A recipe or two...

I made this Potato Slice for dinner last week, and took the left overs to work for lunch. A couple of people asked for the recipe, so I thought I would post it here.  It is sooo easy, very yummy as a side dish or main, and you can add in whatever you like.  It makes a nice change from traditional scalloped potatoes or mashed potatoes (which I have only been able to eat again in the last few years, I always say  one of the best things about moving out of home was not having to eat mashed potato all the time!

 The recipe comes from the 1996 "Carlton North Primary School Favourite Recipes" book, bought from the Brunswick North West Primary School fete a year or two back!

Nonna's Baked Potato Slice


Wash peel, steam (I use our microwave vege steamer for nearly everything!) and mash 8 large potatoes
Add 2 tbspns butter, 1/2 cup milk and a cup of grated cheese 
(I buy a bag of  grated tasty and a bag of mozzarella, mix them up and distribute into  former dip containers, and put them in the freezer. Makes about 10 lots of grated cheese.) 
Add in 4-5 lightly beaten eggs, mix to smooth creamy texture.
Spread mix into lightly greased oven dish, sprinkle bread crumbs on top, dot surface with butter if you like (I usually forget to!)
Bake in a pre-heated moderate oven 45 mins or so, allow to rest in dish 5-10 mins before slicing.


You can add other  steamed veges, chopped ham, parsley etc.


I also made this "lunchbox" slice last week, a double batch will get me through the entire family's lunches for the whole week!  Plus it only uses one bowl and one knife - less washing up is always good! It has the added bonus of only taking about 12 mins to cook, so when I go to make up the kid's lunches at 10 o'clock at night and realise we are out of homemade snacks, I can whip this up nice and fast. I don't like baking too late at night, because our oven has a very annoying habit of randomly going out, not good when baking a mud cake which can take over an hour to cook - and the bloody oven goes out AND I DON'T NOTICE til 40 minutes in!!!

Quick crunchy slice
4 vita-brits/oat brits, crushed
1 cup rolled oats OR 1 cup plain puffed wheat cereal
1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
125g melted butter
1 tbspn honey
optional 1/2 cup dessicated coconut (but I don't really like coconut so I don't put it in this slice)


Pre-heat oven 180, line slice tray with baking paper (whatever did we do before they invented this brilliant stuff!)
Melt butter in microwave mixing bowl, add in all other ingredients (I just crumble the oat brits in as I go)
Press mixture  evenly into tray, bake 12-15 min or until golden brown and bubbling.
Cool, then cut into squares.


I always made this with oats, then decided to try out the puffed wheat cereal, which makes a nice variation and is actually even more yummy! Plus it is good to have a slice without oats, because my other two standard lunch box slices both have oats in them! I am still trying to find one more quick, yummy lunchbox friendly slice recipe - I figure 4 different slices, making one per week, will give me a good variety for the lunchboxes that hopefully no-one will turn their noses up at!