Egg-Potato-Sausage Whatchacallit

Yeh, yeh: I don’t have some kinda fancy name for this. It’s a variation of other dishes I make, but the twists make for enough of a difference that it’s a handy thing to have in my hip pocket for one of those “What the heck do I make for dinner tonight?” days. Fast, easy.

Ingredients:

• 2 LARGE (or three medium) baking potatoes
• 1/2 pound smoked (pre-cooked) sausage
• 2C shredded jack, cheddar colby cheese–or any mix of 2 or 3
• 6 medium or larger eggs
• up to 3/4 cups milk or cream
• 1/2 medium yellow onion
• 2 cloves garlic (or more if your taste is like mine)
• 1 or 2 carrots
• 1/8 tsp celery seed (the stuff has a really strong flavor, so while you can use more, start on this low side)
• olive oil
• your fav Italian seasoning. For this I like the McCormick’s Pizza “Grinder”—herbs n spices in a handy grinder container. Not bad & better than pre-ground stuff. You can crush/grind fresh or dried Italian-style herbs in your fav mix, though.
• 1-2 pinches of rubbed sage.

Prep:

Liberally oil a 9″X11″ g;ass baking dish
Preheat oven to 325°

Scrub the potatoes and PRE-bake them in your microwave. Don’t bake them thoroughly. For two large potatoes, my microwave will almost bake ’em when I set it for two potatoes, since it assumes medium potatoes. You may need to experiment. You want ’em firm and just starting to get done.

While the potatoes are almost baking *heh* slice the sausage in about 1/4″-1/3″ “coins” and set them aside for browning in a coupla minutes.

Peel and slice the carrots in about 1/4″ “dimes”. Chop the onion coarsely. “Press” or finely mince the garlic.

Pour all the veggies in a ceramic (microwave safe) bowl with about a tablespoon of oilive oil, mix well and cover LOOSELY.
When the potatoes are almost baked, remove ’em and put the veggie bowl in the microwave for 2-4 minutes (your m-wave will likely vary). You want the onions clarified almost as if they had been lightly sauteed.

While the veggies are pre-cooking, quickly (they’re hot!) slice the potatoes about the same thickness as the sausage you sliced earlier and place them in the bottom of the oiled baking dish.

Veggies done pre-cooking, pour them (and all juices) over the potatoes and spread them out nicely.

Brown the sausage. It’s already cooked, so all you wanna do it render out a little excess fat and get some nice crispies on both sides of each piece.

Place the sausages on top of what you already have in the baking dish and add the shredded cheese on top.

Lightly beat together the eggs and cream/milk and pour on top of the cheese. Shake the dish back and forth gently to disreibute the egg mixture.

Bake uncovered in the 325° for 30-35 minutes. Oven temps vary and I no longer have a separate oven thermometer (it’s on the list–when I find one I like, I’ll have better directions for ya), so check it at 30 mins to see. If the cheese on top’s lightly browned and the eggs are well-set, you’re done.

All-in-all, it took longer to write this thing up than it took in prep time. And because of microwaving to “almost done” of some of the ingredients, it also cut about 20 mins off cooking a similar dish based on eggs/cheese/potatoes.