Pizza Casserole?

[Tim-n-VA]

I was feeling a little creative and trying to use stuff I happened to have on hand. This is what I did:

Combined melted butter, some pre-packaged Italian seasonings, black pepper and pre-packaged shredded potatoes (Simply Potato brand). I pressed that into a 9x13 casserole and baked it until it just started to turn brown.

I then topped the potatos with canned pizza sauce, ham and cheese and baked it until the cheese melted and everything looked bubbley.

I had hoped for a deep-dish pizza type thing with the potatos forming the crust. It was mostly a soggy casserole that fell apart while being served, looked weird but tasted pretty good.

I was thinking that I should bake the potatoes until they are more brown/crispy and perhaps use less sauce.

Has anyone else tried to use potatoes like this as a substitute for a crust? I tried this with a breakfast cassorle/quiche with sausage and it worked better, probably due to the eggs solidifying as they cooked.

Any suggestions on how to tweak this. It seems that if the basic concept gets resolved it could be varied a lot with toppings, etc.

[Darn210]

How bout instead of pizza sauce use diced (and appropriately spiced) tomatos?

I like the idea of this . . . I'll be watching to see what everyone else adds.

[missy'smom]

What you're trying to do is basically the same concept as Spaghetti Pie. My recipe for that calls for egg, spaghetti and butter for the crust. Next on is the ricotta, egg parmesan mixture and on top of that a layer of thick tomato meat sauce, followed by mozzarella and parmesan. Hope that helps.