New Year's Day

I made a brunch at School Woods today, and although my friend Chris said, "hmm, who'd want to cook for people on their day off", I had fun. There weren't very many of us, but I made the cost of the food, or maybe even better to look at it as I donated the food, and made today's mortgage.

I am such an idiot, I did not take a single picture, and the sun was coming in the windows and it sure looked swell.

I made breakfast stratas, from a Cook's Illustrated recipe, that called for grocery store type Italian bread, toasted and buttered, and then after you layered in the ingredients and poured over the egg & milk, you weighted it (bags of brown sugar over plastic wrap) and refrigerated overnight. I used spinach & Gruyere and good breakfast sausage, from the co-op, from a local farm - Willow Creek - & red peppers - and damn, if it wasn't just as good as Dirty Brian's mom's white trash breakfast casserole, that calls for wonder bread and Velveeta and Special K. It has sausage in it, too; Brian might've made it with Willow Creek's for all I know, the only time I ate it, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. (the original recipe, below, calls for Jimmy Dean)

Bonnie Petty's Super Awesome Trailer Court Breakfast Casserole

1 package Jimmy Dean pork sausage, hot or mild
8-10 moderately thick slices of American cheese
3 cups milk
6 eggs
16 slices of white bread, crusts cut off
2 cups Special K cereal
1/2 stick butter
1/4 tsp dry mustard
liberal seasoning with salt & pepper

Lay 8 slices of white bread in the bottom of a 13x9 pan. Cook sausage
until done, drain. Place cheese slices on top of bread slices. Place
crumbled cooked sausage on top of cheese slices. Cover with another
layer of 8 bread slices on top. Beat eggs, add milk. Add 1/3 tsp dry
mustard, salt, and pepper. Pour over the sandwich layers, soaking
bread. Cover with foil and put in the fridge overnight. The next day,
sprinkle the cereal over top of the casserole. Melt the butter and
drizzle on top of the cereal, and sprinkle with a little salt and
pepper. Bake for one hour at 350. You'll need to let it sit for about
15-20 minutes before serving. It's good with a fruit salad. Reheated
casserole is even more awesome.

Hope you love it as much as I do!

I also made sticky buns, and they were borderline toooo sticky - not as over-sugared as the time I made them for a brunch in 2004 (following a King Arthur recipe, my dough, their filling), but not as good as the time I made them for my b-day in 2002 ....