Breakfast Oven Eggs (A recipe)

Ingredients:  (for 1, 9×13 pan)         

• 10 large eggs
• 1 cup (8 oz) heavy whipping cream
• 4 slices of bread – cubed
• 1 package (16 oz) of pork or Italian sausage
• 2 cups of grated/minced cheese – Colby, swiss, etc.
• 1 Tbsp ground mustard
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 4-6 oz. canned mushrooms, pieces and stems or 4 whole mushrooms diced
• 1 medium onion – diced

Directions:

• Crumble, brown and drain the pork sausage. Set aside.
  • Sprinkle garlic powder while browning.
• Lightly sauté (1 minute) the mushrooms and onions.  Set aside.
• Pre-heat oven to 350^o
• Break and add eggs to large mixing bowl
• Shake well and add in Half & Half and mix well
• Add ground mustard and mix very well
• Add in cheese and mix
• Add in cubed bread and mix well
• Add in diced mushrooms and onions
• Spray pan with no-stick cooking spray
• Spread pork sausage on bottom of baking dish
• Pour mixture evenly into baking dish over the sausage
• Bake at 350^o, covered for 30 min, uncovered for 17 min, let cool for 5 min.
• Cut into 8-10, equal pieces.

Tips:

• If making multiple batches, bake both batches ahead.  Freeze second after being cooked and cooled.
• Make sure and add ground mustard  before  adding the cheese, bread, etc.
  • Mix it well so that it does not unevenly mix into other ingredients.
• Refrigerate the bread ahead of time.  This makes cutting it into cubes much easier.
• Mix in each item well before adding the next ingredient.
• Ensure that the onions and mushrooms are sliced/diced fairly small.
  • Larger pieces of either do not seem to work as well and tend to make the finished, cut pieces more likely to fall apart.

 

Recommendations:

• When first batch is cooked, keep refrigerated (not frozen) and simply take pieces out and microwave at the reheat setting for about a minute.

 

Comments/Options/Variations:

• I particularly like this recipe because it is an excellent meal, especially during the early maintenance (very restricted carbohydrate) phase of a high protein diets. I combine a slice of this egg casserole with some bacon or steak, and some cottage cheese topped with bacon bits, and it makes an excellent, filling meal with very high protein content (40-45g) and 10g or less of total carbohydrate.
• Examples:
  • Pork sausage. The brand that I use in the example is Bob Evans Italian Sausage.  It has 72g of protein and 0g of carbohydrate in a 16 oz. package.  However, other brands can contain much less protein and some carbohydrate.  Check the labels.
  • Bread. The brand that I use in the example is Healthy Life White  It contains 6g of usable carbohydrate (8g carb minus 2g of fiber) per slice.  Other breads can contain much greater amounts of carbohydrate.
  • Half and Half. I use Half and Half because it has some protein and about 1/3 the carbohydrate of whole milk.  However, if you want to further reduce the carbohydrate content, you can use heavy whipping cream as a substitute for the milk.  That generally contains no carbohydrate, although also no added protein.
• If you are not comfortable using all of those whole eggs, you can certainly remove some of the yolks without significantly affecting the taste of the recipe.
• Other easy ways to further reduce the carbohydrate content of this recipe are to use 3 instead of 4 slices of bread and to eliminate the onion. Depending upon how filling an individual piece is for you, you might try cutting the recipe up into 10 pieces instead of 8.
• I welcome any comments you may have about this recipe. I am always looking for suggestions and improvements.