Yes my post are all kinds of “out of order” and I apologize now. I also will make it a New Year’s Resolution to get my butt back in gear and start cooking and writing again for my loyal readers.
Christmas this year was without a doubt different and probably not one of our favorites. I do however predict that in several years when we are standing in our OMG HUGE house with every family member and every friend we can stuff in there to enjoy Christmas us looking at each other and saying “remember in 2008 when we spent Christmas alone in that crummy apartment”. We have each other and that’s enough! I did pick us up an cute little fiber optic tree, sad cry from the normal “Tammy” decorations.
But it’s Christmas and I am pulling out all the stops for comfort and pure gluttony. I started Wednesday by prepping for the sausage dressing and assembly of the breakfast casserole.
First Sasuage Dressing:
This is approximately 1/2 a recipe, normally double this or so and bake in a 9×13.
1/2 roll of sage sausage (this will keep you from needing to add sage)
1 loaf of bread dried out (oven does it quickly, leaving it out works well and for our health I used whole grain)
1 stalk of celery diced
1/2 a medium onion diced
Chicken broth
2 eggs
First sweat the onion and celery till tender.
Then cook the sasuage.
During this process I was also fast drying my bread.
NOTE: PLEASE PAY ATTENTION, I did manage to burn 5 peices of bread & set off smoke alarms.
Chefs note:
It is at this point that you can place the cooked items in the fridge and wait to assemble until you are ready to cook. Or you can continue assembly and cook now. I like doing this the day ahead and only needing to assemble and bake the next day.
Now lets move ahead to assembly and cooking. Break your bread and place into a large bowl, toss in your sasuage, onions and celery and stir. Now beat your eggs and add to the mixture. Keep adding chicken broth until you have a nice sticky mixture, it should want to stay together and you want it to be really wet. Nothing suck worse than dry stuffing! Place in a baking dish and bake at 350 for approximately 1 hour (it’s done when an inserted knife comes out mostly clean).
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Breakfast casserole.
Nothing says love like a hot breakfast. For this assembly
4-6 slices of bread torn (once again we used whole grain)
1/2 a roll of regular sausage
1 small new red potato – very small dice
4 eggs
milk
1/4 red, orange or yellow bell pepper – small dice
1 cup Shredded Cheese of your choice (us Colby jack)
Cook sausage until almost done and add potato. One potato is soft add peppers and cook till soft, approximately 5 more minutes.
Place torn bread in bottom of your baking dish.
Pour cooked ingredients over top. In a bowl beat eggs and ~ 1 cup of milk, pour over ingredients. Toss cheese on top and gently stir with hands. Level casserole off with hands, place cover on and refrigerate overnight. In the morning bake at 350 until inserted knife comes out clean, approximately one hour.
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Make shift Potato SkinsIf you have ever watched me peel potatoes for making mashed or soup you have probably wondered what the hell is wrong with me. But to be honest it’s the best method EVAR! I square the potato. I lay the potato flat and trim off the right edge then roll the potato and repeat until it’s square and cut the ends off. Occasionally this leaves us with some rather tick pieces of potato and skin. KLT was feeling bad wasting them so I told him to put them in water in the fridge and tomorrow we’d make potato skins. Just what we need is more food for Christmas Day, I mean there are only two of us here. This worked out so wonderfully that I plan on doing this more regularly.
Ingredients:
sour cream
green onion – small slices
bacon – crumbled
cheese (for lack of choices we used velveeta)
the meaty potato edges from last nights mashed (place them in a container of water they store well and as a note you can do this for any of your potato needs the day before, old restaurant trick)
Cook bacon in the approved Tammy method. Line a baking sheet with wax or parchment paper, place bacon and bake in a 350 degree oven till desired doneness, me KRISP! Remove bacon to paper town to drain. Place your potato pieces on the baking sheet and return to the oven, yes bacon grease and all. Bake until they are soft. Remove potatoes and drain off the bacon grease. Place the potatoes back on the baking sheet, top with cheese, bacon and return to oven.
Bake until bubbly and warm. Remove and sprinkle with green onion and serve with sour cream.
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As if this wasn’t enough we completed dinner with ham, macaroni and cheese, green beans, dinner rolls and the dressing. Our snack buffet included chex mix, cheese ball and crackers, potato skins, and peanut butter cookies.
Thank goodness we finished dinner and then joined Rick and Carla online to play ROCK BAND 2. What a wonderful ending to a beautiful day full of food.
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