Janet's Twenty-four Hour Omelet

Jan here, talking about one of my favorite subjects: baby showers!

One thing that I love about our church is that we celebrate babies. Whether it's the first or the tenth, we celebrate that new life. :)

Whenever it's Janet's privilege to host the shower, she makes a fabulous brunch. And the star of the show is this egg bake.

This is the kind of recipe that we love here at the Cafe... Janet got it from a friend, who got it from a friend, who copied it out of one of those community cookbooks.

Along the way, the original recipe has been tweaked and adjusted as necessary (for instance, the original called for a loaf of Publix Egg Twist bread - not so easy to find when you live thousands of miles from the nearest Publix Super Market!).

So when you try this recipe for your next get-together, be sure to experiment with your own tweaks. Own the omelet!

Janet's Twenty-four Hour Omelet

ingredients:

1 loaf Egg Twist bread (aka Challah) or a similar sweet, rich bread (Janet uses 10 King's Hawaiian Rolls).

8 Tablespoons butter (one quarter pound stick)

6 ounces Philadelphia Cream Cheese

8 ounces shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

8 ounces shredded Monterey Jack cheese

2 cups milk

10 eggs

1/2 Tablespoon salt (or to your taste)

1/2 Tablespoon dry mustard

a dash of cayenne pepper

sliced scallions (aka green onions) or chives for garnish


Remove the crust from the bread. This is a key step, so don't skip it!

Tear the bread into chunks and lay them in the bottom of a greased 9" x 13" baking dish. Melt the butter and pour it over the bread.

Cut the cream cheese into small chunks and mix with the shredded cheeses. Layer this mixture over the bread.

Beat the eggs, milk, and spices together and pour this over the bread/cheeses.

Sprinkle the sliced scallions or chives over the top.

Refrigerate overnight.

Bake, covered, at 325° for approximately 90 minutes, or until done. Remove the foil for the last ten minutes of cooking.

Enjoy!!!!!!

What is it about showers that we love so much? Whether it's a baby shower or a wedding shower, there's just something about celebrating the continuation of life, isn't there?

What is your favorite food for parties like this?

Jan Drexler loves her family, her home, cooking and just about anything made by hand. But she loves her Lord most of all.

Stop by Jan's website to learn more about her books: www.JanDrexler.com

Sausage & Cheese Breakfast Casserole

Spring has definitely come to the Black Hills!

But before we get to that, let me share this great recipe I tried for our church's annual Easter brunch. It's kind of a breakfast sandwich-gone-casserole, and Josh, my son-in-law, gave it two thumbs up.

One great thing about this recipe is that the casserole doesn't need to be refrigerated overnight. Perfect for those holiday weekends when you're short on refrigerator space!

Sausage & Cheese Breakfast Casserole

ingredients:
note - I made this in an 11 x 17 baking dish. If you are using a 9 x 13 dish, use the smaller amounts of the ingredients in parentheses.

8 (5) eggs
1/2 (1/4) cup milk
6 (4) green onions
13 (8) large refrigerated breakfast biscuits (aka "Pillsbury Grands")
1 1/2 (1) cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 pound sausage, browned (optional for non-meat lovers)

Whisk the eggs and milk together in a large mixing bowl.

Cut each biscuit into six pieces. I find that my pizza cutter works great!

Put the biscuit pieces in the egg mixture and let them soak for 10-15 minutes while you get the rest of the ingredients ready.

Clean and slice the green onions and add them to the mixing bowl.

Brown your sausage (I did this part the night before), measure your cheese, and mix everything together. Pour it into your baking dish. Sprinkle a little extra cheese on top.

Bake at 350° for about 25-30 minutes, or until done (center is solid when you jiggle it).

Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes, then serve.

Delicious! And so easy! A definite plus on a busy morning. :)

So here's what else is happening around here.

My dear husband and I are back into our "get up in the Hills and hike every chance we can" routine. On Saturday we did a couple miles on the French Creek trail in Custer State Park.

French Creek is where gold was first discovered in the Black Hills back in 1874, but we didn't find any on our hike. :)

But we did discover one fun thing about this creek - it disappears. At one point in the trail it will look like this...

...but a few yards later...

We found the spot where the creek disappears. It just goes underground! The water follows an underground passage just below this dry stream bed. There is water here sometimes, but only when there has been a lot of rain.

