Thursdays Are For Cooking
Baby red potatoes
Feeling peckish and bored silly with the usual? Try this one: bacon and egg hashbrown bake. Note that some of the ingredients are rightfully termed “convenience foods”, e.g., frozen hash browns. They simply save you some time and energy and make putting this dish together quick and easy. And in the winter, quick and easy are always great motivators, along with a hankering for something besides “the usual”. Coming in from the cold after shoveling the sidewalk and meeting the scent of this dish should be a reward in itself.
Ingredients
1 lb bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 cup)
1 medium red bell pepper, chopped (3/4 cup)
1 package (8 oz) sliced fresh mushrooms
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3/4 cup milk
12 eggs
1 package (2 lb) frozen hash browns, thawed
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese (16 oz)
- In 12-inch skillet, cook bacon until crisp. Using slotted spoon. Remove from pan to small bowl. Cover and refrigerate. Drain drippings, reserving 1 tablespoon in pan. Add onion, bell pepper and mushrooms; cook 4 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Stir in mustard, salt and pepper. In large bowl, beat milk and eggs with wire whisk.
- Spray 13×9-inch (3-quart) baking dish with cooking spray. Spread half of hash browns in baking dish. Spread onion mixture evenly on top. Sprinkle with 1 cup of the cheese. Spread remaining hash browns over top. Pour egg mixture on top. Cover; refrigerate 8 hours or overnight.
- Heat oven to 325°F. Uncover; bake 50 to 60 minutes or until thermometer inserted in center reads 160°F. Sprinkle with remaining 1 cup cheese and the bacon. Bake 3 to 5 minutes longer or until knife inserted in center comes out clean, top is puffed and cheese is melted. Let stand 5 minutes.
Use Monterey Jack, Colby or Swiss for the Cheddar cheese.
Serve with assorted breads and fresh fruit.
Should serve several hungry people, who will be amazed at your cooking skills. Enjoy it!
Category: Economy
Thanks Ex, I think I will try and get the wife to try this one tonight?? Sounds so good!!!
As usual I am bored silly AND feeling peckish. Not having to deal with the snow, but it has been raining nearly constantly for 2 months. Sick of it. And tho the cold here is nothing like y’all suffer thru, Imma sick of it too.
You had me at bacon on this one. My Baby Girl makes this one as a primary breakfast casserole during my visits. We’ve also made it during the Family Reunion time when I have a houseful. I do have all of the ingredients in stock to make this one up. Got some more frozen hashbrowns the other day at the K Roger and was thinking this dish was in the back of my brain when I picked that package up. That may be one reason why I’m feeling peckish. I was unable to make my Tampa area run at Christmas this past year and unless I can find a driver and furbaby sitter I won’t be able to make the Spring Break one either.
Thanks for laying it out, wasn’t sure of the exact recipe since when it’s made up, I’m usually spoiling the gran’chil’ren.
#eatmorebacon
This type of thing is super versatile. The flavor profile can be pulled in so many ways. Take the mustard and mushrooms out and add some taco seasoning (make it yourself for less salt) and you’ve got a mexi dish. Keep the mushrooms and add some ground turkey sausage and it’s now an “Italian” dish. Add some diced chicken and now it’s a main dish. You can also prepare this ahead of time, keep it in the fridge and cut your prep before dinner time down.
Leave out the dairy and eggs, replace the bacon with kielbasa or smoked sausage, and add brown gravy. Now you have a hearty dinner for the cold wet night.
Hmmmm? I likes kielbasa…and smoked sausage…and brown gravy…and I have all of that in stock too…beefed AND porked beast smoked sausages… Hmmmmm
Yum!
“Sprinkle with remaining 1 cup cheese”
Easy to do here in Cheesehead land, always have cheese available. (grin)
“Should serve several hungry people”
Or in my case, a couple or two, three meals for myself.
Going with (homemade from scratch) Mongolian Chicken on brown rice with fresh ground dark coffee for dinner tonight. Getting to head out to the grocery store as we speak.
As a side note, heading out with four of my good Army buddies tomorrow morning for breakfast at Oink’s (chocolate covered bacon is on their menu….mmmmmm) and then off to an indoor range to make some noise with our semi-auto pistolies. Usually the two youngsters in the group (both 54) wind up with bragging rights after all is said & done, but what a great way to spend time with friends.
Thanks for the recipe, Ex. (smile)
Forgot to add, we are all retired from the Army…..Four SFC’s and one SGM.
We make him pick up the brass! (grin)
Last Friday, I made my second batch of your Penne/sausauge recipe and it was worth every penne/cent to eat. Thanks Ex
This looks suspiciously like what folks around Casa OWB call “egg mess,” but this probably looks a whole lot better! We just cook up some bacon cut up into smallish pieces until crispy, take that out of the big cast iron skillet, then throw in some potato chunks (yes, the frozen stuff is great) until they begin to get a bit crispy, add chopped onions somewhere along the line depending upon how cooked you want them. This is also a good time to add any ‘shrooms, and/or other veg that might appeal to you. Meanwhile, scramble up as many eggs as look appropriate to the amount of stuff in the skillet. When the potatoes/onions/whatever else you may have added are thoroughly cooked, sprinkle on some shredded cheese, let it warm (Usually we have forgotten to take it out of the ‘fridge with everything else going on so like to put it is first so it doesn’t chill the eggs which have now been sitting out a while) just a bit before grabbing the eggs to add them to the skillet. Just pour them over everything in the skillet. We usually just stir everything around until the eggs are cooked, but you could sling the skillet into the oven to finish.
Yeah, our way looks like a mess. But it sure tastes good. The left over eggs get loaded into flour tortillas then frozen as breakfast burritos down the road.
PH’s casserole sounds really good and worthy of serving to visiting family, friends or dignitaries. For those of us unwilling to wait until tomorrow to eat breakfast, the messy way works.