Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Breakfast Casserole!

Good morning!

Hope everyone is still surviving and relatively virus free.

I’m still in full on pandemic protocols with the masks, the washing of hands, the fucking sanitizer, the whole 9 yards.

We’ve been doing this shit for a year and a half and I think we’ve got it figured out by now.

Anyway.

I was pleasantly surprised with how the Olympics turned out this year. It made for, mostly, captivating watching and killed a couple of the last weeks of the NFL offseason. I have this odd quirk with the Olympics. Every four years I watch the marathon in it’s entirety. No shit. Start to finish. I find it oddly captivating and compelling.

Ever ran a marathon?

Me neither!

Done a bunch of 10K walks though. A bunch.

I have also done 7 seasons of Sunday Gravy and I think I’m allowed to use the marathon analogy.

Starting the week after the Superb Owl – and occasionally on the bye week before the game – Sunday Gravy runs every Sunday throughout the entire interminably long NFL offseason.

Every week I come up with a new menu for you while trying new techniques, new seasonings, new foods from a vast number of different cultures all while trying really fucking hard not to duplicate a menu.

There is the rare exception of a “Version 2.0” where I make improvements to a previously posted dish that I thought could use an improvement or two.

My ass is starting to drag people.

We’ll make it though. Like we always have. The NFL season is in sight and I’m pretty goddamn ready for a break.

Nice and easy one dish meal today because I’ve earned that fucker.

I’m going to go with a baseball analogy and call these the “Dog Days of August” well, because they are.

You know how late in the baseball season at the end of a long road trip when teams will sometimes give their best players the day off? This is going to be something like that.

This is a one skillet breakfast meal today with just a few ingredients. Something familiar, tasty and can feed a group of folks. What’s not to like?

One of the comments I saw when researching similar recipes was “I make this on Thanksgiving morning for my family.” That’s pretty goddamn smart right there.

Called a variety of names including “Amish breakfast casserole” and the interesting yet confusing title of “Sheepherders Breakfast.” Confusing because I thought someone who herded sheep was called a “shepherd” and not a sheepherder. I guess a sheepherder has just the one sheep?

Fuck if I know. It’s a goddamn breakfast casserole OK?

Let’s do this shit.

Breakfast Casserole!

1/2 pound of bacon – chopped

30 oz bag of frozen hash browns – adjust volume of hash browns based on number of folks eating

1 onion – minced

6 to 9 eggs – again depending on number of folks consuming this dish

Bag of shredded cheese – your choice of variety

Salt and pepper to taste

Minced fresh chives to garnish

That’s it.

We begin with everyone’s best buddy…

Bacon! Of course it’s from “Faaarmer John! Eastern most in quality, western most in flavor.”

Still have no idea what the fuck that slogan even means but I heard Vin Scully say it for decades.

How about bacon’s savory and aromatic friend…

The not so subtle onion. Any type of onion will work here it’s just that right now the white onions are more prevalent in the produce section.

Grab your ass a big bag of frozen hash browns.

Doesn’t have to be anything too elaborate, we’ll handle the seasoning aspect thank you very much.

Then you’ve got your egg group.

And your cheese group.

You can grate your own, you can choose your flavor, shit man make it challenging if you want. I recently discovered this aged cheddar and it’s pretty fucking tasty. Plus the shredding has been done by someone else and I’m all about that right now.

Today, rather than using cast iron we will be using a non-stick pan.

The reason is simply based on the size of my cast iron skillet. If I was cooking for 5-6 people instead of just the 2 who consumed this dish I would have used the cast iron. This is a smaller skillet and I wanted to have the finished product be a thicker, fluffier casserole.

Time to get busy.

Mince up that onion.

Grab about half a pound of the bacon.

Then chop up that bacon.

Doesn’t have to be too fine. In fact you want the bacon a decent size so it will hold up during the cooking process.

Get that in the pan already!

Want to really drive your neighbors insane?

Toss in the onion. Yep right along with the bacon.

Imagine what that aroma will smell like.

This is going to take some time but keep cooking until the bacon starts to get crispy.

I was a little surprised just how long this step took. It was probably 15-20 minutes before the bacon rendered out the fat. That’s because of the amount of onion in there and the moisture in the onion.

Next step?

The hash browns.

Dump ’em right on top of the bacon/onion mixture then give everything a good stir to combine.

Season up with some salt and pepper. Don’t be scared of the pepper.

Give it a flip after about 7-8 minutes

Yeah, not my best flip ever. Do the best you can.

Cook for an additional 5-6 minutes.

Now the fun part. Make a well for each egg using the back of a spoon and crack in the eggs.

Scatter some cheese on top. As much or as little as you like. Fuck it, use the whole damn bag if you want. I don’t give a shit.

You’ve got a couple of finishing options here. If you have a lid that covers the skillet you can employ it here and cook the eggs until they reach your desired doneness (generally 8 minutes for medium yolk and 10 minutes for a cooked through yolk.)

For some bizarre reason I don’t have a fitted lid for this particular skillet so I’m opting to finish the dish in the oven. Your options can also be dictated by the outside ambient heat. Don’t feel like turning on the goddamn oven? Then don’t. Use the lid method.

The day I prepared this was a nice standard 72 degree sunny day so a little oven time wasn’t no big thang.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees then slide the skillet in the pre-heated oven.

Again, eight minutes for a nice runny egg,10 minutes for a firmer egg. Like so.

Give a sprinkle of chives.

Get it on a plate with some toast.

Closer!

Dive on in, Jasper!

This dish tastes exactly like you think it would. It’s bacon, eggs and hash browns covered with some cheese.

Didn’t say this shit was fancy or life changing. I wanted something easy today.

The options are goddamn endless. Minced green chilies would be awesome. Use some crumbled breakfast sausage too – or instead of the bacon. Throw in some minced ham and do a “meat lovers” version. Add some mushrooms, Hell make some gravy and smother the bastard.

Oh shit! Cover with some chili verde, the slow cooked pork kind!

Do it any way you want.

This is a very tasty, inexpensive meal that can feed a room full of starving heathens.

Best part is the ease of preparation and clean up. If our asses are too lazy to use more than one dish to prepare a dish don’t you want to only have to wash just the one dish?

Fuck it buy paper plates.

One of the comments during research said something about making this dish when going camping and that’s just a goddamn delightful idea as well.

Shit. When was the last time you went camping?

Fucking years ago. Something about my old ass lying on the hard ass ground to try and sleep.

Whatever the reason, next time you’ve got a group over for breakfast…

That’s it!

If you’ve got folks coming over to watch football (just a reminder that here on the West Coast the first NFL games on Sunday start at 10:00 fucking AM) make them this! It’s cheap, easy, filling and will give them a substantial food base that will allow them to consume a goddamn MULTITUDE of beers.

Fuck it. I’m going to do exactly that at some point this NFL season.

SEE? I knew I could tie this into football somehow.

Speaking of which the countdown is fucking ON to the NFL season.

Getting real close.

There you go!

A tasty and filling breakfast meal that won’t cost an arm and a leg to make.

Hope to see you all here next week where I’ve got one of those aforementioned “Version 2.0” dealies in store.

And it’s a regular fucking beauty.

Till then

Be Safe.

Be Well.

PEACE!