A Happy Holiday Breakfast

You can't shoot a cooking show in a barrel these days without being inundated by various "alternative holiday dinners," "traditional holiday dinners," and "how-to-prepare-anything-in-under-an-hour holiday dinners." No one is giving much thought to breakfast these days, and many people are avoiding it altogether in futile efforts to "save room," for the big feast that takes place only hours before bedtime. Yet as we all know but insist on denying, eating breakfast is exactly how we save valuable tummy-room for our pal the turkey and all his trimmings.

Growing up, my mom always loved preparing the big holiday meal and didn't seem to mind that it required starting only hours after the sun came up. The smell of the turkey cooking all day was the payoff. While my mom always made a big breakfast on days the whole family was home together, Thanksgiving and Christmas weren't one of those so we got pastries, bread, and anything else that didn't require occupation of the oven or stove. This year I offered to take over breakfast duties and prepared Better Recipes Crock-Pot Breakfast Casserole, and, big duh here, altered some of the ingredients. You can find the original recipe HERE, and this is what I used and did:

30oz bag of frozen, shredded hash browns (I think rehydrated potatoes might be something worth trying as well)
2 packages brown n' serve breakfast sausage, cooked, with the fat drained off; 1 package Maple sausage and, 1 package Brown Sugar and Honey (or something else of the honey/maple/brown sugar variety)
3 tsp dried onion (or as preferred)
2/3 cup chopped small, red, yellow, and orange peppers
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
13 eggs
1 1/4 cup milk
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp salt
black pepper as preferred

Once I cooked the sausage in a skillet and drained off the fat, I let them cool completely and chopped them into 1/4 inch chunks. Once the peppers were chopped, I layered the Crock-Pot - eye-balling everything into semi-equal thirds - as follows until there were three complete layers:

Potatoes - making sure the first layer of potatoes completely covered the bottom of the pot
Sausage
Sprinkle of dried onions - 1 tsp per layer
Cheese

In a separate, large bowl, I whisked together the eggs, milk, chili powder, salt, and pepper and poured it over the layers in the Crock-Pot. Then I covered it and set it on LOW to cook for 7-8 hours. I happen to be a middle-of-the-night-wanderer (perils of taking care of a newborn) so I set the Crock-Pot around 3am and declared it ready to serve between 10:30 and 11am Thanksgiving morning.

The benefits to this meal as a holidays staple are many. 1) Since the Crock-Pot can plug in anywhere, oven, stove, AND counter space don't have to be compromised; 2) everyone - and I mean everyone - gets a hearty breakfast to carry them through the day until the big finale. My mom will usually make dips and have nuts for people to snack on throughout the day - to also avoid any major lunch preparations - but after scarfing down the casserole, no one was too heartbroken those things were missing; and 3) aside from its enormity, the casserole's very ingredients are a recipe for satiety success. Protein, carbs, veggies, grab yourself some wheat toast and OJ and BAM! Admit it - I just blew your mind.

I'll be honest, though. For all of the benefits, this dish is a bitch. You can cook the sausage whenever (or used pre-cooked, as per the original recipe), it's only been my idiocy that's had me up at 9pm making breakfast sausage. But no matter when you do it, there is a decent amount of prep-work involved, not counting having to get up at 3am to turn it on if you don't want to eat at 5am. When all is said and done, there is quite a lot of food. My mom was worried that - in addition to Thanksgiving dinner - we'd have too much but she was the one going back for thirds. :-)

The recipe calls for serving it with salsa, but that really is of personal preference; sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't, but it always has to be mild.

Don't be afraid, there *will* be leftovers, but those are often just as good.

Here's hoping your tummy and hearts are full this holiday season!

Crock-Pot Veggie Chowder

I don't want to jinx myself, but I just might be getting the hang of combining ingredients to make something relatively tasty.

I love having a crock-pot, love using it, and always have such high expectation for dishes that are prepared with it. I think it's a great appliance to use during the summer to keep from having to heat up your house, and I even used it to make the main dish and cake for my daughter's 2nd birthday party. I love that it's uses have extended beyond chili's, soups, and stews to desserts, appetizers, and even things that don't require 8 hours to cook. But - and I know it's mostly of my own doing - a lot of meals I've made via crock-pot have turned out less than stellar so I'm never quite sure if 8 hours in the crock-pot will ultimately result in a last-minute pizza-run.

With it getting cold, I flipped through my Barnes and Noble bargain-rack find, Best Loved Slow Cooker Recipes for something I had yet to attempt: soup. I opened the "Beyond Basic Soups" section and selected a nice variety for the week, one of them being "Easy Corn Chowder."

This is the book's recipe:

2 cans (14.5 oz each) chicken broth
16 oz bag frozen corn, thawed
3 small red potatoes cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 rib celery, sliced
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp coriander
1/2 cup heavy cream
8 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled.

And this is what I actually used:

3.5 cups chicken broth
1 16oz bag frozen "farmer's mix:" corn, carrots, and green beans, un-thawed (if I see an opportunity to throw more vegetables in, I take it)
3 small/medium red potatoes, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
Variety of small red, yellow, and orange bell peppers, eyeballed to equal 1 whole pepper, diced
1 green onion chopped
2 Tbs dried onion
1 rib celery, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 tsp fresh flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
8 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled

To be completely honest, I hadn't realized the recipe called for UN-thawed frozen veggies until just now. Also, I had some time to kill so a lot of the cooked bacon might have gone missing. I can't be sure.

The instructions state to put all of the ingredients, minus the heavy cream and bacon, in the crock pot, cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours. I didn't get everything in the pot until it was late enough so we'd be eating like fashionable Manhattan-ites, so I cooked it on low for the first 4.5 hours, then switched it to high for the last 1.5/2.

The recipe then states to partially mash the soup with a potato masher in order to thicken it up, stir in the cream, then turn to high until heated through. I got a little carried away with the potato masher, though. Then I added the heavy cream and let it cook on high while I heated some garlic bread in the oven.

I sprinkled the bacon on top as instructed but used it so it was more of an added ingredient rather than a garnish. I think it had such a good impact on the overall flavor of the soup that I might try harder to rein in my bacon-eating and add the 8 slices after the heavy cream is heated through rather than spreading it around to individual servings.

Overall, though, the soup - what I now call "Veggie Chowder," - was amazing. My husband - upon hearing it was 90-percent vegetables - was initially hesitant only to find himself finishing his bowl, and surprising himself with how much he liked it and how filling it was. I surprised myself, actually, and now I'm wondering how I can sell it to Campbell's...