My Mom's Christmas Breakfast Casserole

I've mentioned before that even though I'm not a great cook, I can make a pretty kick ass breakfast :) that's probably because it's my favorite meal of the day. When we figured out that Ty and the guys would be arriving from their cross country road trip just in time for Christmas, I knew there was only one thing I wanted to make for breakfast: my mom's breakfast casserole.

Every year, my mom assembles this casserole on Christmas Eve while we're sitting around drinking wine, and then she pops it in the oven the next morning while we're opening presents. This was our first holiday away from our families so it was nice to have a little piece of home when we woke up in the morning.Ty's mom also sent us a box full of breakfast goodies in the mail to enjoy on Christmas morning:

There were two types of English muffins (blueberry and cinnamon chip), two types of scones, cinnamon sugar crumpets (fancy!) and monster cinnamon rolls. The cinnamon rolls seemed the most Christmas-y so they were popped in the oven alongside the casserole about half way through.

I'm sure my mom didn't magically concoct this recipe on her own, but she taught it to me so it gets to be named after her.

Bonnie's Breakfast Casserole

 - 6-8 eggs (she said 6, but feeding 3 boys I used 8 just in case)
 - 3/4 cup milk
 - 1 lb. sausage
 - 2 slices of bread (I used whole wheat)
 - shredded cheddar cheese

First, brown the sausage in a pan. I did this part on Christmas Eve before I realized I'd forgotten the casserole dish we were borrowing from a friend (the U-Haul hadn't arrived at this point) so the rest of the assembly happened on Christmas morning.

With the cooked sausage ready to go, the next step is to grease your casserole dish (I almost forgot this part) and then tear the bread slices into little pieces and cover the bottom of the dish with them.

Next, layer on the cooked sausage and then a good layer of cheese. I think mom actually mixes the cheese into the eggs before she pours them on top, but I was working with a really small bowl for the eggs so the layering worked out fine.

Sausage layer

In a bowl, beat together the eggs and the milk. Add a little salt and pepper if you want, then pour that over the bread/sausage/cheese layers in your dish.

Now, if you're like me you may have a small panic attack because it looks like you didn't use enough eggs. You did, I tried this out for you remember? If you're not like me, carry on...

Now pop that sucker in the oven at 350 for 40-45 minutes and you've got yourself a delicious breakfast casserole!

We traditionally eat this at Christmas but it's great anytime you're feeding a bigger crowd. Actually, the leftovers are really good so you could assemble this Sunday night, bake it Monday morning, then have your breakfast made for you for the week!

And we didn't forget about these, but they were almost gone before I remembered to snap a picture:

Do you have a specific dish that always makes it feel like the holidays?

Cranberry Walnut Cheese Spread

I am sitting on my very own couch, in our very own apartment, in California :) This can only mean one thing, our stuff is here!! Ty actually left over a week ago to fly back to Virginia, pack our stuff in a U-haul, and drive across the country with his brother and their friend Justin. Overall they said the trip wasn't too bad except for a messy snowstorm in El Paso that threatened to leave them stranded an extra night with me home alone on Christmas morning...luckily though, the roads cleared up and they drove 12 hours straight through New Mexico and Arizona, arriving here at midnight on Christmas Eve. It was just like Home Alone except John Candy wasn't in the back of the U-haul with a polka band :)

While they were gone, I did do a bit of cooking...well this particular recipe was just mixing, but it did involve my new kitchen toy! Friday was our holiday potluck at work, when we divvied up who was going to bring what, you know I picked the non-cooking option: the cheese and crackers. Even though I picked something easy, I didn't want to seem like a total slacker so I at least tried to make something, rather than just bring some cheese and crackers.

Plus, I really want to break in this bad boy

A few years ago (or last year, I really don't remember) I made this cranberry walnut cheese spread for Christmas as an appetizer to take over to my parents house. It was a huge hit, and requires quite a bit of mixing so it fit the bill perfectly! Problem was, I could not for the life of me find the recipe. You know I don't do well without some instructions.

I knew the basic ingredients, I even tried Googling those ingredients and couldn't find it! With that pretty mixer in my kitchen and zero time left to debate about it, I decided to wing it. 

On that note, I can take absolutely no credit for this recipe, especially if you don't like it :)

Ingredients:

- 2 8oz. containers whipped cream cheese (almost forgot the whipped part, that's important)
- 8oz. block of white cheddar cheese
- 1 tblsp. spicy mustard (regular is probably fine too)
- 1 cup dried cranberries
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- crackers for serving

This really isn't rocket science, you basically mix all of the above together and there you go, a perfect cheese spread for your holiday party! I did have to do a little prep work though, you really should shred the cheese, no stand mixer no matter how all mighty and powerful, will make that happen for you. My food processor would of course, but that's wasn't here at the time.

Ok, shred the cheese! Then chop the walnuts, unless you buy them pre-chopped, which is fine too.

Now throw it all in a bowl and mix away.

I let it spin a couple times, used a spatula to scrape it all down in the bowl, and then mixed some more until it looked like everything was evenly distributed. I also made this the night before the party so it could sit in the fridge and I don't know, mesh or something. In the morning before I left, I sprinkled some extra walnuts and cranberries on top so it would look festive :) I think you could also form this into a cheese ball if you like that presentation better, I just used a green bowl. Serve with crackers, I'm loving those pretzel crackers, the ones that are pretzel on one side and pretzel on the other? Yeah, those are awesome with this spread.


I already love my new mixer, so much I decided to name her. did I mention I was home alone with three cats, drinking wine out of a Solo cup when I was making this? It was a little boring (no TV yet either). My initial thought was to name her Martha, after Martha Stewart, but I decided Martha is a little too "Look at how much better me and my fancy cooking/decorating/hot glue gunning are than you" so I decided instead to call her Minny. If you've read The Help, you know why :) And if you haven't, you should! I'm almost finished with it now and Minny just seemed to fit. Plus, there is a little irony there, I now know why people have these stand mixers sitting out on their counters and it's not for decoration...that thing weighs like 50 pounds!

I hope everyone had a great holiday week/weekend!

My New Kitchen Toy!

I have not fallen off the face of the Earth, regular cooking, etc. will hopefully resume in the new year, but for now I needed to share our newest kitchen toy with you:

Oh yeah, gettin' all sorts of fancy on the west coast! My aunt bought us this stand mixer for our wedding and waited to ship it directly to us once we had an official California address. Thank you Aunt T! It had been sitting in a box for over a week so today I decided to unpack her, and then just sit and look at her.

I can't make anything with it until at least next weekend when the rest of our stuff arrives, but she sure is pretty to look at!

This brings the current contents of our apartment to:

• 1 futon
• 1 stand mixer
• 2 bar stools (thank you Tammy & Paul)
• 3 cats
• 2 humans

That knife in the picture above? Not ours. When we moved out of our friend's apartment he was nice enough to let us borrow a few kitchen essentials to get us by.

Hope you're having a great weekend! I'm currently drinking wine out of a Solo cup, so I've got that going for me :)