Layered Potato Beef Casserole

This is the recipe you make with the beef stew leftovers.  It's kind of like scalloped potatoes, which my husband loves because he says his grandmother used to make them a lot.  We had them sometimes, too, and sometimes mom would throw leftover ham in with them.  I tried making them from scratch once, but the sauce was too thin (I thought) and not cheesy enough.  Beef stew and scalloped potatoes is a weird combination I would definitely not have thought up on my own.  But I guess that is why I do not write cookbooks.  We had a lot of beef stew leftover, I could have made like 3 of these, but I stuck with the original amount.  My friend Barbie and her girls were over and were going to eat dinner with us, too.  So making this with her and then eating it with them was great fun, no matter how the dish turned out.

Layered Potato Beef Casserole
3 tbsp butter, divided
2 tbsp flour
3/4 tsp dried rosemary, crushed
1/4 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp salt
2 cups milk
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
4 cups leftover beef stew
4 medium yukon potaotes, thinly sliced (I peeled mine first because my kids don't like potato peels)
1/3 cup crushed ritz crackers
1 tbsp dried parsley flakes (omitted by me...why add unnecessary green?  First impressions are important)
1/4 tsp garlic powder

Melt 2 tbsp butter in large saucepan.  Stir in the flour, rosemary, pepper, and salt until blended; gradually add milk.  Bring to a boil.  Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.  Remove from heat; stir in cheese until melted.

Spoon 2 cups beef stew into greased 2 1/2 qt baking dish (I think mine was only 2 qt...as it turns out, that matters).  Layer with half of the potatoes and half of the cheese sauce.  Layer with remaining stew, potatoes, and sauce (mine was filled to the very brim of the dish).

Cover (my cover did fit on...) and bake at 400 for 45-50 minutes (Barbie: you should put a cookie sheet under that because it's going to overflow and get all over the bottom of your oven.  Me: Nah.  I don't care) or until potatoes are tender (22 minutes in...I hear a weird simmer-y noise.  Ah, it's overflowing.  Barbie was right.  She makes sure I know this as I slide a cookie sheet onto the rack under the one the dish is on).  Melt remaining butter.  Stir in crushed crackers, parsley, and garlic powder.  Sprinkle over casserole.  Bake, uncovered, 5-10 more minutes longer (it is dripping and overflowing this whole time) or until topping is golden brown.  Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

So smoke was wafting out of my oven, because even after I put the cookie sheet in there, cheese was dripping on to that, and burning, and making smoke.  I turned on the fan and opened a window, so the smoke detector did not go off (PHEW!  This was Barbie's first meal at our house, and that would NOT have been a good first impression..."Come eat at my house and I'll almost burn it down, or I'll definitely at least burn dinner.")  When all was said and done, and we were sitting down and eating, everybody except Nathan liked this.  We didn't let it sit for 10 minutes because we were in a rush to get to home fellowship, so the sauce was very runny, but also very tasty.  The beef stew components seemed out of place, but tasted fine.  Barbie liked it well enough to take home the leftovers, which you do not do if you are just trying to be polite. So I would call it a success.  And since I used my new no-stick Wilton cookie sheet, the char just literally washed right off.