Home » Oven baked Mashed Potatoes with Gruyére and Mozzarella Cheese

Oven baked Mashed Potatoes with Gruyére and Mozzarella Cheese

Written by Published on Updated on May 21, 2019 in Uncategorized

We moved to the states when I was around 4 years old, my mom spoke no English whats so ever (I should mention that my mom was pregnant at the time with my brother) and my dad lived in Australia for many years so he was a native English speaker.  

My dad had a cousin that  lived in the states, and we stayed at his home with my aunt and cousins until my dad found a job and settled in to a new country with many challenges, especially if you did not speak the language.  My dad found work a few weeks later and my mom gave birth, we moved to our own apartment and life went on. During this whole time my mom still spoke no English,  shopping at the supermarket was a daily challenge for her.  She would try to find Greek grocery stores, (but these were deli’s not really supermarkets), because that was the only way she was able to  communicate.  There were many times when my mom would wait until my dad had a day off from work to go to the supermarket so that he could help her with the grocery shopping. 🙂

The apartment we rented was quite big from what I remember and our bedrooms were far from the kitchen.  While my brother was sleeping my mom would spend her time in the kitchen cooking, and ironing, besides the other everyday chores that were necessary, and there was a small black and white table TV set that she would have on for a few hours during the day.  I remember one day I was coming into the kitchen from my bedroom and I heard my mom trying to pronoun words in English. 🙂   My mom  was watching some sort of cooking show and trying to pronouns what the host of the show was saying…I couldn’t believe it!!! 

When I looked over at the TV to see what she was watching I saw this tall woman who’s English sounded strange to me,  with  curly hair and cooking!  I stayed for a while and watched, I didn’t want to interrupt her so I went back to my room.  A few months later my mom was picking me up from school and I heard her say a few words in English!!!???? She told me that she watches a cooking show called The French Chef with  Julia Child!!! and this helped her with the English language, and enjoyed watched Julia Child. 🙂  My mom watched Julia Child’s show for many many years after that and learned how to speak English believe it or not, not perfectly but Julia Child was a main factor in my mom speaking English.  🙂

The other day I was watching The French Chef, and it just so happened that that the show was called “The Potato Show”  oven baked potatoes was on the menu for the day. 🙂 Since Thanksgiving is coming up I had in mind to make mashed potatoes as a side dish).  Her recipe is quite simple to make and I truly enjoyed watching some of her cooking shows/techniques and after so many years I could see what my mom liked about her.

As for me how could I not purchase Julia Childs cookbook . 🙂  When we moved to the Netherlands and after settling in I went into the City and found this huge bookstore love those bookstores and I found the cookbook section and there it was Julia Childs cookbook. 🙂  I searched for the cookbook in Greece but was never able to find it and to purchase it on the internet was quite expensive, delivery charges etc.  So, I had a huge smile walking out of the bookstore with the cookbook….:)

As a huge thank you to the late Julia Child who basically taught my mom English, I am making a oven baked mashed potatoes with a few tweaks and no sausages as Julia had added into her baked potato dish. 🙂  If you haven’t seen any of Julia Childs cooking shows please do she was quite interesting to watch.  🙂

OVEN BAKED MASHED POTATOES WITH GRUYÉRE AND MOZZARELLA CHEESE

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Ingredients
  

  • 6 boiled Potatoes
  • 1/4 cup Butter
  • 1/4 cup Milk
  • 1/2 cup Mozzarella Cheese grated
  • 1/4 cup Gruyére Cheese grated
  • 2 tablespoons of bread crumbs
  • Salt and Pepper

Instructions
 

  • Boil potatoes until soft.
  • Melt milk and butter.
  • Mash the potatoes until just a few lumps remain. Add into the potatoes the milk and butter mixture, salt and pepper and stir.
  • Slowly add in both cheeses and continue to mix together.
  • In a small bowl add 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs and a little Gruyére cheese and mix.
  • Pour potato mix into a baking pan and top with breadcrumb mix. Bake at 180 degrees for 40 minutes and until golden brown. This delicious melty potato side dish is absolutely delicious….:)

