Jan D'Atri

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diced green chiles

Twice Baked Potato Casserole

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Potato salad is always a summertime favorite. But how about if we kick it up a couple of notches and build a tasty Twice Baked Potato Casserole fully loaded with all of your favorite fixings? This hearty recipe was sent in from Sun City resident Linda Smith, and it’s a rock star side dish that she’s been making for years. Linda includes it in all of her special gatherings.


“I had a humongous four-day bash where friends and family from Omaha, Kansas City, Tucson and the Valley partied hearty on the fourth of July. My Twice Baked Casserole is always a hit because it’s so much easier to make than traditional stuffed baked potatoes. And it feeds a crowd. I always serve it with some type of beef.”


The minute you start building this sassy side, you can see why it gets devoured. It starts with the sweetness of cubed red potatoes and then layered with chopped crisp bacon, sour cream, cheese and green chiles with a burst of colorful scallions. Linda says she doesn’t often have leftovers to enjoy the next day, but it’s just as tasty if you’re lucky enough to save a little! This recipe can be made ahead and frozen (baked or unbaked) and re-heated when ready to use. Thanks Linda, for a great dish! I made a giant casserole of your Twice Baked Potatoes for a gathering recently and you’re right. Leftovers are hard to come by.

Sheepherder’s Breakfast for Dinner

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Sometimes there’s nothing like breakfast for dinner. Once in a while, it just hits the spot. When I came across a recipe for Sheepherder’s Breakfast in the cookbook Taste of Home’s Contest Winning Annual Recipes for 2006, it brought back my “breakfast for dinner” memories of powering through college homework late into the night at the University of Nevada, Reno. Sometimes before the all-night cramming sessions, a group of us would head to Gardnerville–about an hour south of Reno–to fortify ourselves at a Basque restaurant on a meal of baked eggs, chorizo and potatoes. It was very similar to the Taste of Home award winning recipe except that the Basque dish was baked in the oven in a cast iron skillet and Basque chorizo (or sometimes cured ham) replaced the bacon. It was soulful and comforting and satisfying and filling. Could you ask for anything more if you’re hungering for hearty meal? Sheepherder’s Breakfast, with all of its variations, is a popular dish here in the Southwest, too. Of course, fresh roasted or canned chiles are often added to a skillet dish like this one. Now with so many popular varieties of bacon on the market like peppered bacon, apple wood smoked bacon and the thicker sliced slab type, this variation on the Sheepherder’s Breakfast for Dinner will be tastier than ever morning or night. If you choose breakfast in bed for Dad, this might just be the perfectly delicious kick start to Father’s Day!