LET'S HEAR IT FOR HOUSEWIVES DAY OFF

In honor of Housewive's Day Off, whadda ya mean you didn't know it was Housewive's Day Off day? March 05 is Housewive's Day Off day. Never heard of it? Well, you have now! And in honor of this glorious day, I gotta fix Thursday's food today so I can have tomorrow off.

What I'm gonna have for breakfast is one of my family's favorite breakfast foods, breakfast casserole. Now when I got this recipe from a friend years ago, I think it had a name somethin' like Potato Crust Quiche or somethin' like that, but we have gotten to where we call it plain ol' breakfast casserole. My son loves this dish and when I fix it I have to make two, one for him and one for the rest of us. I'm not kiddin', he eats a whole one himself. Not at one settin' but about every hour through out the mornin' he goes back into the kitchen and gets another piece. He's a growin' boy, don't ya know? I usually make it for holiday's and special occasions (like son's birthday, it's what he orders).

Now since tomorrow is a special day, Housewive's Day Off, I'm gonna fix just one (son's not gonna be here) for me and CD.

This is an easy dish and you can fix it the day before and cover it with foil and heat the whole thing up in the oven or put it in the microwave, either the whole thing or piece by piece. That way for your day off, Thursday, you don't have to cook breakfast.

The ingredients you are gonna need to fix this day's off breakfast are:

1 regular size bag of shredded Hash Brown potatoes or
1 regular size bag of shredded frozen Hash Browns, thawed and you must squeeze the water out of the thawed frozen hash browns.

1/4 cup butter, the real thing, melted. Sometimes I use a little more butter, about another 1/8 cup
1 1/2 cups diced ham or sausage
1 onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 1/2 cups grated cheese, your choice but I usually use sharp cheddar
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

I am usin' sausage today for my 'day off ' breakfast casserole. Fry your sausage, stirrin' and crumblin' it up as it cooks. Drain any grease off and set aside when fully cooked.

Line a 9 inch pie plate with the tators that have had all the water squeezed out of them if you are usin' thawed frozen hash browns. That's why I like to use the fresh hash browns that I find in the cooler section at the grocery store, there's no squeezin'. If I'm gonna be doin' any squeezin', I don't want it to be hash browns. i gotta stay nice now 'cause tomorrow is a special day for us housewife's.

Press those tators real good like into the pie plate and drizzle the butter over 'em. Pop this into a 425 degree oven for 25-30 minutes. Now CD likes a good brown on his tators so I leave 'em in 'till they start brownin'.

While the tators are brownin', in a bowl, mix together the sausage, onion, green pepper and the grated cheese.

In a smaller bowl beat the eggs with the milk and add the salt and pepper.

Now here are my hash brown tators out of the oven. If you don't want them this brown you can take 'em out sooner.

Put your meat and cheese mixture in the pie pan on top of the tators.

Pour your egg mixture all over the top of the meat mixture.

Pop this bad boy back into the oven that is now set at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until knife stuck in center comes out clean.

And voila! You now have breakfast ready for your day off on National Housewife's Day Off! Now remember you don't have to let it get this browned. My husband likes burned food. He really does.

Now I'll have this for breakfast and again for lunch with a salad and then my husband is goin' to be takin' me out for dinner, even though he doesn't know it yet.

I hope you have a wonderful day off from house work, I certainly am plannin' to, and I hope you like this breakfast casserole, it's mighty good vittels.

R.

Biscuit Sopapillas with Mozzarella Scrambled Eggs

My granddaughter is spendin' the weekend and when she's here I always fix foods I know she likes. She loves sopapillas and this mornin' I was going to fix them for breakfast but we kinda stayed up late the night before and so we kinda slept in. When we woke up she was starved so I fixed a shortcut sopapilla. They are really very good and a lot quicker then homemade.

You start with a can of biscuits. Just plain store bought canned biscuits. Open them up and on a piece of waxed paper mash them flat. Just use the heel of your hand and mash them bad boys down flat.


Heat canola oil in a deep pan or deep fryer, which I'm thinkin' about buyin' (any suggestions on what type is good) heat to about 300 to 325 degrees. Put 2-3 biscuits in hot oil and fry til golden brown 1-2 minutes. Flip over carefully and fry till golden brown 2-3 minutes on opposite side.

Carefully remove from hot oil and place on paper towel lined plate to drain.

Don't these look good and it took me about 15 minutes to fry a can of 10 biscuits. Oh, there's only eight on this plate. I wonder what happened to the other two?

Now let's fix some honey butter to go on these little pieces of fried dough.

To 4 tablespoons softened butter I added 1 tablespoon honey and blended well. Just taste to see if it tastes sweet enough for you, if not add a little more honey.


Okay so while I was frying the sopapillas I added 4 eggs to small bowl and added 4 shakes of the salt shaker and one good twist of the pepper mill and 2 tablespoons of cream. I also added some chopped ham to give flavor. Just use whatever amount you want in your eggs.

Pour the beaten eggs into a heated iron skillet to which 2 teaspoons canola oil was added. If you heat the skillet well before you cook eggs in it they won't stick.

Cook over medium heat till almost cooked through and then chunk some mozzarella cheese on top of the eggs. I used about 2 ounces of cheese. (it's just a personal preference on the amount of cheese you want to use)

Don't stir just put a lid on top of skillet and turn heat down low.

I know the cheese looks like mini marshmallows but it really is mozzarela cheese.

Check after a couple of minutes to see if cheese is melting, you may need to cover for a couple of minutes more. If the eggs seem firm you may want to turn heat off put lid back on to finish melting cheese.


When the cheese is melted serve with the sopapillas and honey butter.



Yum-Yum, sopapillas that are quick and easy. Fix these for your kids and see how quickly they disappear.