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Brunch Potatoes

Ingredients

  • 2 large russet potatoes, or 3 medium ones
  • salt and pepper 
  • 1 sweet onion, diced
  • 1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and diced
  • 2 T. butter
  • 2 T. flour
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
  • 1/2 t. garlic powder
  • 1 8 oz. block extra sharp cheddar, divided
  • 3 or 4 slices crisp bacon, crumbled
  • 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
  • 1 cup fresh breadcrumbs tossed with 2 T. melted butter, optional

Instructions

  • Peel and cube the potatoes and boil them in water to cover with 1 t. salt.  Cook until a fork goes through a cube, drain and set aside.
  • Sauté the vegetables in the butter over medium low heat with a pinch of salt.  Cook slowly until the vegetables are beginning to brown.  Add the flour and stir constantly for a minute or two.  Add the buttermilk and stir until the sauce coats a spoon.  
  • While the vegetables are cooking, grate ½ the block of cheese.  Cut the other half in ½” cubes. 
  • When the sauce has thickened, take it off the heat and stir in the grated cheese.  Stir until the cheese is melted.  Season to taste with salt, pepper, and the garlic powder.  The sauce should be highly seasoned because potatoes are bland.
  • Fold together the drained potatoes, cheese sauce, cubed cheese, bacon, and parsley.  Put into a casserole dish and sprinkle with the breadcrumbs.  Bake at 350° until potatoes are bubbly and the breadcrumbs are browned.

Notes

Notes:
This recipe is easy to change up to suit your tastes or your pantry.
You can vary the vegetables or leave them out.  Think scallions, chives, or shallots instead of bulb onion.  Different colors of peppers or no peppers.  Even canned fried onions, or onion powder and/or garlic powder can work as substitutions.  Sundried tomatoes, mushrooms, ????
You can use regular milk in place of buttermilk. 
Anything goes where cheese is  concerned!  I’ve used Swiss, pepper jack, you name it!  I’ve stirred in cottage cheese that needed to be used up--usually with stronger cheeses.  It suddenly occurs to me that blue cheese and bacon would be awesome.  Mozzarella, parmesan, would be very tasty. Velveeta works great.
Meats are up for grabs, too!  Ham, sausage, prosciutto, salami, even ground beef. 
And those optional fresh breadcrumbs?  Cracker crumbs, broken up potato chips, or nothing--any would suffice.