Name: Sausage and Waffle Casserole
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 2 h
Yield: 4-6 servings
Ingredients: 1 1/2 pounds waffles (I used homemade); torn into 1-2 inch pieces (if using frozen waffles, thaw first); 1 pound breakfast sausage; unsalted butter for buttering the pan; 6 ounces (1 1/2 cups or 3/4 of an 8-ounce package) cheddar cheese, shredded; 6 large eggs; 1/2 cup milk; 1/4 cup maple syrup (NOT pancake syrup!!!); 1/4 teaspoon salt; 1/8 teaspoon pepper

Waffle Casserole with Sausage

February 25, 2015

Sausage and waffle casserole is everything you might imagine – waffles, sausage, eggs, cheese, and maple syrup. And amazing.

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Sausage and waffle casserole sounds like the stuff of dreams, at least to me. I mean, who doesn’t love a breakfast casserole? Whether it’s traditional, like my grandmother’s egg soufflé or a twist on a much more time consuming dish like French toast casserole, breakfast casseroles give the cook the freedom to spend time with their family or their houseguests while breakfast (or dinner, if you want to get really wacky) cooks.

When I first saw a recipe for a casserole made with sausage, waffles, eggs, cheese, and maple syrup in The Cook’s Country Cookbook, I knew they were on to something. I made the casserole, following their advice to use six Eggo waffles, stacking the waffles, whole, into the baking dish, and using maple sausage, which the recipe called for. Oh, and 1 1/4 cups of milk to six eggs.

All of the above turned out to be a mistake. We decided to make the waffles from scratch, but if you don’t want to put that much time and effort into it, go by weight (or at least estimate the weight by the amount in the box). There just wasn’t enough waffle in my casserole to soak up all that liquid from the eggs, the milk, and the syrup. But whoa, that’s a lot of milk…so I decided to scale that back too. And maple sausage…doesn’t taste that great. The maple syrup that I whisked into the eggs added enough maple flavor that I decided skip any artificial flavoring. Just go with regular sausage.

Second time around with this sausage and waffle casserole was much better. We put it together on Friday night, pulled it out of the refrigerator when we got out of bed on Saturday, and watched television while it baked. Is that the perfect weekend breakfast or what?

So if you need something to serve at your next brunch or family holiday breakfast, or really whenever, give this sausage and waffle casserole a go!

Mary

Yield: 4-6 servings

Sausage and Waffle Casserole

40 minPrep Time:

2 hrCook Time:

2 hr, 40 Total Time:

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Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds waffles (I used homemade); torn into 1-2 inch pieces (if using frozen waffles, thaw first)
1 pound breakfast sausage
unsalted butter for buttering the pan
6 ounces (1 1/2 cups or 3/4 of an 8-ounce package) cheddar cheese, shredded
6 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup maple syrup (NOT pancake syrup!!!)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Spread the waffle pieces onto a baking sheet. Bake for 30-60 minutes, until dried out but not browned. While the waffles are toasting, brown the sausage and drain away any excess fat.
Increase oven temperature to 325 degrees. Butter an 8×8 inch pan. Place the waffle pieces into the pan. Spread the browned sausage over the top of the waffles then follow with the cheese.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, maple syrup, salt, and pepper. Pour over the casserole. Cover with foil. Place a small plate on top of the casserole and weight with a heavy can. Let sit for 25 minutes. Alternately, you can make the casserole the night before and leave it in the refrigerator overnight, in which case you do not need to weight it. If you do this, take it out of the refrigerator 25 minute before you plan to cook it.
Remove the foil from the top of the pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes. Turn the oven to broil until the top of the cheese has browned. Remove from the oven and let stand for five minutes before serving.

Notes

Cook time includes time to toast the waffles.

https://chattavore.com/sausage-and-waffle-casserole/

Click here to print the recipe for sausage and waffle casserole!

