breakfast casserole

Meal: Breakfast casserole
Prep time: under 30 minutes, including making the waffles
Cost for the batch: $3.51
Servings: 2 dinner and 3 snack
Local ingredients: milk, eggs, cheese, sausage
Organic ingredients: flour

The search for Spock foods that I can make in the afternoon and leave for Jeff to put in the oven when he gets home on my class nights, that we’re both going to like, continues. Thursday, it was breakfast casserole, also known in some quarters as breakfast strata. Most recipes I looked at for this kind of thing called for day-old bread. We didn’t have any on hand so I made waffles instead.

Breakfast Casserole

- 8 4×4 waffles. (If you’ve been making extras and freezing them, then this is easy. I needed to replenish our freezer stash anyway so I made a fresh batch.)
- 6 eggs
- 1/2 cup milk (we use skim)
- 1/2 cup cream
- Sausage (I used two patties from our local pig farmer, which comes in at a shade under 5 ounces. More would have been nice, but it was definitely sufficient.)
- Cheese (I used 4 ounces of a nice Colby marble, which shredded up to about a cup. Swiss would be tasty. I plan on experimenting with different cheeses from time to time.)

Cook your sausage and shred your cheese. If the waffles are frozen, toast them. Meanwhile, mix the eggs, milk, cream, cheese, and cooked sausage. Line an 8×8 baking dish with 4 of the waffles. Pour half of the egg mixture over them. Repeat. You can prep this ahead of time and leave it in the fridge until you’re ready to eat. Put the dish in the oven, put the oven on 350, and cook until browning and puffy (about half an hour.) Salt and pepper to taste. This reheats well, which would make for super easy breakfasts on weekday mornings.