Potato and Goat Cheese Gratin

I love cheese, I love potatoes... potato and goat cheese gratin seemed like the best thing for me. I was right, it was delicious and pretty easy to make. The goat cheese is a little expensive but totally worth it.  Pray that you have a potato slicer (not a potato peeler, but to cut potatoes into thin coins), I didn't have one so I had to use a knife to slice the potatoes.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/8-inch slices
1 teaspoon minced garlic
5 ounces goat cheese, crumbled
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 pound of Italian Sausage 
1 teaspoon of Thyme
1 teaspoon of bay leaves


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease the bottom and sides of a 1 1/2-quart gratin dish with the butter.

Make a layer of overlapping potato slices on the bottom of the dish and sprinkle with half of the garlic and 1/3 of the goat cheese. Season with salt, pepper, thyme and bay leaves. Repeat with another layer of potatoes, the remaining garlic, another 1/3 of the cheese, and season with salt and pepper. Finish with a final layer of potatoes and the remaining cheese and season with salt and pepper. On the second layer I added some cooked Italian sausage. Pour the heavy cream over the top of the potatoes and, using your hands, press to condense the layers slightly. Make sure the potatoes are all covered with cream.

Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until the gratin is bubbly and golden brown on top and the potatoes are cooked through. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

These turned out very good. I would recommend eating this with some delicious ham. Unfortunately I didn't have any delicious ham but it was still very good to eat. It typically doesn't call for Italian sausage but I had some left over so I decided to put some in. The only thing that I would have done different is put more salt on the layers.

It snowed pretty hard all day today.... booooo