Hash Brown Casserole

There’s five of us kids in our family of seven…my brother John, the oldest, followed by my sister Peg (Margaret, named after our Dad’s mom), I’m the middle one (that’s a whole different post), and my younger sisters Becky and Jane, bringing up the rear of the pack. Peg is more than a sister to me…we have always been close and she is my friend, confidant, advisor, and consultant. Last summer I took my Mom to southern New Hampshire to visit Peg and her family; husband Tim, nephew Dan, and my very special niece Sarah, who is going to her first year of college this fall, but will always remain my “A-B-C girlie-girl”…

Peg was generous enough to share some recipes with me during our visit and this is the first one presented. She describes it as not only one of her favorite comfort foods, but her “go-to” comfort food. I think it’s an awesome recipe for several reasons, taste notwithstanding, I see it as extremely adaptable to “tweaking”, an important component on Comfort (Able) Foods.

I use a commercial stock photography website for most of the pictures on this blog, primarily to keep out of legal hot water (I’m not in the business of plagiarism). In doing a photo search for a hash brown casserole, I found that there were not many choices, but the one I did find, speaks clearly to the fact that this is a perfectly “tweak-able” recipe. I mean: Really? Why wouldn’t chopped ham work in it? Peg says: “Fiddle with it, less is more, and it can be the ultimate pig-out…”

Peg’s Hash Brown Casserole

Ingredients:

1 ½ bags of frozen shredded hash brown potatoes, thawed

1 can of cream of mushroom soup

½ lb. grated cheddar cheese

1 pint sour cream

2-3 TBSP. chopped onion or chive

1 cup Panko bread crumbs

Salt & Pepper to taste

1 stick of salted butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350° F and grease a 9” x 13” glass casserole dish with some cooking spray. Split the melted butter into two equal portions. In a small frying pan, lightly toast the Panko bread crumbs in one half of the melted butter, and set aside. Combine all of the remaining ingredients in a mixing bowl until well combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared glass casserole dish and top with the buttered bread crumbs. Bake for one hour (60 minutes). Enjoy!

You could also try:

-adding some chopped ham…

-substitute cream of chicken soup for the cream of mushroom soup and add some chicken pieces, too…

-a little heat maybe, seed and finely chop a jalapeño pepper and add to the hash brown mixture

-any number of grated cheeses would work, stay away from the “stringy-when-melted” varieties like Swiss, you could use muenster, pepper-jack, Colby, etc.

-add a few tablespoons of grated parmesan or Romano to the buttered bread crumbs

-like Peg says, fiddle with it, I’m thinking any number of herbs mixed in might work, too: parsley, thyme, basil, even some rosemary (which works well with potatoes) if not too much…have some fun and find some comfort…Dave