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Pork Chops with Fried Apples & Ginger

October 15, 2014

With sweet potatoes to complete the ensemble, these pork chops with fried apples and ginger are fall on a plate, and it’s a super-simple meal to make!

I mentioned in my apple dumplings post that when I think of Fall, I think of apples. If you’ve ever watched The Brady Bunch you’ll know why when I think of cooking some sort of meat to go with apples, I automatically think of pork chops. Can’t you all just hear Peter Brady saying, “Pork chops and APPLE SAUCE”? I can even picture his face as he said it. The funny thing is that I swear I saw every episode of the Brady Bunch, most of them more than once, as I watched them in syndication, but I apparently I missed that one. I can still hear Jan Brady saying, “Marcia, Marcia, MARCIA!” and Marcia saying, “Oh, my nose!” (but perhaps a lot of my memories are from watching the Brady Bunch Movie in high school), but I actually saw the “pork chops and apple sauce” scene on I Love the Seventies (I think, anyway).

I never once ate apples and pork chops together as a kid, and I sure never ate sweet potatoes with them (in fact, I swore that I didn’t like sweet potatoes-even though I don’t think I’d ever actually tried them-well into adulthood). Apparently other people in other places, though, had figured out that pork and apples were a perfect pair. I watched an episode of Master Chef recently where contestants had to make a savory dish using apples. Every single one of them made something with pork. It’s a classic pairing, and adding ginger to the mix adds just the right amount of kick.

With sweet potatoes to complete the ensemble, these pork chops with fried apples and ginger are Fall on a plate!

Mary

Yield: 4 servings

Pork Chops with Ginger Fried Apples

20 minPrep Time:

20 minCook Time:

40 minTotal Time:

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Ingredients

3 medium sweet potatoes, peeled & chopped
8 T. butter, divided
4 large green apples, peeled & chopped
2 t. minced ginger
2 T. olive oil
4 boneless pork chops, about 1-inch thick (about 1.25 lbs)
salt & black pepper
3 T. maple syrup
1 teaspoon cinnamon, divided
1/2 cup heavy cream

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the sweet potatoes in a medium (3-quart) saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook until soft.
While the sweet potatoes are cooking, melt 6 tablespoons of the butter in a 12-inch skillet over medium heat. Add the apple and the ginger to the pan and cook, stirring frequently, until soft.
While the sweet potatoes and apples are cooking, season the pork chops with salt and pepper. Preheat the olive oil over medium heat in a 10-inch skillet. Brown on each side for 2-3 minutes, until caramelized. Place in the oven for 3-4 minutes, until just barely pink in the middle and the temperature registers 140-145 degrees in the thickest part. Remove from oven and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving.
Add two tablespoons of the maple syrup and 1/2 teaspoon of the cinnamon to the apples. Drain the sweet potatoes and mash with a potato masher. Stir in the cream, 2 tablespoons of butter, 1 tablespoon of maple syrup, and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon into the sweet potatoes.
Serve the pork chops topped with the apples alongside the sweet potatoes.

https://chattavore.com/pork-chops-with-fried-apples/

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Crispy Panko Pork Sandwich with Sriracha Drizzle

June 26, 2014

This crispy panko pork sandwich is easy and so simple, but incredibly tasty with the addition of cheese, apples, and a spicy Sriracha drizzle.

How many of you have trouble planning your weekly menu? (raises hand.) Okay, put yourself in my shoes (or, if you’re a blogger too, you can probably totally relate to this). I have the same meal-planning issues that everyone else does….and somehow I expect myself to be constantly coming up with something new to put on the blog. It’s a weekly struggle. It’s compounded by the fact that I’m currently on summer break and yet still somehow cannot force myself to plan ahead. I grocery shop every week on Friday evenings (it’s the least crowded time for us non-morning people at my favorite grocery store) and every. single. week. I am still trying to figure out what I am going to cook for the week at 4:30 on Friday afternoon. This usually includes what I’m going to cook Friday night, which is a night that I include in the meal plan for the previous week. Also, I own something like fifty cookbooks and I read literally hundreds of food-related blogs. How is this a problem for me?

