I don't know what is so different about this week, but it certainly hasn't been difficult finding dishes to make in celebration of national food holidays. Today of all days is the celebration of one of the easiest and most versatile starches to work with: National Potato Day. From the potato soup to potato puffs, poutine to potato salad, many easy dishes can be pulled together and under a very acceptable budget. To celebrate this year's day of the root crop I'm most familiar with, I made a potato gratin (also recognised as scalloped potatoes) with a Swiss cheese Mornay sauce (i.e., béchamel with shredded Swiss cheese). And I don't know about you, but it's tough to cook with potatoes and not have some sort of pork around; to that end, I also discovered my own way of making bacon bits... by twice frying them.
