Traditional Middle Class Breakfast Casserole

     When I moved to central Illinois, I was greeted with an entirely new menu of middle class food. One of the more ubiquitous dishes was the Breakfast Casserole. You'd find these gastric bludgeons lurking at most potluck breakfasts or brunches. Boasting anywhere from twelve to six hundred eggs and upwards of fifteen hundred pounds of sausage and cheese, a single slice could meet your caloric needs for the next two days. However, they are crazy good. There's a bunch of different ways to make these. You can use potatoes instead of bread, change up the sausage with ham or bacon, use different cheeses or veggies. I have yet to have a bad one. This particular version is pretty basic and is intended to give you a starting point for your own personal breakfast powerhouse. As always, notes are in blue.

Traditional Middle Class
Breakfast Casserole

Ingredients

• 1 pound pork sausage
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
• 1/2 loaf Herbed Swirl Bread, cut into 1" cubes (in the event you don't feel like making bread especially for this, you can sub in 1/2 loaf of any hearty bread)
• 12 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 2 teaspoons Frank's Hot Sauce
• 8 slices American cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375F (190C, Gasmark 5)
2. In a pan, cook onion, peppers and sausage until sausage is browned. Drain excess grease and set pan aside.
3. Spray a 13"x9" baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Put down a layer of bread cubes in the dish.
4. Spread the sausage and veggie mixture in an even layer over the bread.
5. In a large bowl, lightly beat 12 eggs (make sure you take them out of the shells first. That's critical), with the milk and hot sauce. Pour over everything in the baking dish, ensuring that you have an even layer of egg covering everything.
6. Lay the slices of cheese over the top (next time I think I may put the cheese in between the bread and sausage layer and then sprinkle some cheddar over the top. Live and learn).
7. Bake for 40 minutes or until egg is completely set.

BONUS VIDEO:

A generation of chickens headed to the casserole
Good times!

Tuna Ranch Melt Pinwheel

     Sometimes you come across a recipe so hilariously Middle Class, it begs to be made. This is the sort of recipe you know will end up at pot lucks or brunches across the Midwest. The ingredients are Middle Class staples: Bisquick, tuna, ranch dressing, American cheese. I kid you not when I tell you the wife and I had to wait a few minutes to eat this because we were laughing so hard when this came out of the oven. In its defense, this recipe is super cheap and easy to make, and comes in at around 250 calories per serving. As always, any notes or changes are in blue.

Tuna Ranch Melt Pinwheel
via Betty Crocker 300 Calorie Cookbook

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 cups Bisquick Heart Smart Mix (that didn't happen. I just used the ALDI brand baking mix)
• 1/3 cup boiling water
• 1 can (12 ounces) chunk light tuna in water, drained
• 1/4 cup ranch dressing
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped green onions
• 1 small tomato, cut into 6 slices
• 3 slices American cheese, cut in half diagonally (I'm going to have to insist you go with American cheese, because this thing looks hysterical when it's done. While Muenster or Swiss would probably taste good, you'd be missing out on the aesthetics of the Road Cone Orange you get with American)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 450F. In a medium bowl, stir baking mix and boiling water until soft dough forms. Gather dough into a ball.
2. Place dough on lightly floured surface. Roll dough into 13 inch round. Place on ungreased 12 inch pizza pan (if you have a pizza stone, it works great here). Pinch edge to form 1/2 inch rim. Bake 6-8 minutes or until light brown.
3. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, mix tuna, dressing and onions. Spread tuna mixture over crust (don't forget to take the crust out of the oven first). Arrange tomato and cheese slices alternately in a pinwheel pattern on tuna mixture. Bake 1-2 minutes longer or until cheese is melted. Cut into wedges.

Good times!