Another piece of great news this spring is that the pine beetle is finally under control.

The pine beetle can devastate a forest, leaving it like this -

And when a fire comes, like it did in the Argyle area last year, it leaves the forest looking like this -

But for several years now, rangers and loggers have been cutting the beetle killed trees and breaking the life cycle by giving the beetles nowhere to go. We see piles of cut logs like these all over the forest -

So now the new, healthy forest can grow, and it's a beautiful sight.

And speaking of new growth!

This little one was brand new - maybe a day or two old! But the next one was a bit older. See the horn buds?

The cows and calves stay together in huge herds, but the bulls either stay alone or in groups of two or three.

Look at that shaggy coat! The birds love to line their nests with the buffalo hair!

And finally, I have to share this with you:

A new bird sighting to add to my life list. A burrowing owl!

We saw two of them, and I was thrilled!

So yes, Spring is definitely here!

What signs of spring are you seeing around your place? or are you already looking for signs of summer?


Oh! Before I forget, the e-book editions of Hannah's Choice and Mattie's Pledge are on sale at your favorite on-line retailer! Stop by my website for the links: www.JanDrexler.com

Jan Drexler loves her family, her home, cooking and just about anything made by hand. But she loves her Lord most of all.

Stop by Jan's website to learn more about her books: www.JanDrexler.com

Manly Breakfast Casserole

Today we're talking breakfast. But before we do that, I thought I'd share a couple of gratuitous puppy pictures.
I'm sure you remember Maddie, the puppy we adopted a year ago last Valentine's Day. Well, turns out Maddie is quite the ball player.

I mean this dog loves/lives to play ball.

Ever hear of Air Bud?

Meet Air Maddie.

This is one focused puppy. Pro ballplayers could learn a thing or two from her about keeping their eye on the ball. I've seen her leap four feet off of the ground, twist around and catch the ball.

Uh-mazing.

So last weekend we were at the ranch and, aside from playing ball, I found myself needing to prepare breakfast for 15 hungry men. Since it needed to be ready by 6AM, I immediately thought of breakfast casserole, my go-to dish for holidays and those  mornings when I don't have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen, but still want a stick-to-your-ribs, eggs-and-bacon kind of start to my day.
However, I feared my usual breakfast casserole wasn't going to be enough for these hard working fellows. I needed to take things up a notch. 

As you will see, I made two extra large batches, but I'm giving you the ingredients for a single, regular batch.

Here's what you'll need:

6 slices of bread, cubed

6 eggs

1 lb. of your favorite breakfast sausage

Half a pound of bacon, cooked and coarsely chopped

2 cups whole milk

2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, grated

1/2 tsp. salt

Pepper to taste

1/2 tsp. ground mustard 

First, you'll need to brown your sausage and cook your bacon. I've found the easiest way to cook up a lot of bacon is to do it in the oven. Place the slices in a single layer on a large foil-covered baking sheet (the foil makes for easy cleanup) and bake in a 400 degree oven for 15-20 minutes. Then I simply drain and chop the bacon before stirring it into the drained sausage.

Next, I mix together my milk, eggs and seasonings.

Sometimes I'll add a dash or two of cayenne for nice little kick. 

Then it's on to the assembly.

Place your cubed bread into a greased pan.

Top with your meat mixture.

And pour the egg mixture over that, making sure to wet everything.

Finally, top it all with cheese.

Cover and place in refrigerator overnight.

When you're ready to bake it, place in a preheated 375 degree oven for 40-45 minutes, or until set. The cheese will be slightly golden and the edges bubbly, even a bit crisp.

But, of course, I forgot to take a pic of the finished product. I just hurriedly covered them with foil and was on my merry way out to the pasture. Because when one has hungry men waiting, there's no time to waste.

Adding bacon to the classic breakfast casserole really ramped up the flavor. Of course, as we all know, everything's better with bacon (sorry, Kav, but it's true), so I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. 

The guys loved it and I was happy to fill their tummies. And on the way back to the camp house, I was treated to a beautiful sunrise.

An experience that was far more pleasant than what happened later in the day. I was picking dewberries, minding my own business, when a red wasp decided to take aim at me.

Stupid little critter nailed me right between the thumb and index finger. Two days later, my hand still looked like this. Next time, I'm taking bug spray.

What's your go-to when making breakfast for a crowd?

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?