Sausage and Potato Breakfast Casserole

Breakfast is my favorite meal, usually because by the time I wake up, I am ravenous and anything I find to eat is going to taste delicious. It is a rare day that I skip breakfast, and I usually enjoy a substantial meal in the morning rather than a few bites of something light. I'd rather have eggs and potatoes for breakfast than something sweet and fruity, although the occasional plate of waffles and syrup suits me fine. In general, give me something packed with protein, carbs, cheese and sometimes a bit of grease, and I'm satisfied for hours.

I also love one-dish meals, with everything mixed together - easy to make, easy to serve and totally delicious. This breakfast casserole is very forgiving because you can toss in a variety of vegetables - I often include sauteed mushrooms and green pepper. You can use 2 cups of egg substitute in lieu of the whole eggs, and frozen hash browns work in a pinch if you don't happen to have any leftover baked potatoes. Use whichever sausage you like best, maple breakfast sausage, a spicy chorizo, or my favorite, a bulk pork sausage heavy on the sage.

Any way you cut it, it's a deeply satisfying dish and a great breakfast for those days you need something solid in your stomach.

Sausage and Potato Breakfast Casserole

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb. bulk pork sausage - I like Bob Evans Savory Sage sausage
  
• 1/2 medium onion, choppped
  
• 2 large russet potatoes, baked*
  
• 1 cup extra-sharp cheddar, shredded
  
• 8 eggs**
  
• 1/4 cup milk
  
• pinch salt
  
• pinch pepper
  

 Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease an 8 in. x 8 in. baking dish.
   
   
2. Brown the sausage in a large skillet until browned. Break up any large clumps of sausage. Add the chopped onion when the sausage is mostly cooked through and cook until the onion has softened and all the pink is gone from the sausage.
   
   
3. Shred the leftover baked potatoes with a box grater into a large bowl and beat together the eggs and milk in another bowl or a measuring cup.
   
   
4. Layer half the shredded potatoes in the baking dish, followed by half of the sausage and onion mixture and then half of the cheese and repeat with the remaining potatoes, sausage and onion and cheese.
   
   
5. Season with salt and pepper
   
   
6. Pour the egg-and-milk mixture evenly over the other ingredients and bake for 40 - 50 minutes or until the eggs are set. You can bake it longer if you want it to come out golden brown.
   
   
7. Let cool 5 minutes and then serve. I added a bit of sriracha on mine.
   

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Potatoes Romanoff

Potatoes are a common comfort-food theme for a lot of people, and make an appearance as a side dish on a lot of dinner tables:. They can be roasted, fried, mashed, boiled, and of course, baked, and they can be as humble as oven-roasted potatoes or as elegant as Potatoes Dauphinoise.

Another fancy-sounding potato side dish is my version of Potatoes Romanoff, also a quick and easy way to use up leftover baked potatoes. I almost never have leftover baked potatoes, but it is criminally easy to bake a russet and then chill it, so I don't let the lack of an extra baked potato hanging around in my fridge stop me from making this dish. Since my kids are not potato fans, I did have to scale this recipe back a bit, but it's just as easy to make this for one person as it is for 8 or 16.

Potatoes Romanoff 

Serves 4 as a reasonable side dish, or 2 generously and 1 gluttonously

Ingredients:

• 1 large russet potato (about 11 oz.)
• 1/4 cup shallots, minced
• 3/4 cup extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated (about 3 oz., moderately packed down)
• 1/4 teaspoon dried dill
• 1/4 teaspoon granulated garlic
• 1 teaspoon sea salt 
• pinch of cracked black pepper
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• grated cheddar
• chopped scallions

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450 F. Scrub your russet potato and pierce with a knife or fork in several spots. Wrap it in foil and set it right on the racks and bake for about an hour. Take out, unwrap and let come to room temperature and then chill in the fridge for a few hours.
2. Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a small casserole dish or 2 small gratin dishes.
3. Take the chilled baked potato and grate it, skin and all, with a box grater. 
4. In a large bowl, mix together the shallots, grated potato, salt, pepper and dill, taste to adjust seasoning.
5. Fold in the sour cream and 3/4 cup of grated cheddar and combine well.
6. Pour the mixture into the casserole dish or gratin dishes and top with more grated cheddar and bake for 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown.
7. Sprinkle with chopped scallions and serve.

Notes:

• This doubles, triples and quadruples easily if you need to serve more people.

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Loaded Baked Potato Soup

What is is about potatoes that make them so satisfying as comfort food? It's got to be the dense starchiness. It gives a sense of solid fullness, and it also turns from bland starchiness to sweet on your tongue as you eat it. Add salt to that, as many of use do with potatoes, and you get that double-whammy of sweet and salty.

Baked potatoes in particular serve as a vehicle for other lovely flavors and textures, especially creamy. The smoothness of the the fat in butter and cheese is really one of the more simple and sublime parts of enjoying foods, and the main reason I could never sustain veganism. Cheese, sour cream, butter on a baked potato - hardly makes your waistline happy, but it certainly results in happy tummy syndrome.

So, what could be more satisfying than a loaded baked potato? Making it into a soup.

This is a great recipe to deal with leftover baked potatoes - as if there could even be such a thing - or you could do what I did and bake a potato for the express purpose of making this soup. You'll thank me.

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 russet potato
• ¾ cup leeks
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon flour
• ½ teaspoon salt 
• pinch of pepper
• ¼ teaspoon granulated garlic or garlic powder
• ½ teaspoon dill
• 2 cups milk
• ½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
• crumbled bacon
• shredded cheddar
• sour cream

Directions:

1. Bake a russet potato for an hour at 400 F. Take out and let cool. Then scrape out the potato and mash up with a fork. You'll have about 1 cup. You can used a leftover baked potato if you have one lingering in your fridge.
2. Meanwhile, saute ¾  cup leeks over olive oil or some sort of fat (I used a smidge of butter) until soft. Then add 1 heaping tablespoon of flour and stir until it's all mixed in, about 2 minutes.
3. Add ½ t salt, a pinch of pepper, ¼ t granulated garlic or garlic powder and ½ t dill.
4. Pour in 2 cups of milk and heat over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture has thickened (about 10 minutes). 
5. Puree it with a stick blender or in small batches in a regular blender if you want a uniformly smooth texture, otherwise, enjoy the rustic texture.
6. Add ½ cup shredded cheese (I used an extra-sharp white cheddar) and stir until the cheese melts. Taste to adjust seasoning - this soup can really take a lot of salt before it's noticeable.
7. Serve in a bowl garnished with your favorite baked potato toppings. I had shredded cheddar, crumbled bacon and sour cream.

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