Creamy, cheesy, garlicky, potatoey

Dale and I both love to cook, and I looked forward to spending more time in the kitchen after I retired. I was surprised to learn Dale thought he owned the kitchen, so there was that. Our first argument 40 years ago was how to cut onions, so there’s baggage.

At first, we decided to work separately. His turn or my turn. We still do that a lot, but lately we’ve also been cooking together. Why, we even ask each other for advice and recommendations! Must be love.

For us, cooking at home has always been about eating well. In retirement, I discovered cooking is also therapeutic. There’s a lot of stressful shit going down out there, and I have found comfort in the kitchen. I plan to share more about our cooking adventures on the blog. Of course, me being me, I’d like to come up with some clever name for this section of Retirement Confidential, but for now I’ll just file it under Food & Drink. Eventually I’d like to redesign the blog so you can easily print recipes.

I thought I’d start with this week’s big find! First, you have to understand, grocery stores are very important to us. My retirement relocation spreadsheet included distance to Whole Foods for every location under consideration. We ended up 5.7 miles from the nearest Whole Foods and only 2.6 miles from a local store called Nugget. Nugget is a lot like Whole Foods, but we like it better.

The store features tasty looking recipes on slick cards at the checkout. We pick them up frequently, but never make any of the recipes. Until yesterday. We both saw this one and surrendered completely. It was so creamy and cheesy and garlicky and potatoey – I can’t say enough good things about it. The potatoes still had nice bite to them, and you could taste the Dijon throughout.

We ate it with grilled sausage and curly endive tossed with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Oh, and we ate leftovers for breakfast with a slice of bacon. I think it would make an excellent breakfast casserole for company.

Adapted from Nugget Markets

Red Potato Gratin with Gruyere & Fontina

1 ½ cups heavy cream

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon garlic, minced

Kosher or sea salt to taste

Cracked black pepper to taste

15-20 small to medium red potatoes, sliced wafer thin (leave the skins on)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup Gruyere cheese, grated

1 cup Fontina cheese, grated

Preheat the oven to 400°F

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together heavy cream, Dijon mustard and garlic. Add salt and pepper. Place sliced potatoes in the cream mixture and set aside.

Rub olive oil on the sides and bottom of an 8 X 11 glass baking pan or an 11-inch gratin pan. Place potato slices in a single layer on the bottom of the pan, overlapping like shingles on a roof. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons each of the Fontina and Gruyere. Repeat this process until you have 3-4 layers of potatoes and cheese, reserving enough of the Gruyere to generously coat the top layer of potatoes. We used maybe two extra tablespoons of Gruyere. But we are cheese heads.

Pour the cream mixture over the top. Dale did this in advance and let it sit for an hour or so at room temperature. I think you could also make it well in advance and refrigerate until ready.

Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil, bake additional 20 minutes until the top is golden brown or until knife inserts easily into the middle to ensure potatoes are completely cooked.

Remove from heat and allow to cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting and serving.