Category: cooking

Southwestern Breakfast Casserole

One of my favorite breakfasts to make and take (to church, brunch at a friend’s house, etc.) came to me years ago. No, not in a dream or a vision, but at my brother-in-law’s college graduation. We stayed at the home of some of his good friends, and they made this WONDERFUL breakfast casserole the morning of graduation.

I hadn’t been a huge fan of breakfast casseroles. Most of them involve bread and soaking overnight and just a big ol’ soggy mess, in my opinion. This one was different. The magical difference? Crescent rolls for the bottom layer instead of nasty old bread.

My genius husband also discovered that those “Grands” crescent rolls by Pillsbury cover the bottom even more thoroughly than the regular. Mmmm. Bread. You unroll them, spread them into a 9×13-inch pan, and press to make the seams and edges mostly meet. Meanwhile, you’ve got a pound of breakfast sausage browning on the stove.

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When the sausage is ready, you spread the crumbled sausage over the crescent rolls. Add this mixture of eggs, milk, spices, and green chiles to the pan … oh, and one of our favorite things to do is add Penzey’s Arizona Dreaming spice blend to the egg mix. It’s an absolute staple in our pantry now.

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Another trick I’ve discovered is to spread half a cup of green tomatillo salsa (or other salsa verde) over the sausage before the egg mixture. (Can you tell I’ve made this a few times?) You can do this in place of the green chiles or in addition.

Sprinkle shredded cheddar cheese on top, pop in the oven, and YUM.

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An official recipe is below, linked from my Plan to Eat account. (It does give me a referral bonus if you sign up through my link.) I absolutely love this casserole, and I love that it reheats so well the next day! If you have any left, that is …

 

Print Recipe

Southwest Breakfast Casserole

A yummy breakfast casserole that uses crescent rolls instead of bread for the base.

Source: Erin

Course: Breakfast

Prep Time: 20 Min

Cook Time: 25 Min

Total Time: 45 Min

Serves: 8

Ingredients

  • 1 lb breakfast sausage
  • 4 – 6  eggs
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 2-3 tbsp green chiles diced or 1/2 cup green salsa (tomatillo)
  • 1 8 oz can crescent rolls (may want the “Grands” size)
  • 2 cups shredded cheese cheddar, mexican cheese blend, cheddar jack
  • 1 – 2 tsp seasoning salt and pepper, or garlic salt, OR Arizona Dreaming

Directions

  1. Brown sausage, crumbling as it cooks.
  2. Beat together eggs, milk, and seasoning until eggs are slightly scrambled. Mix in chiles.
  3. Unroll crescent rolls and press into bottom of 9×13 baking dish (can spray pan first with cooking spray if needed). Cover the bottom of the pan and press slightly up the sides. GRANDS crescent rolls more than cover and will slightly overlap.
  4. Spread cooked sausage across bottom of pan, on top of dough.
  5. Pour egg mixture over sausage, then sprinkle with cheese.
  6. Bake at 375F for 25 – 30 minutes or until egg mix is set.

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Birthday weekend!

I know someone who had a birthday this weekend …

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Could it be … NORA?

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Yes, our spunky and feisty little girl turned four this weekend. We celebrated with Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Nelson, a whole bunch of Sofia the First decorations (Mommy may love Sofia just as much as Nora), and a Cinderella cupcake “cake.”

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Okay, maybe you have to squint a bit to see it, but it’s a Cinderella dress made out of cupcakes. I’m telling you, you haven’t truly lived until you’re pawing at your smartphone with buttercream-crusted fingers to find out exactly which shades of blue you need for Cindy’s dress. And kudos to my mom for taking the time to put the little pearls on as decoration! I pointed out that she’d made a “Hidden Mickey”, which was entirely by chance. 🙂

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Happy birthday, sweet girl! You are full of imagination, dreams, and drama. You might just be the funniest person I know, too.

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Pupsicles!

It’s Houston. It’s summer.

What’s a black lab mix dog who hates water supposed to do to cool off?

