Combing the NYTimes Food section, I came across an heirloom recipe for "Sweeney Casserole". A family favorite (the author's family) from the 1950's & 60's. Basically frozen hash browns mixed up with condensed cream of "whatever" soup and cheese, and cooked until everything was nice and bubbly. The author provided a replacement for the canned soup and used finely diced fresh potatoes in lieu of frozen ones. It looked good, but the replacement for the soup was a wash in cream, milk, and enough butter to stop the hearts of a platoon of marines! So I did what I do, I monkeyed around with it and came up with this.
And it was amazing! Along with the potatoes, I added diced Black Forest Ham from my favorite deli and green bell pepper. I also added a little nutmeg and red pepper flakes from a mill grinder. I cut the butter back to 1/4 of the original percentage, used creamed cheese and milk, along with a little pepper jack cheese. And then topped it with panko bread crumbs to help absorb and radiate off any excess moisture created by the peppers.
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