This is why I love it when readers suggest things for me to make. My friend Jessie over at JessieWeaver.net (this is what I love about blogging-you have people that you consider friends even though you have never met them or, in Jessie’s case, your only meeting with them has been, “Hey, aren’t you…..!” in a neighborhood grocery store) brought a menu item-a crispy panko pork sandwich-at Tupelo Honey Café to my attention a couple of weeks ago. It was a seasonal special (I believe that they change these quarterly) and I never got to try it because they went and changed to their summer specials before I got a chance. I don’t even know what the actual name of the sandwich was, but it was a panko-crusted pork ribeye (did you know that the USDA is changing the names of pork chops to be more descriptive? Try finding a pork ribeye anywhere.) on a brioche bun with cheddar and Havarti cheeses, Granny Smith apples, caramelized onions, and sriracha aioli. Jessie wanted to see how I would do it….and I was happy to oblige.

I happened to have some of these wonderful brioche buns from The Faux Martha in the freezer, which I love even more than my old standard because (1) the butter is melted, not softened, which means I don’t have to plan ahead; and (2) these rose up to far more burnished glory than the other recipe (which for some reason has been turning out flat and pallid recently) ever has. However, you are welcome to use whatever good hamburger buns you can get your hands on….but I wouldn’t use cheap ones. America’s Test Kitchen gave me a jumping-off point for how to make the panko pork cutlets (I ended up using just regular old loin chops from the grocery store) and I decided that sriracha aioli might not be for the masses. Instead, we used mayonnaise and I handed Philip the bottle of sriracha so he could drown his sandwich while I gingerly sprinkled mine. I never would have thought of this combination of flavors on my own, but it worked amazingly well on this panko pork sandwich….so thanks, Tupelo Honey. And THANK YOU, Jessie!

So, if you have any suggestions for me…fire away! I’m all ears! In the meantime, be sure to try these panko pork sandwiches.

Mary

Yield: 4 sandwiches
Sriracha Drizzled Panko Crusted Pork Sandwich
This recipe was inspired by a sandwich from Tupelo Honey Café.
20 minPrep Time:
30 minCook Time:
50 minTotal Time:

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Ingredients
2 large red onions, halved and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 teaspoons sugar
½ teaspoon table salt or 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
vegetable oil
1 pound boneless pork loin chops-cut into 4 equal pieces
salt and pepper
½ cup cornstarch
½ cup buttermilk
1 cup panko bread crumbs
4 slices cheddar cheese
4 slices Havarti Cheese
4 brioche buns
1 green apple, cored and thinly sliced
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
Sriracha
Instructions
Melt the butter in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Once the butter is melted, add the onions, sugar, and salt, stirring to coat the onions completely. Sauté, stirring frequently, for 15-20 minutes until completely caramelized, turning down the heat if you think that the onions might start to burn. Remove from the pan and set aside.
While the onions are caramelizing, carefully cut a crosshatch pattern into each side of each pork chop. Place in a quart-size zipper bag and pound to an even thickness. Repeat with each pork chop.
Place a baking sheet lined with a cooling rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Pour enough oil in the bottom of a ten-inch skillet to completely cover the skillet. Preheat over medium heat.. When the oil is hot enough, salt and pepper each side of the meat then dredge the first two pork chops, dipping first in cornstarch, then buttermilk, then panko crumbs. Place in the hot oil. Fry for 3 minutes then turn halfway (don’t flip to the other side) and cook for 2 more minutes. Flip and repeat this process on the other side. Remove the cooked pork to the cooling sheet lined pan in the oven to keep warm. Repeat with remaining pork. Place a slice of Havarti cheese and a slice of cheddar on each piece of pork to melt while you assemble the rest of the sandwiches.
To prepare the sandwich, cut the brioche buns in half. Spread the top and bottom of each bun with mayonnaise. Place a piece of pork on each bottom bun. Divide the caramelized onions then the sliced green apples. among the four sandwiches. Drizzle with your desired amount of sriracha and serve immediately.
7.8.1.2
321
https://chattavore.com/sriracha-drizzled-panko-pork-sandwich/

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Ham and Red-Eye Gravy

September 18, 2013

Ham and red-eye gravy are a classic Southern staple that many have forgotten about. My version is “toned down” for those of you who are a little timid!

