Ghetto Office Creamed Corn Casserole

I got a little big ambitious w/ today's recipe. So ambitious that I blew my budget. Not that I was planning to, but DC weather sucks. The plan for today involves making a casserole. I planned on waking up this morning and digging up some potatoes that my dad's grown in the little garden and using it in my dish, but since god hates me he made it rain. It rained so hard that I completely lost my motivation to wake up early, grab a pitchfork and till the earth in the search for some good potatoes.

So I had to -BUY- my potatoes and it blew the budget. Two russet potatoes cost $1.16. But if you ignore the potatoes (like I originally planned on) this entire meal cost me $0.90. And what a meal! I'm eating it as I type and I don't think I can finish it. It's frickin GI-NORMOUS.

Ingredients:
* 1 can of Creamed Corn (I bought generic and it was 0.35 after the super safeway discount card)
* 1 russet potato
* 1 oz of cubed smoked ham (from the office cafeteria salad bar)
* 1/3 oz of shredded yellow cheese (from same salad bar)
* 1 piece of cafeteria corn bread (this plus the two ingredients above cost a staggering $0.55, the checkout lady gave me the corn bread for free cause she didn't know how much it cost)
* 1 jalepeno pepper (picked from co-worker john's garden, thanks john!)
* enough salt and pepper pkts to taste (for me that was one pkt of salt and two pkts of pepper)

This recipe actually takes a little prep time... about 20m to be exact.

1) Microwave the potatos.
- stab potato w/ fork
- nuke for 5-10m or until desired doneness is achieved. I like my potatoes on the firm side (5m), you may not (13m).

2) Slice cooked potato in to little potato medallions.
- I used a plastic knife taken from the cafeteria
- I used a paper towel to cut on, but I suppose using a co-worker's set of binders could work out just as well

3) Open can of creamed corn.

4) This is the tricky part. You're gonna want use a microwave safe bowl (or co-worker's coffee cup). We're gonna want to build this casserole layer by layer. I managed to have FIVE layers in mine from just the ingredients listed above.
- Line the bottom of the vessel w/ the potato medallions.
- Pour some creamed corn on top of potato
- apply a layer of ham and a bit of cheese
- line w/ more potato
- pour on more creamed corn
- cut up the jalepeno (with office shears) and lay it on top of the creamed corn
- crumble the corn bread on top of the creamed corn
- apply remaining bits of cheese & ham.

5) Nuke it.
- give it like 3-5m. Let it rest for a minute, then nuke it again for 3-5m. Let the whole thing rest and take it out and eat.

Like any casserole this one lends itself to variations:

If you have access to a toaster oven maybe cut the raw potato into little circles and roast them first before you line the pan, but be sure to use some butter from the office cafeteria before you do that.

Know someone that smokes or at least know an office worker that likes have butane torches (there's always one)? Well pour on a little sugar (from the pkt) and give the top of your casserole the creme brule treatment.

Don't have the corn bread at the cafeteria? USE CRACKERS! (And by crackers I mean white people.)

Next week I may try to do a creamy casserole w/ the ubiquitous cream of mushroom soup.

UPDATE! I have a PICTURE.

UPATE: Please someone send a couch, I'm about to go into food coma

Lunch for about $1 a day: Creamed Corn