Amish Breakfast Casserole - Feeding Myself Breakfasts – Part 1

Bev, Pat (SIL), Cindy, and Pat (neighbor) piled in the car and headed to Marco Island for their annual trek to the beach and as usual I’m dog sitting and looking after myself.  While they all tried to pack lite, the back of the Buick (back row of seats folded down) was almost completely full but I didn’t think about a pic until they had left.  

Ten days into their two weeks, I will be driving the motor home down along with my buddy, Joe, acting as navigator, extra road watcher, and dog wrangler then everyone but Pat and Bev will fly home (about $50 on Allegient) and we will hang around Florida for a while. 

Often times, Bev will cook me some dishes before she leaves, but since I’ve been in a cooking mood lately, I advised her not to bother and I would cook for myself.  A couple of days prior to her departure, our freezer quit working and we moved everything out until we could get it fixed (turned out to be a blocked drain).  Since we touched everything in the freezer moving it out and back (re-organized) I knew what all was available to me for the week.

For my first breakfast dish, I had saved this Amish Casserole recipe and since I knew we had frozen hash browns, I had just received some excellent Swiss cheese from Guggisberg, and all of the other ingredients were on hand, I wanted to make it.

Amish Breakfast Casserole

Ingredients:

1 pound sliced bacon, diced

1 sweet onion, chopped

4 cups frozen shredded hash brown potatoes, thawed

9 eggs, lightly beaten

2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

1 1/2 cups small curd cottage cheese

1 1/4 cups shredded Swiss cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.

2. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat; cook and stir bacon and onion until bacon is evenly browned, about 10 minutes. Drain. Transfer bacon and onion to a large bowl. 

3. Stir in potatoes, eggs, Cheddar cheese, cottage cheese, and Swiss cheese. Pour mixture into prepared baking dish.

4. Bake in preheated oven until eggs are set and cheese is melted, 45 to 50 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting and serving.

Notes:

A. The recipe didn’t call for S&P so I seasoned the components – potatoes and onions while cooking, beaten eggs, cottage cheese.

B. I cooked on convection bake for 45 minutes which was a little too long.

It was very good and I cut it into six squares – three for this week and three for the RV freezer.

Biscuits And Gravy

For our RV trip, I have been prepping some foods for our travel days and I find sausage biscuits to be an easy way to go for breakfast – bake a 20 pack of Pillsbury frozen biscuits and fry up a box of Swagerty’s pre-pattied breakfast sausage (I tried some pre-made ones like Jimmy Dean and there is no comparison).  Then freeze and package them individually and thaw out what you want for breakfast the next day.  

While frying several batches of sausage the pan developed a lot of fond on the bottom and I would normally just throw it away.  But on this particular day, it occurred to me that this pan full of goodies would make some good gravy.  So I estimated the amount of grease, added a couple of tablespoons of flour and cooked to make a roux.  Then I slowly added cold milk to de-glaze the pan and make the gravy, being sure to scrape up all of the fond.  When I had gotten the consistency I wanted, I seasoned with S&P, let it cool and stored for later use.

For breakfast a couple of days later, I used a couple of the frozen biscuits and the gravy – all of the chunks are the fond from the pan - no sausage added.

It was a delicious breakfast and the gravy didn’t need the addition of sausage.  Tune in later for some suppers and more breakfasts.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

10/22/17 Meal Date