Tags

Welcome to a small corner of my Greek Heritage. Growing up in New York from Greek parents, was a challenge of its own...but the traditional food, tastes and aromas that my mother cooked always travelled me back to Greece. My mother is a wonderful cook, our house would always have that smell of home cooked food. I remember very clearly that we were only allowed fast food, once a week, that was a huge day for myself and my brother. Jumping up and down in the back car seat, laughing, just being kids. It is true that we all like to eat different foods, taste, smell, even try food that looks different than our regular meals at home and I think that is so natural. In my teens, I was not really into cooking, I enjoyed my magazines after school, listening to music, and just taking a breather. There were times that I would glance at some of my mom's recipes, more out of curiosity than to actually try to cook them. At that time I did not realise that cooking would become my passion one day. Slowly, I would start to look into my mom's recipes a bit more each day and I started to find it interesting as a hobby. Each month I would go into our neighborhood bookstore and pick up my monthly book, until one day I decided to stroll over into the cooking section. That summer was the first time I actually bought a cooking magazine....and I loved it. Cooking and baking started out as a hobby, but now after many years it is my passion. Exploring the cuisines, the spices, the oils, the scents, the variety of smells and tastes that exist. It was and still is an amazing journey without limits. So, come along with me on this adventure, and I hope you enjoy my recipes. Sophie

28 Comments

  1. Vero and Canito in the kitchen
    November 23, 2017 at 7:44 am  ·  Reply

    Very touching story, Sophie! ❤️ And great cookbook! I don’t have it, however I read many reviews about that cookbook 😉 and of course… Delicious recipe! 😍

  2. Karin, theaustriandish
    November 23, 2017 at 8:07 am  ·  Reply

    That’s a great story, Sophie. Julia Child as English teacher. 🙂 Unfortunately I don’t have her cookbook, but I know some of her recipes from the Internet. That reminds me that I alway wanted to try her Boeuf bourguignon…
    But to something else: I wanted to tell you: I have nominated you for the sunshine blogger award 🙂

  3. Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, MCC, SCAC
    November 23, 2017 at 9:24 am  ·  Reply

    What a heartwarming story, Sophie. My own mother spoke perfect English, but (like yours) she loved Julia Child’s cookbook and tried many of her recipes (sort of – my Mom, like me, was a “tweaker”).

    Unfortunately for me, most of the really GOOD food came after I had left for college. When I lived at home the menu was limited by what my younger siblings would eat, which was pretty darned basic until they got a bit older.

    SO, I never got to try this particular dish – and I would have LOVED it!! So thank you so much for sharing — and HAPPY THANKSGIVING.
    xx,
    mgh
    (Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMORE dot com)
    ADD/EFD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder
    “It takes a village to educate a world!”

  4. Green Del(h)i
    November 23, 2017 at 12:56 pm  ·  Reply

    Beautiful story and delicious recipe!

  5. mistimaan
    November 23, 2017 at 4:37 pm  ·  Reply

    Loved your recipe 🙂

  6. dtills
    November 23, 2017 at 4:48 pm  ·  Reply

    This is a wonderful story Sophie! I am so glad you shared it! Just another reason to love Julia 🙂

  7. Megala
    November 23, 2017 at 5:50 pm  ·  Reply

    Your mother, truly an inspiring woman ! Love your beautiful potatoes with cheese !!

  8. sunytammy
    November 23, 2017 at 5:56 pm  ·  Reply

    Nice story, sweet memory and delicious recipe….

  9. Italian Goodness
    November 23, 2017 at 7:10 pm  ·  Reply

    The description of your moving experience to US was very touching, considering that I am an immigrant too… in this peculiar festivity that has become a tradition even to my Italian family, I feel very blessed to have been accepted as a Permanent Resident here. Happy Thanksgiving and Thanks for sharing. Silvia

  10. Dani☆Touch My Spine Book Reviews☆
    November 26, 2017 at 8:04 am  ·  Reply

    Great story and this sounds awesome!😍

  11. a little Swiss, a little Canadian
    November 27, 2017 at 2:34 am  ·  Reply

    Love this story! It must have been difficult for your mom, I can only imagine. I know how it is to leave your country and all your family behind, not easy, but at least I spoke some English. Yummy potato dish! Hope you had a great weekend!🤗

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.