Tag: breakfast casserole

Categories
Main Dish

This dishy pizza bake can really wow a crowd

Deep dish pizza bake is a new take on pizza, using dinner roll dough and lots of great pizza toppings in a large pan to create a meal with leftovers for days or a great crowd-pleasing meal.
Deep dish pizza bake is a new take on pizza, using dinner roll dough and lots of great pizza toppings in a large pan to create a meal with leftovers for days or a great crowd-pleasing meal.

We have homemade pizza night most weeks at our house.

At this point, it’s down to a science. I mix up the dough while Joey sautes some veggies or debones a rotisserie chicken, and then we work together to assemble the pie before popping it in the oven.

It’s a quick, delicious meal, and with plenty of options out there for sauces and toppings, we never get bored with it.

That being said, Joey sent me a video not long ago of another type of pizza he wanted to try. It was from a creator online who often has to cook for a crowd, and since I was just gifted a very large baking pan, it was the perfect time to see if the recipe was as good as it looked.

This comes from Kevin Ashton, who is on Instagram @oldscoolkevmo. I changed his method a little on my version below.

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Deep Dish Pizza Bake

Deep dish pizza bake is a new take on pizza, using dinner roll dough and lots of great pizza toppings in a large pan to create a meal with leftovers for days or a great crowd-pleasing meal.
Course Main Course
Keyword basil pesto, breakfast casserole, crowd-pleaser, deep dish, easy dinner, fresh mushrooms, frozen rolls, green bell pepper, marinara sauce, meal for a crowd, mozzarella, onion, pepperoni, pizza, vegetarian

Ingredients

  • Cooking spray
  • 1 48- ounce bag frozen yeast dinner roll dough
  • 3-4 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1-2 cups pizza sauce we used pesto
  • Your favorite pizza toppings precooked
  • 32 ounces shredded cheese we used a combo of mozzarella and Mexican blend

Instructions

  • Spray a large 12-by-18-by-2-inch pan with cooking spray. Spread the entire package of frozen dough evenly over the bottom and spray them with more cooking spray. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and set it aside for the dough to thaw and rise. This will take about three hours.
  • In the meantime, cook any toppings that are raw (ex. hamburger, sausage, etc.) that you’ll want to add to your pizza bake, and set those aside.
  • When the dough is about doubled in size, remove the plastic wrap. Drizzle the rolls with olive oil, and then gently squish the dough to flatten it and eliminate seams. Add salt and pepper, to taste, since the bread has not been seasoned at all to this point.
  • Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
  • Spread the sauce over the top of the dough. (You don’t have to avoid the edges. There is no “crust” with this.)
  • Add your toppings and any additional seasonings you like on your pizza, and finish off with a healthy layer of cheese.
  • Bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until the bread is completely baked and everything is heated through.
  • Let the pizza bake rest for five to 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

This was really good. It was also a lot of bread, so if that’s not really your jam, I’d suggest only using half of the dough from the package instead of the whole thing. You can easily adjust all of this for a smaller pan, too, if you don’t want a huge one to eat on for several days. (Or, keep this in your recipe box for when you need to feed a big crowd.)

I can tell you, though, this reheated really well and was very nice for a week where we were meeting ourselves coming and going. Leftovers are a blessing for times like that.

It was kind of a deep dish pizza/casserole hybrid, which I really liked. We packed ours with sauteed onions and peppers, chicken, turkey pepperoni, fresh mushrooms and lots and lots of cheese, along with a pesto base.

I think this recipe will make it into the “pizza night” rotation every so often, although I’ll probably make a smaller version in the future. While I don’t really mind eating the same thing for several meals in a row, it’s better to mix things up. After all, variety is the spice of life.

This piece first appeared in print on June 6, 2024.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Breakfast Dessert

Say ‘oui’ to this yummy overnight breakfast casserole

Overnight French toast casserole is a much easier way to feature French toast for breakfast. Add in a little fresh fruit, and you have quite the wow factor for your morning meal or even a dessert table.
Overnight French toast casserole is a much easier way to feature French toast for breakfast. Add in a little fresh fruit, and you have quite the wow factor for your morning meal or even a dessert table.

When I began writing this column over 10 years ago, I had grand illusions of people sending me their favorite recipes and me trying them.

What I found was that people are normally pretty guarded with their best dishes, and even more so, everyone wanted me to tell them something new to try instead of the other way around.

Since then, I have amassed quite the Pinterest page of recipes, a notebook of magazine cutouts and a large collection of saved tutorial videos that I source each week for my inspiration.

But for this week’s recipe, I didn’t have to go out looking. It found me.

Every summer, I get the opportunity to direct a short kids camp at Camp Mennoscah, and for the past I-don’t-know-how-many years, a wonderful group of ladies has volunteered to man the kitchen during our little camp.

This summer, on the last morning, they served us a fabulous blueberry French toast casserole for breakfast, and as I came through the chow line, they teased me a bit.

“Are we going to see this one in the paper?”

“If you send it to me, you will,” I told them.

So Marla emailed it to me right after camp, letting me know that her way of spicing up the recipe was to add the blueberries.

Well, over a month later, I finally had time to give this a try, only I used fresh cherries, since that’s what I had on hand. It was still delicious.

