VERY Slowly Cooked Potatoes

Yesterday I put together Carol's Pizza Potatoes (p. 36) because I was due to give my borrowed crock pot back today.  I had purchased all the required ingredients last weekend but could not figure out what this should be a side dish for, so I didn't get around to making it.  I had to run to the store to get an onion (I used up the previously purchased one for Crockpot Lasagna), so, after our weekly visit to the library, we stopped by the store where I bought the onion along with ingredients for this week's March Cookie Madness batches.

All in all, I got home a little later than intended, and then, to my horror, discovered that the Pizza Potatoes are supposed to cook for 6-10 hours rather than the 4-6 hours I seemed to remember.  Instead of eating lunch, I sliced up potatoes (I peeled the potatoes - the recipe didn't specify but it seemed "right") and onions and sauteed them until the onions were fairly translucent.  Then I combined that mixture, pepperoni, cheese, salt, and pizza sauce in the crockpot.

Then I read the recipe and realized the pizza sauce was meant to be poured on top rather than mixed in, so I poured in a little more for good measure.  I turned on the crock pot, had lunch, and then ran off to the going out of business sale of yet another quilt shop (can you believe that???).  I got home several hours later and went to mix the potatoes.  First I wondered why the potatoes didn't seem very cooked yet, then to my mild interest, I noticed the cheese didn't melt.  What an odd recipe, I thought.  I actually left the crock pot and wandered off for a bit, before coming back and realizing that I had never plugged in the crock pot.

No matter, the contents were still quite cold and I didn't have to give the crock pot back until Sunday morning.  The obvious answer was to put the whole thing in the refrigerator and start it heating right before going to sleep -- we would have Pizza Potatoes for breakfast!

Upon waking this morning, my very first thought was of having not started the Pizza Potatoes yet again.  I hustled out of bed, took them out of the refrigerator, and turned them on, hoping the crock pot wasn't needed until early afternoon. I turned off the crock pot early, about 12:15 pm, and we lunched on it (as a main dish after all).  It was pretty good, even with its checkered past.  Some of the potatoes had browned after their prolonged expose to oxygen, but I took out some of the better-looking potatoes for this photo:

Everyone seemed to enjoy it, although my son did hold up a pepperoni and ask:

"Is this a... a... what is this, mom?"

He seemed satisfied with the answer, though, and ate that and some of the potatoes before leaving a pile of onions and cheese for me to consume.  I had thought the onions might be a bit weird, but they turned into more of a texture and vehicle for sauce and cheese, and, really, isn't that what we all want from all foods?