3/23/2024 – Made for the Fellowship Sunday School class at Christ United. Inspired by Mel’s Kitchen Cafe. This dish was very good and well-liked by many.
INGREDIENTS
- 16 ounces of breakfast sausage.
- 1 cup small diced multicolor sweet peppers. Mell called for Bell Peppers.
- 1 cup small diced yellow onion
- 8 large eggs – See Next Time below.
- 1 cup half an half milk
- ½ cup sour cream
- ~1 teaspoon salt
- enough fresh-ground black pepper
- 24 ounces frozen tater tots but only use enough to cover the bottom of the dish.
- 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
- 1 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
- Chopped green onion or chives, for garnish
- Sour cream and salsa, for serving (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Remove the sour cream from the refrigerator ahead of time to warm up some so it will blend into the milk. Then add the eggs.
- Whisk the eggs, milk, sour cream, salt, and pepper until smooth.
- Brown the sausage, peppers, and onions, crumbling the sausage into small pieces as it cooks, until it is no longer pink and cooked through and the veggies are tender. Drain the grease.
- Spray PAM in a 9×13-inch Pyrex casserole dish. Place the tater tots in a single layer across the bottom of the pan. (Use only as many tater tots as will fit in a single layer).
- Sprinkle sausage over the tater tots followed by the veggies. Sprinkle cheese evenly across the top.
- Pour the egg mixture evenly over and across the top. Cover the dish with foil and refrigerate overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake covered for 25 minutes. Uncover and baked about 45 minutes until set. To set took longer than Mel’s recipe even though it was in our convection oven.
- Sprinkle with green onions.
- Put into the insulated carrier and took in the SS. Cut into approximately 2.5-inch squares and served about an hour after removal from the oven and it was still hot. It cut better after it had rested and set more firmly.
Next time:
- Chopped ham or cooked bacon would work great, too, in place of the sausage or in addition to the sausage.
- Add jalapenos depending on the crowd. Cilantro could also be interesting.
- Substitute shredded hash brown potatoes as the tater tots were large chunks of potato.
- The tater tots needed to be seasoned as the chucks were a bit bland. Salt and fine ground pepper would have helped and clung to the rough exterior.
- Alternatively, to help the tots break down use 2 additional eggs to add to the moisture that soaks in overnight. The sausage and veggies were protruding from the sauce a bit much and could have been more covered.
- This cook used Rouces store-brand sharp cheddar and Monterey Jack shredded cheese. The cheese flavors were mild and could be improved.
- Given it was not set after the original recipes time ran out, and once it did the edges seemed not as moist, take it out of the refrigerator ahead of time to warm up some to allow it to cook more evenly.
- Serve with something other than the small triangular cake/pie spatula as some of the class embers had trouble keeping the large high square on the narrow pointed spatula until over the paper plate.
