Killer Nuts Tailgating

Mrs. Crappy promised over the summer that she was going to be a Killer Nuts Tailgating contributor this season, and I’m awfully pleased to see that she’s keeping her promise. -UC

As an added feature this year on Killer Nuts Tailgating, we will be providing a few recipes from each weekend’s get together. This past week for the Buckeyes home opener, we chose a traditional eye opener, an eggless breakfast casserole. As some in our crowd H-A-T-E eggs in any form, we found this casserole a few years back, that makes everyone happy — unless you look at the calorie content, which we don’t. Quick, easy, very tasty, filling, and if you remember to put the leftovers in a cooler with ice, it reheats well the next day too!

Eggless Breakfast Casserole with sausage

• 1 pound ground sausage. (I always double this recipe; for the version with more heat, use a mix of regular and hot sausage.).
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 (10 ¾ oz.) can cream of chicken soup
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 (8 oz.) container of French onion dip
• 1 cup chopped onion
• ¼ cup each green and red bell pepper
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 (30-oz.) package frozen hash brown shredded potatoes, thawed

In a skillet, cook the sausage until browned. Drain well. In a large mixing bowl, combine the sausage (or cooked bacon or ham or veggies), cheese, chicken soup, sour cream, French onion dip, chopped onion, bell peppers, salt and pepper. Mix in thawed hash brown potatoes. We have found the best method for really getting this mixed well is to just use a LARGE bowl and your hands. Spread in a 9 X 13-inch greased baking dish. Bake at 350°F for about one hour or until casserole is golden brown.

I usually bake for about 45 minutes with casseroles covered with foil and then uncover and continue to bake until I think they are done. This tends to keep them moister than if baked completely uncovered.

With a crowd of nine, we made two casseroles, one with mild sausage and one with hot (We had enough mixed up for an additional small casserole, which we froze for a future breakfast, lunch or dinner). To the hot casserole, a diced jalapeno was also added. The hot went faster than the mild, and we ended up with a large chunk that would have been two servings, if we had remembered to put into the cooler. Oh well. (Totally my fault. -UC)

As for keeping casseroles warm, you can either bake before going to tailgate, or, as we did, bake them the night before and then reheat thoroughly in the morning. Cover with foil. Then we take a sturdy box about a foot deep and line the bottom with beach towels, wrapping each casserole in a towel, stacking them in the box and then covering with another towel.

I know some people have those nifty hot food carrying cases, which are awesome, but we have found the towel method is pretty easy to deal with when it comes to spills, as spilled chili in a carrying case can result in a long scrub to get it out of all the nooks and crannies and stitching. With the towels, you just throw in the washer, and if the box get bad, throw it out and find a new one. When it comes to seriously cold weather games, we have several old pizza delivery carriers that help insulate the food even more, and we leave the box in the car until its time to eat.

The rest of Saturday’s menu, provided by the rest of the crew included fresh Caprese salad (tomato slices, slices of fresh mozzarella, roughly fresh basil chopped, olive oil), fresh fruit salad, cheese and crackers, cookies and pound cake, as well as Buckeye donuts from Tim Hortons — chocolate glazed donuts with a dollop of peanut butter in the hole!

Check back next week for this coming Saturday’s menu for the OSU v. University of Central Florida.

Go Buckeyes!

(Note: You now have the recipe; tomorrow morning, you’ll learn about my track record of screwing it up. Besides forgetting to put the leftovers in a cooler, I mean… -UC)