Ellwood Thompson's own wine and a summer au gratin

Michael Shaps is now making a white and a red wine exclusively for Ellwood Thompson's!  This amazing Charlottesville winemaker consults and makes wine for many area wineries and restaurants including the VMFA, and now our own ET's.  The white is a blend of viognier, petit manseng and chardonnay, and is fruit forward without being sweet.  It is fantastic, and at around $12, I can't wait to try the red blend as well.

Our white wine by Virginia Cellars

It was cooler and rainy this weekend (so lovely), so I was hankering for comfort food. I have a lot of potatoes and squash coming from Dominion Harvest these days, so I thought I'd go for an au gratin.  Basically, I wanted something avec fromage.

Chips!  You can see through them!

I sliced up some potatoes with my handy mandolin. I started getting hungry, so I tossed some of the thin potato slices with oil, salt and pepper put them on a baking sheet and threw them in the oven for about 10 minutes while it was preheating.  Potato chips go well with newfound white wine and cheese sauce that didn't quite make it into the pan, btw.

Oh squash, what do we do with you? 

Summer au gratin

2 medium potatoes, sliced into at most 1/8 inch
1 onion, sliced into thin half rings
3 small summer squash, thinly sliced
salt and pepper to taste
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups cream
1 1/2 cups grated Cheddar cheese


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Butter a small casserole dish (mine is about 9x5).
Layer the potatoes into bottom of the prepared dish. Top with the onion slices, and add the squash. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
In a medium-size saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Mix in the flour and salt, and whisk for one minute. Stir in cream. Cook until mixture has thickened (about 2 minutes). Stir in cheese all at once, and continue stirring until melted, about another minute. Pour mixture over squash layer.
Bake 50 minutes in the preheated oven or until golden and bubbling.