The garden is overflowing with bounty right now. We thought we’d branch out from our standby of grilling vegetables to really enjoy some of the harvest. So, we came up with this gratin dish, full of things we’ve grown ourselves: potatoes, squash, caramelized red torpedo onions, swiss chard and basil. It feels like the perfect late summer dinner.
Butter a baking dish.
Slice a torpedo onion into rings and saute over medium heat, in a tablespoon butter and a tablespoon olive oil. Stir, cooking until the onion caramelizes – about 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Toast three slices of rye bread. Whirl them up in a food processor to make bread crumbs, and set aside.
Potato Layer: Mandolin (or cut into thin slices) 1 medium-sized red potato. Fan the potato slices out in a layer, slightly overlapping each other, on the bottom of the pan.
Onion Layer: Dabble 1/3 of the caramelized onions and some blue cheese crumbles on top of the potatoes.
Squash Layer: Mandolin (or cut into thin slices) 1 small yellow zucchini, and layer on top of the blue cheese and caramelized onions.
Basil Layer: Add six whole leaves of basil next.
Swiss Chard Layer: Wash swiss chard and remove the main big stem. Layer a few leaves of swiss chard. Crush some garlic and add that on top, along with some salt and pepper.
Do the next round of layers the exact same way – Potato, Onion/Blue Cheese, Squash, Basil, Swiss Chard.
Now, add a potato layer, and some blue cheese and onions. Sprinkle the bread crumbs on top of everything.
Pour a cup of milk carefully over the top of everything. (It’s okay if the breadcrumbs get wet.)
Bake at 400 for about 45 minutes. Keep an eye on it after 30 minutes. When the top is brown and crispy looking, pull from the oven and slap a spatula all around the top of the casserole to even things out. Let it rest for 5 or 10 minutes and serve.
Ingredients
- 1 torpedo onion (or sweet yellow onion)
- 1 T butter
- 1 T olive oil
- 3 medium-sized red potatoes
- 2 small yellow zucchini
- 4 large leaves swiss chard
- blue cheese (about 1/2 cup)
- 1 cup milk
- 12 leaves basil
- 3 slices rye bread (to be made into bread crumbs)
Related articles
- August Garden Harvest: Potatoes! (seattlefoodshed.wordpress.com)
- Summer Bounty: Sola Gratia Farm Week Fifteen (thesandwichlife.typepad.com)
- Lentil Salad with Swiss Chard (andreasgardencooking.com)
- Farro Salad with Roasted Vegetables and Caramelized Onions (vegetarianventures.com)
Seattle Foodshed 
What a delicious looking recipe for those beautiful homegrown potatoes of yours! Such an inspired and creative way of cooking when you start with ingredients and let the recipe flow from there.
Mmmm, this is calling my name 😀 It is just starting to get cooler here so turning on the oven doesn’t seem such a chore. Bookmarking this!