Potato Bake

Potato Bake is probably the ultimate in procrastination. I have an assessment that I should be doing (ahh, don't we all) and instead, I decided to cook. But, alas (or hurrah?) the cooking decided to work with me.

Potato Bake

(Serves 4)

Ingredients 

60g butter

1/4 cup plain flour

2 1/3 cups milk

2 cups grated cheese 

4 potatoes

1 clove of garlic

Method

Okay! So, the preparation for this isn't difficult, it's just a little time consuming. You grate the cheese, you peel the potatoes, you...Actually, that's about it. Maybe I'm just slow.

Whatever, once that is done, you should boil the potatoes. Not completely, just for about 10 minutes, so that they've got a bit of a headstart. Potatoes are a little bit slow, ya know?

Then, melt the butter and add the flour. Stir in the milk and garlic and once that's all combined, add a cup and a half of cheese (you want to save a little bit for the top so it gets that awesome browned look).

Now, take the boiled potatoes and run them under cold water. No seriously, don't be like "ahh, I don't need cold water because I'm tough!" Because you will burn your fingers. And it will hurt. Trust me on this one. Now, once they are touchable, slice them up.

Put the potatoes into a oven safe dish, overlapping slightly and, over each layer, pour about a third of your cheesy sauce. On the final layer, sprinkle that little bit of leftover cheese.

Chuck it in the oven on 190 degrees and you wait. And wait. And wait. See, this is where my procrastination bake failed me. I ended up writing more in my waiting period than I would have if I hadn't have cooked. Because you just keep thinking, "Ah, I'll just write until dinner is ready, It won't be long". And it is long. Well, relatively.

The bake should take between 50 minutes and an hour to cook, so it's not really something that you can make spur of the moment. But, if like me, you have managed  to accumulate about a million potatoes and you've decided that some of them simply must go (and you really would rather be in the kitchen than at the computer) this is totally worth the wait.

Price

$2 for the potatoes

2c for the flour

60c for the milk

36c for the butter

10c for the garlic

$3.37 for the cheese

For $6.45, I got a meal that would feed four and an hours worth of solid work for an upcoming assessment. I'll be honest, I probably would have paid more than that for the motivation.