Potato, Sausage, and Egg Breakfast Casserole

I just love making breakfast casseroles. We eat them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, doesn't matter. They're good any time, they're great to eat as leftovers, and you can pretty much throw anything but the kitchen sink into them and they're still bound to turn out perfectly. I used this particular casserole recipe when I was just trying to use up some different ingredients I had lying around.

It includes some standard breakfast casserole staples: potatoes, green and red bell peppers, onions, and cheddar cheese. The vegetables were cooked until soft (the potatoes were parboiled and the peppers and onions were sauteed) and then tossed into an 8x8 baking dish. Then, the undisputed star of the dish is added: chicken sausage.

According to one of my sons, the sausage was the best part of the meal. I think I have to agree. I've never made a casserole like this with the precooked, sometimes flavored chicken sausage you can buy so readily in the grocery stores these days. It was really delicious. The kind I happened to use this time was sun-dried tomato and provolone, but certainly any flavor would be great. I debated whether to pre-cook them before adding them to the baking dish, but since they come already cooked when packaged I figured I'd be safe. I just chopped two links of sausage into manageable pieces, added them to my pan of onions and peppers while they were sauteeing, and then took the pan off the heat once the sausages were warmed through.

Then came some shredded cheddar cheese, and finally lightly beaten eggs were drizzled evenly over the top. The whole concoction was placed in the oven and baked until the eggs were set and fully cooked, about 30 minutes or so. I allowed it to sit for a couple of minutes once it had exited the oven, just to make sure everything was all set up properly inside. I don't know if that step is really necessary, but it worked for me!

This made for a very easy and delicious weeknight dinner for us. It's one of those recipes that could also be assembled at night, and then set in the fridge overnight until you pull it out and bake it in the morning. I cut the recipe it's based on in half, so if you made the full amount it'd be great to feed a crowd. Best of all, there are so many possibilities with this. You could throw in some chopped bacon or ham, leftover chicken, mushrooms or eggplant, or even sweet potato for a nutritious spin on the potato base. Go ahead, try it out! It was so good, even my "picky one" ate it.

Potato, Sausage, and Egg Breakfast Casserole

adapted from Breakfast Casserole III, on allrecipes.com

serves 4-6

Ingredients

Nonstick cooking spray

3 baking potatoes

2-3 links chicken sausage, any variety, cubed

1 Tbsp. butter

1/2 onion, diced

1/2 green bell pepper, diced

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

1 tsp. seasoning salt

1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded (2 oz.)

6 eggs, lightly beaten

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Place the baking potatoes in a medium-sized saucepan, fill the pan with enough water to just cover the potatoes, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, turn the heat down slightly, and cook the potatoes until fork tender, 12 to 15 minutes. Drain the potatoes and cool slightly. Once cool enough to handle, chop the potatoes into 1-inch cubes. Add them to a 8x8 baking pan that has been lightly coated with cooking spray.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. While the potatoes are cooking, heat another medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the butter to the saucepan to melt. Once it has melted, add the onions and bell peppers. Cook until the veggies are soft, about 5 minutes. Add in the cubed chicken sausage and continue to cook until the sausages are warmed through, 3-5 minutes more, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle with seasoning salt. Place onion mixture into the baking dish with the potatoes.

3. Sprinkle the cheddar cheese on top of the vegetables. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and evenly pour on top of the sausage and veggie mixture. Top with salt and pepper, to taste, and then bake for about 30 minutes or more, until the eggs are set and the cheese is melted and slightly golden brown. (A knife or toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean.) Cool the casserole just slightly, a few minutes, and then cut into wedges and serve.

Chicken Sausage Rigatoni in a Spicy Vodka Sauce

This pasta rocks. I'm being quite serious. You need to try this stuff. I even diverged from the recipe, making it a bit less fattening, and it was still magical. Here, I'll break it down for you.

Chicken Sausage Rigatoni in a Spicy Vodka Sauce...well, the name alone pretty much sells it, right? This one comes from The Food Network's Sunny Anderson, and after eating this meal I have to say I'm liking her more and more. I caught her making this pasta one afternoon, and decided that it was going straight to the top of my must-make list. I was drooling in the general direction of the television. It was bad.

It's a pretty straighforward dish. Boil up some water for pasta, and then get started on your sauce. Brown some chicken sausage in a pan, add veggies, then throw in seasonings and tomatoes, and simmer. Then, you finish the sauce with some vodka and some cream, and then you add some cheese and parsley before tossing the whole shebang with rigatoni. However, what seems like such a simple dish is nothing short of spectacular in flavor.

