between the potatoes evenly.

- Bake for approximately 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted and potatoes feel tender with a fork.