Mennonite Monday - Potato Pizza

Mennonite Monday started because I wanted to make recipes from the Bethesda Mennonite Church Cookbooks (both the yellow and the white cookbook for those of you who own them). I also wanted to take pictures of each recipe that I made, so I would know for future reference what the recipe should look like. I am by no means a great cook, but I think it will be fun to try new and different recipes each week. Not all of these recipes are for ethnic Mennonite food, but the women from Henderson know how to cook, so I can safely say that these recipes will be good. Check back each Monday for a new recipe and feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite recipe from these cookbooks, or if you have some tips on what I should make and how I should make it.

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Two weeks ago, Potato Pizza (page 76Y) received a good number of votes. Even thought it didn't win the poll, I thought I would make it this week.  I decided to make the recipe for a neighborhood picnic this week and it went over very well.  

Potato Pizza 

1 bag (32 oz) frozen shredded hash browns, thawed

1 can (11 oz) Cheddar cheese soup

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon salt

8 oz Cheddar cheese, shredded

1 pound ground beef

1 can (15.5 oz) canned sandwich sauce for sloppy joes

2 tablespoons minced onion

2 tablespoons sliced ripe olives

To thaw potatoes quickly place in sieve and pour hot water over potatoes.  Drain well.  In a large bowl, mix together hash browns, soup, egg salt and pepper.  Spread potato mixture over a large buttered pizza pan.  Bake in 450 degree oven for 20 -25 minutes.  Meanwhile, saute ground beef and onions; drain fat.  Stir in canned sloppy joe sandwich sauce and simmer five minutes.  Sprinkle 2/3 of cheese over baked potato crust.  Spoon meat mixture over cheese and top with remaining cheese and olive slices.  Bake 5 minutes longer.  Makes one pizza.  

 Defrosting the potatoes. This made so much sense, but I don't I think I would have thought of it on my own. 

 Everything that needed to be mixed into the potatoes. 

 I made this in a rectangle pan, because I didn't have any pizza pans with sides.

 After it baked for 25 minutes the potatoes didn't look much different.  I expected them to be crispier, more like a pizza crust, but instead it was kind of mushy, like mashed potatoes. 

 I kind of cheated with the meat for the recipe because I already had some frozen sloppy joe meat in the freezer, so I just used that because I did not want to use canned sloppy joe sauce.  

This is when it was all done and ready to come out of the oven.  

The thing I love about this recipe, is that the meat can be re-purposed into two meals.  You can make sloppy joes one week, save the left overs (or make extra from the start) and use the meat the following week to make this recipe.