Monday, March 02, 2009

Breakfast Casserole

We actually had this for dinner Monday night. There were no leftovers....

5 eggs
1 can cream of celery soup
1 can milk
1-2 t good mustard
4-5 shakes hot sauce
½ - 1 lb sausage (you can use turkey breakfast sausage as I do, pork breakfast sausage, turkey or pork Italian sausage
5 slices good bread - cubed (My sister in law Sherry uses tomato rosemary focciacia sometimes)
1 cup shredded super sharp cheddar

Cook and crumble sausage. Drain well. Spray casserole dish and put bread cubes and then sausage in dish. Wisk eggs, soup and milk. Add in mustard & hot sauce. Wisk. Pour over bread & sausage. Top with cheese. Spray foil with Pam (or use no-stick foil) and cover tightly. Refrigerate overnight. Bake at 350 for at least 1 hour if not 1 ½ hours. Uncover for last 15 minutes. Yum.

You could also add sauteed fresh mushrooms, or canned , finely diced onions or celery or all three. If you used Italian sausage, you could top with Mozzerella or provolone.

This will puff up and look awesome. It will also look like way too much food. People always love this and I rarely have leftovers. But it re-heats very nicely.

Pot Roast Stew

So - I didn't have pot roast but I did have beef stew meat.

2 onions - sliced into sixths lengthwise
carrots - I had baby ones on hand - used about ½ bag
4 stalks celery - sliced into thirds
1 T olive oil
3-4 garlic cloves
1 lb beef stew meat
salt
pepper
sugar
wine
flour

Heat oil in a dutch oven until it is very hot. Meanwhile pat beef chunks dry and season with salt, pepper and sugar (the sugar gives it a GREAT carmelized sear). Sear the beef in two batches. Set beef aside. Add in wine - white or red - your preference. I used about ½ bottle of rose for this - cause it's what I had on hand. Using your garlic press, press garlic into wine. Add in veggies and beef. Cover with tin foil or ovenproof lid of dutch oven. Roast at 350 for 2+ hours. Remove meat and veggies. I use a big wok slotted spoon. Add more wine depending on how much is left and start it boiling. Make a slurry with 1/3 cup wine and 2-3 T flour. Add some hot wine into slurry and then add the whole thing into the dutch oven. Wisk to keep it smooth. Add back in meat and veggies and serve over mashed potatoes (as I did), egg noodles, good bread (for a pot roast hot shot), rice, whatever you have on hand!

I realized in the middle of the night - when I have all my great realizations - that the recipe I was cribbing off of called for a can of whole tomatoes - crushed. Totally forgot but this was great anyway. Scott loved it. There were no leftovers.