Pizza di Patate

Ingredients

boiled potato

mashed potato

sauteed onion celery and tomatoes

sauteeing ground beef

oil coated glass pie pan

breadcrumb coated pie pan

 You'll need as you see in photo 1,

• Breadcrumbs
• 2 or 3 dried tomatoes (the ones in spiced oil)
• 1 small celery stalk
• 1 onion
• 1 medium - large potato
• 1 egg beaten
• Ground beef, about size of a baseball
• salt and pepper to taste, even cayenne pepper if you prefer

---Take the potato/s pierce, pop in microwave, cook on high about 7-10 minute depending on the size. When tender,peel under cool running water, mash in a medium sized bowl,(we have a utensil for mashing as seen in photo 2, and gives result as seen in photo 3)

---In a fry pan with some olive oil add minced tomato,celery and onion, (I have one of those small electric grinders that I use to mince things)and saute until tender (photo 4)

---Then add the ground beef and cook that thru along with your veggies, adding salt and pepper to taste (photo 5) let cool til warm

Now you are ready to pull everything together. In the medium sized bowl where you have the mashed potato, add the beef mixture, beaten egg and mix,use your hands, kneading throughout to get everything well mixed.
(Before adding egg, taste the mixture and see how it goes for salt, add additional if needed.)
In a pie pan or even deep dish pie pan, drizzle oil and coat, sprinkle enough breadcrumbs to coat as well, even the sides.
Now place the mixture in the pie pan and spread out with your hands, make sure its pretty even in thickness all around.
Then sprinkle with breadcrumbs on the surface to give a light coating, sprinkle on grated parmesean cheese (this is optional), also a light coating here and then drizzle some olive oil over it all, not alot, just enough to keep crumbs from drying out.
Bake in a 350°oven for about 20-30mins til lightly browned.
Since everything is already cooked you just need the time to cook thru the egg and heat up all the rest.

Serve warm, but you can also eat it cold---up to you.
Buon apettito!

*****VARIATION
You can do a simpler version of this by using just potatoes, cooked ham,egg and grated cheese, salt and pepper. Just mash potato, mix in shredded ham, add about a fistfull of grated cheese, one egg,salt and pepper, mix and spread in oil and crumbs coated pan, finish off with just the sprinkling of crumbs and oil and bake. This version is the base recipe for pizza di patate. The one I made is a grownup version. If you want to add zest you can also add either powdered garlic or onion and add some minced parsley(or dried).

Play around with this recipe, instead of beef add tuna, omit dried tomatoes. The sky is the limt. Enjoy