Baked Potato Casserole

This is a recipe I got from Kathryn.  It is spicy and delicious.  It also warms up well.  It also makes enough for a small army (I got 8 servings out of it) so you might want to reduce things.

Some notes on the sausage: You want about six brats worth of meat.  I have no idea how much that is, I just eyeballed it.  For the sausage, I used half kielbasa and half hardwood smoked and it was great.  I meant to do all kielbasa, but the hardwood smoked was hiding in the wrong place and I grabbed two.  Also, I used turkey sausage to make it more healthy.

Some notes on the potatoes: to get my eight servings, I actually used 5 pounds of potatoes.  The individual potatoes were really small, so I just grabbed a five pound bag and used them all.  It is a ton of potatoes.

• 6 brats or sausages
• 8 potatoes
• ⅓ cup Olive Oil
• 1½ tsp salt
• 1 TBS fresh Ground Pepper
• 1 TBS Paprika
• 2 TBS Garlic Powder
• 6 TBS Hot Sauce (this is a little more than 1/3 cup, which is what I did instead of measuring it out and I used Franks) 
• 
  
• For the Topping
• 2 cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese (I wished that I had done more cheese) 
• 1 cup crumbled Bacon (it takes an entire package of bacon to get this)
• 1 cup diced Green Onion 

1. Preheat oven 450 degrees
2. In a large bowl mix Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper, Paprika, Garlic Powder & Hot Sauce
3. Cube the potatoes & add to the bowl
4. Coat a 9x13 dish with cooking spray
5. Add potatoes to the bowl and toss in the sauce. Remove the potatoes from the bowl and put them in the pan. Try to leave some of the sauce because you will use it later.
6. Bake the potatoes for 45 minutes, stir every 15 minutes
7. Slice the sausages into bite sized pieces and add it to the bowl that had the potatoes with the left over sauce and stir it around .
8. Mix together cheese, bacon & green onion in a small separate bowl
9. Once potatoes are done, add the uncooked sausage.
10. Cover with the cheese mixture topping.
11. Bake for 15 minutes or until the sausage is cooked.