I think the secret is this: along with your veggies, you add in one jalapeno pepper, and then you toss in some hot paprika along with the seasonings. These are such simple additions, but they contribute so much to the overall taste of the dish. There's a great blast of heat from the pepper, and the paprika lends a new depth to the tomato sauce that I absolutely loved. I think I want to add paprika to all my tomato-based sauces now! It was that good.

I made this a touch healthier by omitting the butter Sunny used in combination with olive oil to brown her meat, and by using a lot less cream than she did. I read some reviews of the dish where the authors used only 1/4 cup and it still turned out fine. So, I added just 1/4 cup of half-and-half to mine, and I thought it was fantastic. It didn't turn the sauce into a cream sauce at all, but it did give it some lightness that cut the acidity nicely. Oh, and I cut way back on the cheese, too. I didn't miss it, either. And yes, there was booze in it, but it wasn't that much, so I'd like to believe that this was still healthier than it could have been! It was so savory and satisfying, and I can hardly wait to make it again.




Chicken Sausage Rigatoni in a Spicy Vodka Sauce
from Sunny Anderson via Food Network
makes 4-6 servings

Ingredients
1 Tbsp. butter (I omitted)
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 lb. chicken sausage, casings removed
1/2 cup roughly chopped onion
1 jalapeno, chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup roughly chopped green pepper
1 tsp. Hungarian hot paprika
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes with basil (I used crushed)
1/3 cup vodka
1 cup heavy cream (I used 1/4 cup half-and-half, and it was still creamy enough for us)
1 lb. rigatoni
1 cup grated Asiago cheese
3 Tbsp. freshly chopped parsley leaves (I omitted)

Directions
1. Bring a large pot of water to boil for the pasta. In a large saute pan, over medium heat, melt the butter with the oil. Add chicken sausage and brown, 3 to 4 minutes, breaking up large chunks with a wooden spoon. Add onions, jalapeno, and garlic, and saute until softened, about 5 minutes. Add green pepper, paprika, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper, to taste, and cook 3 minutes more.

2. Generously salt pasta water and add the rigatoni. Cook until al dente, about 12 minutes. Meanwhile, add tomatoes to the sauce and bring to a simmer, for about 10 minutes. Add vodka and cream and cook a few minutes more. Toss in cheese and chopped parsley.

3. To serve, drain the pasta well and add to the sauce. Mix until pasta is nicely coated. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

CEIMB: Panzanella with Chicken Sausage

Wow, this is the first time I've had to write two blog posts in one day! I knew it would have to happen eventually. I had both my Martha Stewart's Cupcakes Club post to do, as well as my regular Thursday Craving Ellie in My Belly post. Phew! Fortunately, this is the kind of busy that I like to be! Having to do some extra time in the kitchen is not a problem for me.



Now, onto this week's CEIMB recipe! This week's pick was Panzanella with Chicken Sausage from Ellie's So Easy book, chosen by Peggy of Pantry Revisited. I was glad she picked this one, because panzanella is something that has always intrigued me. I'd never made it, and never eaten it until now. I love salad, and I love bread, but for some reason the idea of an actual bread salad always seemed too bizarre to me.

As it turns out, I love bread salad! In fact, we all did here at my house. My hubby and I scarfed this down, and even my picky 4 year-old thought the idea of bread in his salad was pretty cool. I used some chicken sausages from Sam's Club (and hey, by the way, I'm kinda mad at Sam's Club right now. After I got the sausage home, I removed the outer cardboard liner and discovered that it had an expiration date of May 24th! We had to return it, and buy some more, and it turned out that almost every single package in their store was past date! We found one of maybe 2 or 3 packs that were good. Argh! And don't even get me started on the Sam's Club bleach stain incident of 2 weeks ago....).

Anyway, the sausages ended up being pretty tasty! They were provolone and sun-dried tomato flavor, and I did enjoy them in the end. As for the salad, I really was surprised at how much I loved it.

I've talked several times before in various blog posts about how I have come to love roasted or burst tomatoes, but haven't yet been able to fully embrace tomatoes in their raw form. So, I made my salad with burst cherry tomatoes, and I made the rest of the salad with regular cherry tomatoes. I think it worked out well. The dressing was simple but so good, and I used half a loaf of roasted garlic fougasse (which I haven't figured out how to pronounce, but it sure is good!) bread I found at the grocery store. I loved how the bread did soak up the other flavors in the salad, but it was a nice sturdy bread that held up well to the dressing and did not get soggy or mushy at all.

So once again, Ellie Krieger has made a believer out of me! She has proven that if I merely try something I've been skeptical about, chances are I will like it very much. This one exceeded my expectations. Thank you, Peggy, for taking me out of my comfort zone! The recipe for this one can be found here, on her blog.