Josie is our seven and a half year old black lab mix. We think the mix is with Great Dane … she’s long, tall and sleek, unlike many stocky labs. She also gets these looks on her face that are pure Dane.

There are two other tells for her that make us think Dane. First, even as a one year old dog, she put herself to bed every night by 8. She didn’t want to get up for anything. Danes are known for their laid back demeanors and love of rest time, and this is unlike any lab I’ve ever heard about.

Second, she hates water. Won’t wade in it, won’t splash in it. I’ve never seen a lab who didn’t want all the water, all the time! We bought her a kiddie pool one of her first summers with us, and she acted like it was a hissing pool of poison.

So there went that summer cool down idea.

I tried something that was all over Pinterest: pupsicles. Frozen treats for dogs, yes sir! Unlike a lot of Pinterest, this couldn’t be easier: chicken broth, dog food, and freeze it.

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I froze this one in an empty limeade container. (Limeade for the beer margaritas, hurray! People need to cool off too!) It was nice because I could peel off the container. It was narrow enough, though, that my big dog could carry it away from her bowl. Oops.

She wasn’t complaining, though. Josie took a couple of sniffs, one lick, and was in doggie heaven.

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I think next time I’ll freeze in a bowl so she can’t lift it and lose it in the grass. A larger container will last longer, too.
I’ll probably make the broth a half broth/half water mix too. I’m pretty sure she’ll still love it!

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Yo, yo, yogurt! (Argh.)

Don’t worry … I’m not going to ruin my reputation as Less Than Perfect Homemaker over here. I wouldn’t want to shatter any illusions!

Oh sure, I’m going to share my homemade yogurt recipe. You know, the one that gives you delicious yogurt in the crock pot and you pay $4 for a half gallon of organic milk and get four times the amount of organic yogurt in those little tubes? Or something like that. I’m bored with the math piece of it.

All I know is: my kids like yogurt. I like them to have yogurt. I like them to have yogurt without lots of additives. This is WAY cheaper than buying it.

So – yogurt recipe.

Lovely shot of my yogurt set-up:

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Beautiful staged shot of the finished product with some delicious homemade pumpkin granola. Mmmm.

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I was talking with a friend at church the other day about the beautifully staged blog pictures … after all, any photographer knows the secret is in the cropping. So let’s rotate to the right and left of my pretty yogurt bowl.

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Ah yes … spices, towels, recipes, a tea kettle, and generic Nutella shoved to the left. Cooking spray, the morning’s pancakes, tea pot, and other assorted mess to the right.

That yogurt still tastes really good, though.

One more tip for the yogurt: I use the Infantino Squeeze Station to make yogurt pouches for the kids, especially for Jude. (No product sponsoring or linking or endorsing … I just bought the Squeeze Station and use it with variable success.)

The last time I made the yogurt, I thawed and pureed some frozen berries, sprinkled a little bit of stevia in with it, and mixed some of it into the yogurt. These made pretty little yogurt pouches that Jude LOVED. (Turns out Nora likes this yogurt plain and Seth just doesn’t want it.) Pretty little yogurt pouches ready for going to daycare or in the diaper bag for lunch/snack out on the town.

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Oh, and I also made a huge mess. (More non-staged photos with the iPhone!)

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So if you’d like to do your yogurt in pouches, here are some things I’ve learned:

  • Gravity can be the easiest way to get it in the pouch. That little plunger creates some mighty suction and will pull the yogurt right back out of the pouch.
  • Have your next three pouches already laid out before you start removing the newly-filled three. That way you can slide them in and get the leftover draining into the new pouch.
  • Have the caps out before you take the pouch off the station. That big puddle is from a pouch I laid down so I could grab the caps. Yogurt is runny, and in other news: I’m a genius.
  • I REALLY like having one of those flexible cutting boards under the Squeeze Station. It makes clean-up a lot easier!

There you have it. The messy, non-foolproof way to make organic yogurt at home and put it in squeezy pouches. Seriously though, this made 15 pouches, 2 bowls, and one extra container that’s anywhere from 2-4 cups of yogurt.

And a mess. Did I mention the mess?