Breakfast Casserole

I don't know about you, but around here things have gotten mighty stressful. It seems like the majority of my friends are facing difficult times as well. Just yesterday, we had a playgroup over here and every one of us was struggling with something life-changing.

So, when the going gets tough at my house, the "tough" gets cooking. Another friend of mine, who suffered a great loss just last week, recently shared her recipe for breakfast casserole with me.

You know me, I can't ever just let a recipe stand on its own. I had to tweak it and add my own flare to it, but it turned out beautifully.

I made my own breakfast sausage where I was supposed to add "browned ground meat." Here's the recipe for that (it tastes better with ground pork, but I use ground turkey to be a bit healthier).

Breakfast Sausage:

2 t sage
2 t salt
1 t black pepper
1/4 t marjoram
1 T brown sugar
1/8 t crushed red pepper flakes (I usually double that)
1 pinch ground cloves
2 lbs ground turkey (or pork)

In a small bowl combine the spices. Place pork in a large bowl and add the spices. Mix well with your hands and form into patties (or just brown it, as per the recipe below). Saute patties in large skillet over medium heat about 5 minutes per side or until internal pork temperature reaches 160F (70C).

Breakfast Casserole

• Wipe down inside of crock pot with cooking oil
• place 1/2 bag of frozen shredded hash brown inside (separated kind, not already formed)
• in a separate bowl, lightly beat 7 eggs with some milk, salt and pepper
• stir in 2 handfuls of shredded cheese into eggs
• stir browned ground meat (can be leftovers from dinner too!) into egg mixture
• Pour over hash browns
• Turn on low and cook 6-8 hours (i.e. overnight)

My wonderful neighbor had her husband bring over 6 dozen eggs last week. To my GREAT delight, there was a turkey egg in the mix, as well as many Americauna eggs (they are blue/green and long). You should have seen Sam and I jumping for joy when we found the turkey egg! I love turkey eggs, but only because Joanna introduced me to them. They make the best pastry crusts, and taste great all on their own (very bold flavor). However, Sam wanted to include it in our casserole, so I added it to the mix.

He greatly enjoys mixing eggs. We prepared this casserole after dinner last night, and it turned out to be a great way to wind down the evening for him. He's a very task-oriented child, so once I gave him this task, he didn't stop until he was satisfied that all the eggs were mixed properly.

Meanwhile, I browned the sausage in my cast-iron skillet. Turkey seems to take a little longer to cook than beef or pork does. I don't know what the science is behind it, but it could be because it sticks together more than the other meats. I actually ended up using my brand new pastry blender to separate the meat into smaller bites.

This morning, I toasted an English muffin that I had frozen and thawed overnight and served the casserole over it. The results were delicious.

As we say to Sam all the time, "Try it, you'll like it!"