Mrs. Chilla's Breakfast Casserole

We're moving! And we had 13 eggs left! And lots of bread in our freezer!


















It's really cold here this week. In order to use up some of our food before hauling it a mile to our new place, and to have something warm waiting for us for breakfast, I decided to make a breakfast casserole.





















[I bought long johns this week and started to feel really Canadian.]





















This is probably the first of several, since I found lots of great recipes. My friends were ready to supply me with enough breakfast casserole ideas that could last for a month. A couple of honorable mentions that I may make in the future:

Dave and Carla's Crustless Bacon and Cheese Quiche

Eggs Florentine from Pioneer Woman, suggested by Kira at Food alla Puttanesca.

And of course, Sarah Gibson's mom's breakfast casserole (sorry, no link yet) with sausage, grits, cheese, and everything wonderful. I may give that one a try in Fort Wayne, as we're almost out of grits, and they are little harder to find in Canada than I'd hoped.

















The on-hand ingredients were what made me choose this recipe. We had a bunch of eggs that I didn't want to drive over with our loads of stuff to the new place. We had lots of milk, and a pound of sausage in the freezer. The recipe calls for 8-10 strips of bacon, but the sausage worked really well. I also added two chopped green onions that needed to be used up.

This recipe is from my friend Mark's mom, Mrs. Chilla. Last year during the holiday break we went to visit Mark and Sarah, two of our friends who are originally from Atlanta. During the two days we stayed at Mark's house I probably gained 20 pounds from all the delicious food we ate.

Here's a picture of the four of us at the World of Coke. Can you even stand how wholesome this picture is?
















Anyways. Mrs. Chilla was kind enough to send me one of her delicious breakfast casserole recipes. It's easy and so, so good.


















Breakfast Casserole
from Gae Chilla

Assemble this casserole the night before and refrigerate.

4 cups cubed day old white or French bread
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
10 eggs, lightly beaten
4 cups milk
1 tsp dried mustard
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp onion powder*
Dash of freshly ground pepper
8-10 slices of bacon, crumbled**
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup peeled and chopped tomatoes

Generously butter a 9x13 baking dish.*** Arrange the bread cubes in the dish and sprinkle with the shredded cheese. Beat together the next 5 ingredients with pepper to taste and pour evenly over cheese and bread.
Sprinkle with bacon, mushrooms, and tomato. Cover and chill over night.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. If you use a glass or pyrex dish, don't put the dish into the hot oven. Instead, put it in the oven as it's pre-heating.

Bake for 1 hour, or until set. Check periodically and tent with foil if the top starts to brown. Enjoy!
*Mine was already packed, so I omitted this. **As I mentioned, I used a pound of hot Italian sausage because that's what I had on hand. It would go well with breakfast sausage, or bacon, of course. ***I totally forgot about this until it was already done baking. Luckily nothing stuck, and the whole thing came out fine. But it'd be better if it was buttered.