Pretty Potato Gratin!

Chilly winter's evening.. fire lit in a cosy cottage.. my favourite rachmaninoff varitation 18 playing ... a lovely glass of wine and book, a completely blissful evening, who would like to move from a comfortable chair and get to the kitchen to make supper. The fact of the reality is, no gains without pains :) So here I was out of my comfortable chair into the kitchen wondering what I could make..that would make our supper exciting, without having to slog over it. I know what you are thinking :-) yes I do get in a mode when I want a quick and easy supper and leave slow cooking for another day! I saw some nice potatoes in the basket and all I could think was a Potato Gratin, the best think that you can rustle up in no time at all. I made mine with Potato and leak, instead of using onions, I like the mild flavour of leak compare to onion in the gratin, but onion works perfectly well if leak is not readily available. The idea is to make you ingredients work for you. So here is what you need to make the gratin and am sure you can get everything out of your fridge, does not need shopping at all.
Ingredients:

1. 4 medium size potatoes
2. 1 medium size leak
3. a sprig of rosemary and a few sage leaves (feel free to use dried herbs they work quiet well too.. and you can alter the herbs to your taste if you don't like herbs I used).
4. A 100 ml can of single cream (whole milk can be used if you want to make it less fattening)
5. a knob of butter
6. Freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste
7. Any kind of cheese that is available, I used a nice sprinkling of strong cheddar.
8. A couple of cloves of garlic as per your taste, I put loads in mine.
9. Coriander to garnish

Once all the ingredients are ready all we now need is to pile up in a nice deep baking dish and stick it in the oven. Follow some quick steps and its ready:

1. Slice the potatoes in thin circles, make sure they are of same thickness, they will bake well.
2. Slice the leak white and green everything.
3. Butter the baking dish and put a layer of potatoes, leak and garlic. Tuck smal pieces of butter, this helps the potatoes cook well and give level a lovely flavour. Season well with salt and pepper, sprinkle herbs evenly. Pour over half of the cream and half of the grated cheese. layer the cheese at thin or thick you like. Make this the way you would like it.
4. Continue the same process to add another layer. Top up with extra coriander and herbs
5. Stick the baking dish in the oven on 180 degrees Celsius or gas mark 4 for 45 mins.
6. Keep checking after 30 mins, depending on the ovens the potatoes should start breaking down in half an hour.
7. Once you have a lovely crust and knife goes in easily, the gratin is done and ready to eat!!

When you take a slice out of the gratin, it will look curdled, which is perfectly ok, that's how it should be, the combination of cheese and cream curdles the gratin when heat is applied. The gratin is a lovely supper in itself does not need anything else to go along with it. If you must.. a nice toasted garlic bread goes quite well with it. I had a lovely lazy evening.. with a winter warming dish.. hope you one have too :-)