Let's Have Lasagna for Breakfast!

 

I must confess that I have eaten pizza for breakfast, but not lasagna. At least not until my sister-in-law told me about having a special breakfast lasagna. 

“Lasagna for breakfast!?!” I asked. 

“Yeah,” she answered. “It was really good.”  

Although she didn’t have the recipe, she described it well. I peppered her with questions, wondering if it had lasagna noodles, a tomato sauce, what kind of cheese. 

Armed with all her answers, I went in search of a recipe. First, I went to my pretty substantial cookbook library and came up dry. None of my favorites had anything like what she described. 

So I resorted to the internet and was surprised at how many different versions of “breakfast lasagna” I found. There were recipes with lasagna noodles, crepes, pancakes, and tortillas. Some had red sauce; but most didn’t.  Some had bacon, ham, sausage, even seafood. 

I found one that pretty closely resembled what my sister-in-law had described on a website called “Just a Pinch.” Using that as a starting point, I went from there and added my own twists. 

I really don’t make lasagna very often. First of all, it’s a lot of work, and it’s far too much for two people. 

Making lasagna is an act of love. It is its own art form. It is my husband’s family’s traditional Christmas Eve dinner. It’s what my daughter requests when she comes home. 

Like pizza, I don’t think I’ve ever met a lasagna I didn’t like. You can make a good lasagna with store bought sauce and noodles, and plenty of mozzarella, and ricotta or cottage cheese. You can make a great lasagna with homemade crepes and ragu, a rich bechamel sauce, and a variety of meats and cheeses. And there are all kinds of levels in between.

This breakfast lasagna has layers of noodles and scrambled eggs smothered in a sausage gravy and lots of cheese. The eggs replace the ricotta layer in traditional lasagna. It’s still rich, and if you really need to lighten it up, you can use milk instead of half and half for the sausage gravy. But don’t leave out the nutmeg; it adds just the right touch of spice to the dish. 

The acid test was Mr. Rosemary's critique. He looked at me kind of funny when I told him that we were having a breakfast lasagna, but he was game to try it. After the first bite, he simply said, “This is good.” After his plate was clean and he wanted another piece, he said, “That was real good.” 

I have to warn you that this does take a little time to prepare and a few pans to clean up. But once the lasagna is prepped and the kitchen is clean, you can put it in the fridge overnight for the next day and sit down leisurely to a feast the next morning. If you do make it ahead, take it out of the fridge about a half hour before baking. 

I know this will be a repeat at our house. I wish I would have dreamed it up myself. Maybe I should work on that. Breakfast Chili maybe? 

 

Breakfast Lasagna

adapted from “Just a Pinch.” 

Serves 10-12

9 uncooked lasagna noodles

1 pound bulk Italian sausage (sweet or hot,) cooked and crumbled

12 large eggs, beaten

1/2 cup half and half

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

12 slices provolone cheese

1 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

3 1/2 cup half and half

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 13" x 9" baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.Whisk together eggs and 1/2 cup half and half.

In a large skillet, scramble eggs over low heat until just set, remove from heat.In another frying pan, over medium high heat, cook the sausage until browned.Remove from pan and drain on paper towels.

In the same skillet, add the vegetable oil and cook the peppers and onions until softened.Add flour and cook over medium heat for 2 minutes.

Whisk together the 3 ½ cups of half and half, add salt, pepper, and nutmeg and add to onions and peppers and continue to cook over medium heat for 2 minutes, stirring frequently, until it thickens slightly. Remove from heat.

Mix together 1 cup mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. (Reserve remaining cheese for top.) Spread ½ cup of the white sauce evenly in pan. Evenly space 3 lasagna noodles over sauce. Pour 1 cup sauce over noodles. Then, evenly spread 1/3 each of sausage, scrambled eggs and cheeses over noodles. Repeat the layers two more times -- noodles, white sauce, sausage, eggs and cheese, ending with cheese.

Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour. Remove foil and sprinkle with remaining ½ cup mozzarella and bake for an additional 15 – 20 minutes. Let rest for at least 15 minutes before serving.

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A Non-Easter Easter Ham and Broccoli Quiche

It doesn’t look like Easter. It doesn’t feel like Easter. It’s gray, rainy, and 40 degrees, and I'm crabby about it.  I just got back from a Florida vacation where it was sunny and in the 80’s all the time and my daughter gave me a cold down there. So, yes, I’m more than a little crabby, not to mention un-ambitious, and in no mood to cook up a festive, spring meal.

When it gets to really be rug-cutting time, I know I’ll pull my socks up and get on with it, and this is what I’ll whip up for an Easter brunch – a ham and broccoli quiche. It’s traditional, it’s classic and it just might be the ticket to put me in a spring-like mood.

I love quiche. It’s a lot like a pizza to me. It can easily handle a lot of variations, lots of different combinations. And if you take the cheater’s way out (as I often do) and use refrigerated pie dough, it’s a snap to make. (Although I have gotten much better at making pastry, I’m proud to say.) And since you can serve it warm or at room temperature, it’s a perfect company dish.

Once I hosted a baby shower for a friend and the menu was quiche, fruit salad and cheesecake. My daughter (the same one who gave me the $^#&*# cold) helped me with the quiche assembly line. We made eight quiches, four different kinds: Ham and broccoli, bacon and onion, spinach and shrimp, asparagus and ham, all with a healthy helping of cheese. First we placed a layer of shredded cheese in the pastry–lined pans, then the meat and vegetable filling, then more cheese, then poured the custard up to the edge of the pie. (Baking eight pies at once was something I’d never done before and convinced me that catering was not for me.) Everything went off without a hitch and everyone wanted to sample every quiche. Only crumbs left in the pans.

I follow the basic formula for quiche I started using years ago from a cookbook I bought from a New Hampshire restaurant called Peter Christian’s that is now defunct. I liked it because it was just a formula rather than a follow-by-the-letter recipe. I also liked the addition of sherry to the custard. The only things that are constant are the eggs, half-and-half, cheese and onions. And even those are variable to a degree. You can enrich the quiche with cream or using a variety of cheeses.

So this as Easter-y as I’m getting this year. I really had the best intentions of making an Easter Pie. If the spirit moves me later this evening, maybe . . . just maybe . . . . .

In the meantime, I hope you're in a sunnier place -- or at least a sunnier mood -- and have a blessed Easter with family and friends.

Basic Recipe for a Quiche
Serves 8

Pastry for one-crust pie
4 eggs
1 ½ cups half and half
½ cup sherry
Dashes each of freshly ground black pepper and freshly grated nutmeg and dash of cayenne pepper
4 cups grated cheese, any variety
½ cup chopped scallions
1 cup cooked and cooled vegetable of choice
1 cup cooked and cooled meat of choice
(or use 2 cups of a veggie variety)

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Place pastry in pie pan and flute edges any pretty way you like.

• Sprinkle 1 cup of cheese and the scallions in the bottom of the crust. Cover the cheese and onions evenly with the veggies and/or meat of your choice. Then sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the veggie-meat mixture.

• To make custard, combine the eggs, half-and-half, sherry and seasonings in a bowl with a whisk and blend well.

• Pour the custard over the cheese-veggie-meat mixture to within ¼ inch of the top of the crust.

• Bake at 425 for ten minutes, then reduce the heat to 325 degrees and bake another 45 to 50 minutes until the top is golden brown and is slightly puffed.

• Let cool at least 15 minutes before cutting. Serve either warm or at room temperature; refrigerate any leftovers if you have them.