It's Snowing this Weekend

While my mother in Lubbock is talking about temperatures in the '80s, we've got a winter storm that's come on shore in southering California, and we're getting some pretty good snow here in the mountains. Any time it's cold outside, I look for meals that utilze my oven so we can take advantage of the oven's heat to help warm up the house. This morning I was flipping through the pages of my cookbook ( which won't happen much longer since I'm converting all my recipes to MacGourmet) and saw this breakfast casserole. I like to cook with Bisquick, so I gave this one a try. It was really easy and tasty, and DH says it's a "keeper." I think next time, though, I'll try using the whole grain baking mix I picked up at Trader Joe's.

Bisquick Breakfast Casserole
(to serve 3 people, use half the ingredients)

1 lb bulk breakfast sausage (I use Jimmy Dean)
8 eggs
2 cups milk
1 cup Bisquick
1/2 cup Monterey Jack cheese
1/2 cup cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 325°F. Lightly grease a 9x13" dish. Cook sausage and drain well. Beat eggs, add milk and Bisquick and stir thoroughly. Layer sausage on bottom of dish. Sprinkle the monterey jack cheese over the sausage. Pour on the egg mixture and sprinkle the cheddar over the top. Bake for 50 minutes or until set.

I picked up some produce at the market this morning, including some fresh mushrooms. For dinner tonight, I made an old favorite, Chicken and Mushrooms with Herb Cheese Sauce. We had that with some brown rice and a salad.

Remember when I posted a while back about Uncle Ben's ready brown rice? A few folks let me know that if I used a good quality Japanese rice cooker, I could cook brown rice without burning it. I hope to post in a few months and show you my new rice cooker! My son just got stationed at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, and has let me know that he's going to get me one for a belated Christmas gift. Hooray!

I just checked outside - we have about 4 inches of snow so far. It's a dry snow - the way we know it's dry is that it's not sticking to and filling up the Direct TV dish. When we get a dense, wet snow, it fills up the dish. DH has to climb up on the ladder and clean it out every few minutes. Tonight he doesn't have to. I'll take some snow pictures to post tomorrow.




food & drink