This original recipe comes from the blog “Fresh April Flours,” was tweaked by Marla Gillmore and the rest of the amazing kitchen crew, and received some more cinnamon in my version below.

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Overnight Baked French Toast Casserole

Overnight French toast casserole is a much easier way to feature French toast for breakfast. Add in a little fresh fruit, and you have quite the wow factor for your morning meal or even a dessert table.
Course Breakfast, Dessert
Keyword breakfast casserole, breakfast for a crowd, brown sugar, canned cinnamon rolls, easy breakfast, French toast, fresh fruit, vanilla

Ingredients

  • 8 to 9 cups stale bread cut into one-inch cubes
  • 2 cups fresh fruit cut in bite-sized pieces (I used cherries)
  • 1/4 cup butter melted
  • 2/3 cup brown sugar
  • 8 eggs
  • 2 cups milk I used 2 percent
  • 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
  • 3 rounded teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions

  • Prepare a nine-by-13-inch casserole dish by spraying it with cooking spray.
  • Spread all the bread cubes and fresh fruit evenly into the dish and set it aside.
  • In a mixing bowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon and salt and whisk well until everything is well incorporated. (My brown sugar got a bit lumpy. If that happens even after lots of mixing, don’t sweat it. Just evenly distribute the lumps on the next step, and it’ll be fine.)
  • Evenly pour the egg mixture over the bread cubes in the dish and cover it with aluminum foil, plastic wrap or a lid. Refrigerate overnight or for at least three hours.
  • To bake the casserole, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake, uncovered, for one hour or until the top is nicely browned and the custard is set.
  • Serve warm by itself, with some syrup, or even with a little powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

I ended up making a half batch of this in an eight-inch casserole dish, and it turned out great. It was more sugar than I’d want to have all the time for breakfast, but the warm, fresh cherries combined with the cinnamon and custard-y bread was excellent.

I don’t think mine turned out quite as well as the one I had at camp, but I think it’s because I made mine on my own. I suspect when you add the love of half a dozen wonderful volunteers, everything is bound to taste better.

This piece first appeared in print on July 27, 2023.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Breakfast Crockpot

You’ll be ‘bacon’ plenty of friends with this hearty breakfast

Making breakfast for a crowd is easy with this crockpot breakfast casserole. It’s a great way to start the day.
Making breakfast for a crowd is easy with this crockpot breakfast casserole. It’s a great way to start the day.

With the Chiefs heading into the playoffs, Joey and I have been planning for our annual get together with our fantasy football league to watch their first game.

In discussing menus for that game, it reminded me that I haven’t shared a fantastic recipe I tried earlier this football season with all of you.

We invited several friends over for a “breakfast for lunch” football day, and in addition to some baked goods, I decided to try what ended up being an easy and fantastic breakfast casserole.

This comes from the blog “40 Aprons” by Cheryl Malik. You can find the original post at https://40aprons.com/crockpot-breakfast-casserole/. I added garlic, green chiles and extra seasoning in my version.

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Crockpot Breakfast Casserole

Making breakfast for a crowd is easy with this crockpot breakfast casserole. It’s a great way to start the day.
Course Breakfast
Keyword breakfast for a crowd, crockpot, diced green chiles, eggs, frozen hashbrowns, garlic, garlic powder, half and half, sharp cheddar cheese, yellow onion

Ingredients

  • 1 pound bacon diced (or sub in ground sausage)
  • 1 small yellow onion diced
  • 4 to 6 cloves garlic minced
  • 8 ounces canned diced green chiles drained
  • 26 ounces frozen hashbrowns
  • 4 cups sharp cheddar cheese shredded
  • 12 eggs
  • 1 cup half and half
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder
  • salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  • Heat a large skillet over medium heat and saute the diced bacon until it’s crispy. Line a plate with paper towels and place the cooked bacon on it.
  • Remove all but about one tablespoon of the bacon fat from the pan and add the diced onion. Saute until it’s cooked through, and then add the garlic. Saute for a couple more minutes and then remove the pan from the heat.
  • Coat the inside of your crockpot with cooking spray and layer in half of the hashbrowns. Add half of the shredded cheese, half of the onions, half the chiles and half the bacon. Repeat. (I saved a bit of the cheese and did a final layer on the top of mine.)
  • In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, half and half, garlic powder, salt and pepper until it is well combined.
  • Pour the mixture evenly into the crockpot.
  • Cook the casserole on low for eight hours or high for four hours. When the eggs are cooked through, serve immediately or turn the crockpot to warm until you’re ready to eat.
  • (Side note: If you don’t have time for the crockpot, follow the same steps with a deep nine-by-13-inch casserole dish. Bake in a 350-degree oven for about one hour or until it’s cooked through.)

This was fabulous, and it reheated great, too. It was a hit with our football friends, and it was a great addition to the spread of breakfast items we had available. We ate too much, hollered at the TV together and had a great time.

I still don’t know what our playoffs lunch spread will look like, but no matter what, I’m so excited to see our friends again, hang out in the basement and cheer on the Chiefs.

This piece first appeared in print on Jan. 12, 2023.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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