Thursday

Well, yesterday was Thursday, which means it is Potato Day at our house. Every Thursday I bake 10-15 big potatoes and for the next few days we have baked potatoes, scalloped potatoes, and fried potatoes. I like to bake them the "old-fashioned" way in the oven with tin-foil, which takes 2-2 1/2 hours for some of the bigger ones! Usually I do this in the afternoon, but yesterday I baked them in the morning, so we could have some for lunch, too.

A few weeks ago I discovered a recipe for vegan scalloped potatoes that also made a great gravy sauce. The recipe is supposed to be made by pouring the uncooked sauce over raw potato sliced, but since I always bake up a bunch of potatoes, I decided to try cooking down the sauce into a gravy, then pouring over sliced baked potatoes, then baking it all together. It turned out really good, and the leftover sauce we poured over baked potatoes and that was tasty, too!

So for those of you that like to try new recipes and find great tasting healthy ones to add to your cooking repertoire, here is the recipe, taken from "Tasty Vegan Delights" (published by Review & Herald):

Scalloped Potatoes:
Blend in a blender (a good heavy-duty blender) until creamy, about 1 minute:
1 cup raw cashews
1 cup water

Add and blend
2 tsp. arrowroot powder OR cornstarch
2 tsp. salt
3 cups water

Wash and thinly slice
8 med. to lrg. potatoes

Chop fine
1 med. onion

Layer the milk mixture, potatoes, and onions alternately in a casserole dish, beginning and ending with milk mixture. Cover and bake at 375* for 30 min. Remove cover and bake at 350* for 1 1/2 hrs. or till potatoes are tender.

Now, I haven't tried this recipe the way it was intended, but Colby's Mom has, and says it turns out delicious, too! What I do is make the milk mixture in my blender, then pour it into a saucepan on low heat, add finely chopped onion, and simmer until it thickens up into more of a gravy sauce (about 15 min.). It is really foamy at first, tries to stick to the bottom and boil over at the same time, but if you stir it often, it settles down and thickens up nicely. Yesterday I sliced up two potatoes, which filled my casserole dish completely up, layering the sauce and the potatoes, then baked it in the oven for about 25-30 min. uncovered. The remaining sauce was used as gravy for dinner last night, and the scalloped potatoes will be dinner tonight!

Hope you enjoy!