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Rosemary, Leek & Potato Pie

My father used to make potatoes au gratin for dinner all the time when I was a little girl, as it was often just the two of us enjoying our meals together. This is a tribute to one of my dad’s favorite dinners, with a few more “grown-up” flavors added in for good measure. Serve with a bowl of soup for a delicious, well-rounded meal.

Ingredients:

—3 pounds (1.36 kg) thin-skinned potatoes, unpeeled and very thinly sliced (about 1/ 8 inch [3 mm] thick) into rounds

—Sea salt

—4 cloves garlic, minced, divided

—2 tablespoons (5 g) minced fresh rosemary sprigs

—1 leek, white and light green part only, cleaned well and thinly sliced

—1/2 cup (65 g) nutritional yeast

—7 tablespoons (100 g) nondairy margarine, melted

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees (200 degrees C, or gas mark 6). Lightly grease an 8-inch (20.3 cm)-springform pan using margarine or nonstick spray.

Arrange the potatoes in one even layer so that they cover the bottom of the pan, overlapping as necessary with no gaps. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt, about one-fourth of the minced garlic, and a little fresh rosemary. Arrange a few rings of leeks (distributing evenly) on top of the potatoes.

Dust with nutritional yeast until all the potatoes are well covered and then drizzle with a little melted margarine (a little more than 1 tablespoon [14 g]).

Cover with a second thin layer of potatoes, then salt, garlic, and rosemary, and then a few more rings of leek, and finally nutritional yeast and a drizzle of margarine. Repeat the layering process again and again until all the ingredients have been used. Add a last layer of potatoes around the rim for an extra-special presentation. You should end up with 4 or 5 layers of potatoes.

Bake for about 1 hour and 5 minutes or until a butter knife easily slides through all layers of potatoes. If the potatoes begin to brown quickly, cover lightly with foil during the last 20 minutes of cooking.

Let cool briefly and then carefully remove the springform rim.

Slice carefully into wedges and serve immediately.

Yield: 8 servings

Nutritional Analysis: Per serving = 294 calories; 11 g fat; 9 g protein; 43 g carbohydrate; 7 g dietary fiber; 0 mg cholesterol