Potluck Love

5/21/11:
I'm so excited for tonight! We're celebrating Kimmy & Brian's upcoming wedding with a double shot - Shower AND bachelorette party tonight.  Kim had the awesome idea to have a potluck shower where the guests all bring a favorite dish and share the recipe with the future bride for her files.

I received the invitation and was disappointed when I found that I was requested to bring a drink.  A drink? That sort of takes the fun out of this for me. We joked that the invite was actually intended for Alex, who tends to pour a very stiff and often creative drink for anybody who is foolish enough request it. Luckily, I was able to trade with my cousin-in-law (?) Annette, who's a million months pregnant and somehow under the very wrong impression that she's not a good cook. So, now she's on drinks and I get to bring a main dish!  Squeee! I totally ignored the rules and decided to make a dish I've never cooked before, ravioli lasagna...so who knows if this is a 'favorite', but it sounds yummy.

The recipe calls for "spaghetti sauce."  I decided to make my own, rather than use the jarred stuff.  And I'm NOT sharing my recipe. Not because it's top-secret, but mostly because there is no recipe.  It usually goes something like this. Pour olive oil in a pan, add TONS of garlic, some crushed tomatoes, some italian seasoning and salt to taste.  


AND because that was fun, that means it would be TWICE as fun to bring two dishes, right? Which is why I volunteered to make a side dish for my friend, Lori, who is working full time while completing a Master's degree AND preparing to go overseas in a month to teach for a year...so, she's just a LITTLE busy. I decided to bring one of my favorite not-really-a-recipe recipes, crockpot scalloped potatoes. This is a thing I've made before, but I've never made it like this before. It's really more of a use what you have in the kitchen sort of recipe.

I started with 3 pounds of potatoes, which I peeled and thinly sliced. Add one medium chopped onion and about 1 clove garlic (sometimes I'm lazy and buy the pre-chopped stuff)and throw them in the crock pot.
Then I mixed 8 oz of cream cheese with 8 oz of sour cream, 1 T dijon mustard, 1 cup of milk, and salt & pepper taste. I poured that creamy mixture over the potatoes and topped with 2 cups of colby jack cheese.  Looking at it now, that seems like a LOT of dairy, but this is a party, people. Cheese is love.
My crockpot is crazy fast cooking, so I put that on low and will check ever few hours for progress.  I imagine it will take about 4 hours to get all yummy and cooked through.

5/23/11 ETA: Sorry, no pictures. The entire day was a whirlwind (literally with tornadoes) and I forgot to snap pictures of the end result. It was delicious, though.