Christmas breakfast

So many of our Christmas traditions involve food: baking cookies, stirring up a batch of chocolate fudge, sipping a favorite holiday punch, sitting around the table at Grandma’s house sharing turkey and the trimmings on Christmas Day.

Many of us have Christmas morning breakfast traditions as well, whether it’s cinnamon rolls or a cheesy sausage and egg casserole.

For a number of years, Daddy made scrambled sausage and eggs on Christmas morning, and I’ve made the same at my house a few times. I’ve done several other things at my house as well from casseroles to a delicious cinnamon coffee cake that sits in the refrigerator overnight and is ready to bake while the family opens presents.

If you don’t have a tradition of your own, you might want to try a new breakfast casserole that I’ve made several times in recent months — once for breakfast and other times for dinner. The casserole is simple enough — made with sausage, grits, cheese, milk and eggs — and takes about 10 minutes to assemble.

I was not a big fan of grits until the last year or two, so this casserole wouldn’t have caught my attention before now. But I started seeing a number of versions of grits casseroles in cookbooks and decided to make one myself.

I don’t like a lot cheese in egg dishes, so I cut the amount of Cheddar cheese in half — from a whopping four cups to two cups (which is still a lot for me!) I also used turkey sausage instead of pork sausage, and to make the recipe even easier purchased sausage crumbles that were already cooked and ready to mix in my casserole. When I make grits, I use the instant kind in the little pouches, so I did the same for this recipe, making four pouches of grits.

You can add a number of spices and seasonings into this dish — including garlic powder and thyme — but I prefer the recipe as I’ve written it here.

This casserole is wonderful comfort food, whether you serve it for lunch, brunch or dinner. Prepare a pan of hash browns or tater tots and serve with a bowl of fresh fruit and toast with jelly, and you’ll have a satisfying meal.

If you have any leftovers, the casserole is delicious warmed up in the microwave the next day.


Cheesy grits and sausage casserole

• 1 1/2 packages (9.6 oz. each) turkey sausage crumbles (I use Jimmy Dean)
• 4 pouches of grits (or grits for 4 servings) prepared according to package directions
• 2 cups grated Cheddar cheese
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, stir cheese into hot, cooked grits until the cheese melts. Whisk eggs and stir into other ingredients; add milk and stir until combined.

Pour into casserole dish, which has been prepared with baking spray.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes until cooked through.

Easter Treats

I love Easter candy.

One year, I gained about 5 pounds from eating way too many Russell Stover strawberry cream eggs. I kid you not.

I buy jelly beans and yellow bunny Peeps and Brach's chocolate marshmallow rabbits. It has to be Brach's. I added a new bag of goodies to my shopping cart this year, Hershey's Cookies and Cream eggs. Those are for the children. I prefer some peanut butter in my miniature eggs. Think Reese's.

Which brings me to today's column.

I made my own chocolate covered peanut butter eggs last week, and they were delicious and very, very easy to make. Too easy, in fact, because it's very tempting to make them again.

There are no complicated ingredients or instructions with this recipe; it's a wonderful one to make with children because they can help form the eggs.

Those of you who read my column might recall an almost identical recipe two years ago for a chocolate peanut butter ball candy, or buckeyes, at Christmas. You could use that same recipe, in fact, and just make the candy egg-shaped instead of round.

Making the eggs consists of mixing the peanut butter filling and shaping and cooling the eggs before dipping them in chocolate.

I've done a lot of chocolate dipping in recent years, but I had a breakthrough moment with this recipe. I placed an egg in a large spoon and dipped it into the warm chocolate. I rolled the egg inside the bowl of the spoon until it was coated. Then I transferred each egg to a large piece of wax paper and let the chocolate firm.

I made my eggs several sizes. I really like the smaller ones. The larger ones are easier to decorate, though, and would work well for personalizing with a child's name.

The recipe makes quite a few eggs, so I delivered about a dozen to work. They were the perfect size to fit in colorful cupcake holders.

I stored my candy eggs in the refrigerater. Some of my family members ate them while they were still cold, but I prefer to leave them on the counter for a few minutes.

Either way, it's chocolate and peanut butter, so how can it be bad?


Chocolate Peanut Butter Eggs

• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 12 oz. bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 tablespoon shortening

With an electric mixer, blend softened butter and peanut butter until smooth. Gradually add in powdered sugar and milk until mixed. Shape peanut butter mixture into egg shapes. Can be various sizes.
Place eggs on a cookie sheet or in other container and chill in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
Once eggs are chilled, place chocolate chips and shortening in microwave safe bowl and cook for 1 minute. Stir. If the chips don’t melt, put back in at 15-second intervals. Don’t overcook.
Dip eggs in chocolate and place on wax paper to firm. I placed my eggs in a spoon for dipping. Roll the egg in the bowl of the spoon until coated.
Once the chocolate has hardened some, they are ready to decorate.
Store in refrigerator.