Cowboy Breakfast Casserole

Hudson

Well-known member
My wife offered this at the breakfast at the Virginia Chapter 2009 Spring Rally. It is a breakfast dish that cooks overnight in the slow cooker (crock pot). You can have a nice hot breakfast without having to do any morning cooking since the prep work is done the night before.

10 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 lg onion, diced
2-3 tbsp butter
1 lb ground beef
1 tsp minced garlic
1/4 - 1/2 tsp dried hot pepper
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 tsp cumin (or more to taste)
1/2 tsp charcoal seasoning (or more to taste)
1 tsp liquid smoke
5 med to lg potatoes, thinly sliced
2+ tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups Mexican cheese blend, shredded

Combine eggs with milk and set aside. Saute onions in butter until translucent. Season with a little salt and pepper. Brown the ground beef with the garlic and hot pepper. Season with salt, pepper, cumin, charcoal seasoning and liquid smoke. Taste and adjust seasonings. Saute potatoes in olive oil to soften slightly.

Spray or butter 3 1/2 qt slow cooker crock to prevent sticking. Layer 1/3 of potatoes, 1/2 of beef, 1/2 of onion, and 1/3 of cheese. Repeat layers. Top with remaining 1/3 of potatoes. Gently pour egg mixture over all. Top with remaining cheese.

Cook on low for 8-10 hours or overnight.

Notes: Next time she plans to try this recipe with ground sausage instead of beef. She couldn't find "charcoal seasoning" so she just used more liquid smoke. Taste the cooked meat to adjust to your taste. Change this recipe if you want -- the original recipe was very mysterious about exact quantities of ingredients.

[Husband's note: man, this sounds to me like it uses a lot of dishes to keep the ingredients separate before layering. Men love to optimize. If I was making it, I'd just dump the potatoes, then the cooked meat, then the onions right into the crock pot from the saute pan then stir them up with 2/3 of the cheese a little before putting the egg stuff and the last of the cheese on. And I'd mix the eggs and milk in the measuring cup right before pouring them onto the crock. (Do you need a 2 cup measure to hold the 10 eggs?) Fewer dishes to wash. Of course, in typical male style, I'd also be ready to learn the hard way why somebody would want to do that layering and/or let the egg/milk mixture stand so long. BTW, I totally agree with her about using sausage instead of beef. It's more breakfasty ... and the extra fat in the sausage isn't going to make a dent in the non-healthiness of this 10 egg, butter, oil, etc. dish.]
 
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