I guess ham and red-eye gravy is on everyone’s mind lately for some reason. Beth of {Local Milk} wrote an article about ham and red-eye gravy over at Food52 just a few days ago…I promise I was already planning this post when I saw her Instagram photo where she proclaimed that she was working on this too! I wonder what is is about this time of year that is apparently awakening the need for this Southern classic?

I remember reading about red-eye gravy in one of my Little House on the Prairie books…I’m sure Ma was making it for Pa on the banks of Plum Creek or something. I was slightly obsessed with Little House back in the day (never the show, really, but the books…totally) and there was a Little House cookbook in my school library. I checked it out over…and over…and over. This, of course, was back in the days before everything was electronic, so my name was written on that checkout card about a hundred times (that’s not really even an exaggeration) with the due date stamped next to it. Now that I am teaching at the elementary school that I attended, I really should go to the library and see if that book is there, with my name emblazoned so many times on the card.

Anyway, I always found the idea of red-eye gravy to be fascinating, but I had never tasted it. I recall seeing it on the menu at Cracker Barrel once but I honestly don’t know if it’s still there. Once Philip ordered something in a restaurant that was supposed to come with red-eye gravy, but the bowl of gravy that was plunked down with his ham and biscuits was the ubiquitous sawmill gravy.

For some reason, Southerners these days seem to be scared of red-eye gravy. Perhaps it’s all the proclamations (I read this in magazines, cookbooks, you name it) that red-eye gravy is “an acquired taste” or that “no one really likes red-eye gravy”. While I’m certain that, like many classic foods, red-eye gravy was born out of the need to use up everything on the table and to do everything you could to stretch a meal and add flavor where you could, I don’t see why something that contains (a) ham drippings; and (b) coffee seems so frightening or off-putting. Sounds like good eating to me.

Guess where my first red-eye gravy recipe came from? Everyday with Rachael Ray. I had a subscription years ago and thought that the recipe was intriguing. Grainy mustard added some tang and maple syrup balanced the mustard and the bitterness of the coffee with a little sweetness. While my recipe is my own, not Rachael’s, her influence is evident-I do like the mustard and maple combo. Thickening red-eye gravy is not traditional, but I like it that way. Anyway, trust me…there is nothing to be afraid of here.

Have you ever had ham and red-eye gravy? What did you think?

If red-eye gravy isn’t your thing….how about cream (aka sawmill) gravy?

And if you make ham and red-eye gravy….you need biscuits. Period.

Mary

Yield: 2-4 servings

Ham and Red-Eye Gravy

5 minPrep Time:

15 minCook Time:

20 minTotal Time:

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Ingredients

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 ham steak
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brewed coffee
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1/2 tablespoon maple syrup (or more to taste)
chicken stock or water
salt and pepper (to taste)

Instructions

Melt one tablespoon of the butter in a medium pan (I used a cast iron skillet) over medium heat. Cook the ham steak in the butter for 3-5 minutes on each side, until lightly browned and warmed through. Remove from skillet and keep warm (I wrap mine in foil).
Melt the second tablespoon of butter. Whisk in the flour and cook for about a minute.
Whisk the coffee into the roux. Cook, whisking, until thickened. Add a splash or two of chicken stock or water if the gravy is too thick. Whisk in the mustard and the maple syrup along with salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately (with biscuits for sopping!).

https://chattavore.com/ham-and-red-eye-gravy/

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