Breakfast Casserole for Dinner

This morning i felt like having sausages for dinner. But what to do with them? Usually i just throw them in a pan, bake them and serve them with some veggies. But i really didn't feel like that today. Last time, i forgot about the leftovers and ended up tossing them. I don't like doing that. So i decided to make a casserole out of them. I did an internet search for sausage casseroles and found that 99% of the recipes were breakfast casseroles. Why not? They all looked easy, sausages, hash browns, eggs; so i looked at a bunch of different recipes and set out to invent my own.

The first thing i did was chop the sausages into bite sized pieces. The casing kind of slipped off while i was at it, so i tossed that. I threw the sausages into the crock-pot at about 11 this morning with a quarter of a red onion and a quarter of a green pepper; all sprinkled with Italian spice. I only used a bit of the veggies because i like to stretch them. At four dollars apiece, it is nice to use it for more than one recipe.

So in everything went on high, while i worked on my new photography blog, My Saint John. I love multi-tasking :-) After a couple hours i had to drain them. The sausages cooked this way were extremely greasy!

I just tipped the crock pot (with an oven mitt) and scootched all the meat and veggies to one side, then scooped out the grease with a mini ladle, whose original purpose was for making chocolates. I let them cook another 20 minutes or so while i ran down to the store to get only eggs, milk and hash browns, nothing else because rent is due this week. Guess what? The store had no hash browns! (After the whole macaroni fiasco i should have known better). I wasn't upset, i had potatoes at home, i could deal. So, i marched back home with my milk and eggs, and a garlic bread. I had some leftover red potatoes and some mini brown ones from the garden last summer, so i just chopped both types up small, washed them and threw them in with the sausages.  Then i went out to Lily Lake on a photography expedition. 

See that building on the edge of the lake? That is where my sister is getting married in a month and 5 days...well, technically a month and 1 day because February is a shortie. An hour later, i got home and looked into the crock pot, i couldn't believe the potatoes were cooked already! So, i whisked up 5 eggs with about 3/4 cup of milk, some Mrs Dash, salt, pepper and grated Parmesan and poured it over the meat and veggies. I turned it to low and went and worked on my blog some more. Another hour later, i checked on it. It looked like the eggs were not cooking...strange. So i opened it up and poked it with a knife. The eggs were solid, dinner is ready! And it's only 4PM.

I turned the crock pot to Warm and walked away, planning on serving dinner at abut 6:30 as usual. But, at about 5:30, my stomach was growling, so i took a plate of my masterpiece and sprinkled it with some grated Mozza/Cheddar cheese.

Yummy. It was actually quite delicious, albeit a little bland. Next time, i will add a bit more spices, i think. Also, the next time i will start prepping it a bit later in the day. All in all, it was a good dinner experiment. The rest of the pot is staying warm for my beau later tonight, and then i will have some for breakfast tomorrow. I am really glad i chose to cook the sausages separate, as all the recipes i had found stated to throw everything in and cook it all together. I think this had the potential to be extremely greasy  had i not had the chance to drain the meat. 

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!