It's Tradition: Breakfast Casseroles and Food History - Gluten Free!

It's Holy Week here in North Carolina, a time of traditions like Palm Sunday pageants, egg hunts, and Easter brunches. So I was thrilled when Amazon delivered this book about food traditions in the South on Sunday (yes, a Sunday, apparently our area is full of people who can't wait til Monday).

I heard about The Edible South on The State of Things on a program which discussed the history of food in our state as well as the growth and changes over time in our cuisine -click here to take a listen.    

Marcie Cohen Ferris does an excellent job of covering everything from early basic ingredients to the place of food in the Civil Rights movement to the cuisine influence of New South immigrants
and the challenge of hunger in the region. 

I LOVE reading about food in books. Southern girl I am, when I read a food description, I always circle back to the foods I loved growing up visiting my Nanny's farm in the hollers of Southwest Virginia or Grandmother Hilton's home in small town Bristol, Tennessee. Canned goods, recipes, and stories about relatives always made it back to our home in Washington DC, a town folks don't realize is a Southern town! Food, family and history just seem to go together in my mind.  If you are an author and put food descriptions in your book or make a dish a centerpiece of a scene, I'm your fan for life.


I'm also a big fan of make-ahead breakfast casseroles especially around Easter because I'm Southern. Again, tradition, tradition, tradition but a relatively new one. I can remember Mom making them but not further back. Were they a 1970s invention? Or earlier? Googled. Nothing. Hmm. That rabbit hole took me to the history of eggs. When did folks start eating them? Why are they in a dozen? I knew about their symbolism for Easter (New Life) but I wanted to know more. Tah dah! I found a great article here on foodtimeline.org

Important announcement: For anyone who wants to know the history of a certain food for a certain time period, Foodtimeline.org is one great research site that even includes recipes. 

This year Dear Daughter requested one for her birthday celebration that fell on Palm Sunday.  DD was actually born on Easter so if her birthday doesn't fall on it, it falls near it. A busy time.Thanks, DD, for making it easy for me. Sort of. The ingredient list sure didn't.

Most breakfast casseroles have bread cubes or processed hashed browns as the carb ingredient.  Sausage is an add-in.  But bread's out for me because of the allergies and the texture of gluten free bread just doesn't work for this recipe. Most gluten-free recipes used pre-made hash browns and regular sausage. So we're good, right? Nope, still a problem. With cornstarch to prevent sticking, MSG, and other preservatives, I can't tolerate those ingredients either. So I decided I'd make my own sausage and use roasted potatoes instead of frozen hash browns. I always use small farm or imported cheese. Adaptation here I come.  

Gluten-free, preservative free Breakfast Casserole

The Night Before:


1) Roast three to four pounds of Yukon potatoes cut into one inch cubes (coated in two tablespoons olive oil and dashed with sea salt) at 425 for 40 minutes in a 9X13 pan, stirring midway. After cooling for 15 minutes, cover and place in the refrigerator overnight.

2) Combine 1.5 pounds of ground pork,  2 tablespoons of Penzey's Breakfast Sausage Seasoning and 1 tablespoon salt (optional) in a medium saucepan or skillet. Cook over medium heat. Drain when fully cooked and refrigerate overnight.  You can also add a bit more sage if you like.

Morning of:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2) Pour cooked sausage mixture over roasted potatoes in their 9x13 pan. Mix sausage and potato cubes until evenly combined and level in the pan.

3) Mix the following with a whisk in  a large mixing bowl until fully combined: 

8 eggs
16 ounces sour cream
8 ounces shredded sharp cheddar

4) Pour over potato/sausage mixture. Shake until egg mixture fills around the sausage and potatoes. Then stir to make sure fully coated.

5) Cover with aluminum  foil and cook for one hour at 350 degrees.

6) Uncover and cook fifteen more minutes until lightly browned.

7) Top individual squares with roasted red peppers or other garnish.

Folks went back for seconds. I was lucky to get the shot above!  I have a feeling we have a new tradition that will go down in Steele history.

