Barb’s Breakfast Casserole

“You need to put the breakfast casserole on the blog.  Everyone at the office loved it.”

“OK.  Where do I find it?”

“It’s a Trisha Yearwood recipe.  But I changed a few things.”

In today’s world of instant information the recipe wasn’t hard to find.  After confirming with The Boss that the recipe I found was the one she used, I started writing.  But my eyes caught the following:

Recipe adapted from Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen with Trisha Yearwood (c) Clarkson Potter 2008

If I understand this correctly the recipe here is an adaptation of an adaptation of Yearwood’s original 2008 version.

So with all of these credits it’s likely I won’t get slammed for a lack of attribution like I did when I published a slightly altered version of someone’s Homemade Taco Seasoning Recipe.

Seriously.

• Butter
• 1/2 loaf of sliced white bread
• 1 pound fresh bulk pork sausage
• 5 ounces Sharp and 5 ounces Medium Cheddar, grated
• 2 cups half and half
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 6 large eggs beaten

1.  Cut the bread into 1-inch cubes.
2. Grease a 9- by 13- by 2- inch casserole dish with butter.
3. In a skillet, brown the sausage over medium heat until fully cooked. Remove the sausage with a slotted spoon to drain the fat.
4. Spread sausage over the bread and top with the cheese.
5. Mix half-and-half, dry mustard, salt and eggs. Pour into the casserole dish.
6. Cover the casserole with aluminum foil and refrigerate overnight.
7. The morning of serving preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
8. Bake covered until set and slightly golden, about 50 minutes.
9. Remove from the oven and allow to cool and set for 15 minutes before serving.

Tips

Pepper?  Definitely add some black pepper.  We used Potter sausage a fine MIO product which IMHO is some of the best pork sausage on the market.  Very good ratio of fat to flesh.  For the bread, use a thick slice bread in the Texas Toast style.  This size helps to create the perfect size bread cubes.  Yes, I also noticed that this recipe and the original do not specify how much butter.  (psst…this is not a low-fat low-calorie vegan dish so how much butter do you think?)  Don’t ask me why two different Cheddar cheeses because I don’t know.

I’ll go out on a limb and predict this dish will be Daughter-in-law Approved.  Anything you can toss together the night before and bake in the morning is a life saver when you have a Tiny Human on board.  Plenty of leftovers too.