Feeding the Branding Crew

Today Aiden and I prepared dinner for 11 -- the branding crew.  We baked a chocolate cake with white icing, baked honey-oat dinner rolls, made baked pork chops with whiskey barbeque sauce, heated some "cowboy" beans and made the infamous Hash Brown Casserole that everyone who has ever cooked for a church potluck knows the recipe for.  But just in case, here it is: ~Printable Version

2 lbs. frozen potatoes O'Brien, thawed (just a little jazzier than regular hash browns)
1/2 c. butter, melted
2 c. American cheese, grated, 1/2 C. reserved for topping (I used cheddar/jack today, but you end up with stringiness -- the American is better, but it's expensive to buy the big brick and then what do you do with it after you make the casserole).  
1/2 c. chopped onion (yes, more onion.  is there such thing as too much onion?)
1 tsp. salt
1/2  tsp. pepper
1 pt. sour cream

1/2 C. milk
1 small can cream of chicken soup (not the big giant can unless you double the recipe).

Mix all together (except for reserved cheese) and put in 9 x 13 inch pan. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 45 min.  Remove from oven, sprinkle with remaining 1/2 C. of cheese, and bake uncovered an additional 15-20 minutes.

We doubled the recipe for hungry college boys who had been chasing calves all morning.  

It did not occur to me to photograph it before the hungry crew demolished it, so here is a photo from Betty Crocker.  I'm pretty sure Betty herself took the picture (remember, we did not have ham, we had pork chops, so try to envision that -- and of course the cowboy beans instead of starfruit, 'cause, you know, cowboys).