 Have you thought about the place of food in history? Do you have a breakfast casserole you love? Or a special food tradition for Spring or Easter?

What's in Your Dining Room? A Pinterest Adventure

When I promised ManO we would eat in the dining room more often, I didn't realize the ripple effect it would have on my meals, our conversation, and most especially the decor!  One month and I figured we'd be tired of it and I'd get to turn the room I never used into my dream library.

But a funny thing happened. We liked talking to each other and guests without the distraction of the television or dirty dishes (I'm a use all the dishes, spread the mess around kinda cook). There's a reason restaurants are so popular! No television unless we're in a pub and then ManO sneaks looks at the scores. No dirty dishes. Except we have "seat them by the kitchen" faces. We did an informal study once and realized 90-99% of the time, that's where the host leads us unless we say ASAP, "we want to be FAR, FAR, FAR away from the kitchen." I keep hoping it's because that's where a lot of restaurants seat families with children and we look like we're young parents or, at the very least, tolerant grandparent types.

So why didn't we eat in the dining room before now?  It's simple.We'd started referring to it as
"the museum." The dining room was the last decluttering domain, a reminder of times and people past. Last year, we still couldn't bring ourselves to go through all the formal  stuff we'd inherited.

But after our challenging 2014, 2015 needed to start fresh!  This month's experiment proved we liked eating in the dining room. We just needed to make it our own, keep a few valued heirlooms and antiques then mix them with our favorite things. ManO wanted to keep our newlywed furniture (he's sentimental and it's solid wood) but he wouldn't let me paint that maple no matter what Pinterest said!

My $50 budget also kept me under control because Pinterest can tempt you to do things you never thought you'd do.  We wanted an Ameri-Parisien feel to the room. Plenty of ideas on the boards. Faux French linen placemats were a much less expensive touch than the real thing. 

I had a huge grill-front tavern plate rack of my mom's above my buffet. I wish I had a picture. My sisters and I've called it the "pigeon coop" since we were little, if that gives you an idea. It overwhelmed and darkened the room.  Off the wall it went. Wow, a more serene space already.

My favorite antique from my childhood bedroom is the four drawer apothecary chest.

 

I'd spent $17 on four placemats and $20 on wall paint/patch supplies so my personalized art pieces had to be cheap.

 A frame borrowed from another part of the house and an 8x10 print for $3.99 added another dash of  Paris.  ManO looks quite, um, dashing on this bridge over the Seine.

Pinterest helped again when I looked for ways to update our decor.  I love the sign trend out now but that's what it is, a trend. So I went shopping in my house for another frame. I thought about my favorite quotes en Francais and consulted Belle Calhoune  who loves all things French. She also has ten years of French lessons to my seven.

The French have such beautiful words like etoile for star and amour for love. What to choose? But the beauty of making my own "quote art" is I can switch it out. For now I settled on a Matisse quote reflecting my philosophy of life, "There are always flowers for those who wish to see them." It's about finding beauty in the world (see Jan Drexler's Monday post, ) and gratitude in the dark times.

I hope Monet forgives me for using a Matisse quote overlaying a picture we took in his garden. 

By this point my library idea was toast. But no Paris apartment would be without books. Out when all the things that made the hutch look like my grandma's and in came my favorite books and pottery collection.

Best Pinterest book/bookshelf styling tip: No need to buy books by the yard. Use books that you have and love. My flower arranging, spiritual writing and reading, and our travel books look great together without the dust jackets. Bonus, they lighten up the brown hutch I wasn't allowed to paint!

Not everyone can or wants to have a Paris inspired dining room but I leave you with one of the most wonderful spice blends from Penzeys Spices,  Sunny Paris. Such a wonderful blend of purple shallots, chives, green peppercorns, tarragon, and more. I use it on plain chicken and fish to dress it up, in salad dressing, over asparagus and in breakfast dishes. Yummy and so easy to use!

So, if you could have a dining room anywhere in the world, where would it be?  Are you decluttering this winter? Do you have a favorite spice that makes you think of far away lands? PS. Have you visited the Yankee Belle folks' boards on Pinterest? Such fun.