If you want to serve this the morning of your Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner, buy an extra roll of the pork sausage meat used in the stuffing, cook both rolls, drain the fat from the meat and use 1 cup of the cooked meat in this breakfast casserole--use the rest in your turkey stuffing (see the recipe on this site under "Turkey Dinner."
If you have frozen sausages, defrost them, slit the casing, remove the meat and cook, crumbling the sausage with a fork. This gives you the option of trying different kinds of sausages--use chorizo if you want a spicy breakfast brunch casserole. If you don't have fresh sliced mushrooms on hand or do not like them, omit them and double the amount of meat to 2 cups. If you are fond of other vegetables, like green pepper or zucchini, you could chop and sautee these with the onion or use a mixture of cooked vegetables that add up to 2 cups. This is good for a brunch or lunch, when you can serve this with a salad and crusty french bread.
- 1 tbsp butter or margarine
- 1 small chopped onion
- 2 cups sliced mushrooms
- 1 cup chopped ham, cooked sausage meat, or 8 strips bacon cooked and chopped
- 8 eggs
- 1-3/4 cups milk
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1 tsp. salt
- 3 cups shredded cheese (cheddar, or a mixture of what you have left-over)
- Grease a 9 x 13 inch baking dish.
- In a frying pan melt the butter, then add onion and mushrooms, cook only until onions are soft. Stir in the meat. Remove from heat.
- Whisk together eggs, milk, flour and salt.
- Shred a cup of cheese over the bottom of the well-greased baking dish. Over this, spread the onion/butter/mushroom/meat mixture. Shred 2 cups of cheese on top. Pour the egg mixture over the cheese. Cover with plastic wrap or foil and put in the fridge overnight. In the morning, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and cook uncovered for 40 minutes.
- If you are making this in the morning and want to cook it right away, place uncovered in a preheated 375 degree oven and cook about 35 minutes (check it around 30 minutes, you just want it to cook until it looks golden and the eggs are cooked in the middle.) If you have to leave it in the oven a few extra minutes, cover with foil and turn off the oven so it doesn't dry out; serve as soon as your guests are at the table.
