Comfort Food Ham and Potato Casserole

This old recipe is a family favorite. It is a great way to use up leftover ham from the holiday dinner.

Ingredients:
4 lbs Ore-Ida® cubed potatoes O'Brien (2 32 oz packages)
1 1/2 cup mayonnaise (not salad dressing)
1 1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup Hidden Valley Ranch dressing (from the bottle - not the dry powder)
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 1/2 teaspoon Johnny's season salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
5-6 green onions chopped
1 1/2 cup white onion chopped
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese or colby jack
4 cups chopped cooked ham

Directions:

• Butter the inside of your slow cooker.
• First dump one bag of potatoes out of the plastic bag into a microwave safe dish. Microwave each bag of the potatoes for 5 minutes
• Then dump in the mayonnaise and sour cream.
• Sprinkle the seasonings over the sour cream and mayonnaise and mix together very well.
• Stir in the green onions and the chopped white onion.
• Add the potatoes and ham and mix everything together very well.
• Turn the slow cooker to high and cook for 4 hours or cook on low 8 hours.
• A few minutes before you serve dinner, stir in the cheddar cheese.

Options: Bake in a buttered casserole dish. 350 degrees for approximately 30 minutes - just until it's hot. Be sure to pre-heat the potatoes, just as you do for the slow cooker.

You can make this casserole the day before and refrigerate.

Johnny's seasoning salt is widely available in the Pacific Northwest. If it's not available in your area, it is available through the website: Johnny's Seasoning, Sam's Club, Costco, Amazon.com, and you can even purchase it on ebay. If you must, you can substitute Lawry's or another seasoning salt.

By the way, Johnny's garlic spread is the best! I use it to season my wood smoke grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, and linguine primavera. Sometimes I even use it for my garlic bread!