An awesome crock pot breakfast casserole

So I was trying to find a fairly quick and easy crock pot meal as I wanted to leave and knew I had Praise Team practice, but the husband and son would want supper... I searched and found several breakfast casseroles but they used potatoes (afraid hubby would have a texture problem with that) or the reviews weren't very good (one was written on a blog by someone who didn't like the recipe)... So I decided to try my mom's tried and true breakfast casserole, that we make in the oven, in the crock pot... *insert nervous laugh lol* So I did... Then got home and had 15 mins to change, eat, run through with hubby what our son needed and get out the door... Needless to say I forgot a picture and since there is none left with only 2 adults and a 4yr old, I would say it's a hit!
So here is my recipe
1 lb ground sausage
1 box stuffing (we prefer cornbread flavor)
6 eggs
Approx 1 cup milk (honestly I never measure this, just use to thin out the eggs some)
A lot of shredded cheese (we usually use cheddar and you can omit as much of this as you want)

Brown ground sausage in skillet (wished I had some sage to cook into this). Place evenly across bottom of crock pot. Place half of cheese on top (if omitting some, but not all, I would omit this layer). Add the stuffing (straight from the box). Add the rest of the cheese. Whisk together eggs and milk (add salt and pepper if you like) and pour over the entire casserole. Cook on low for 4-6 hours. I don't think I would recommend much over 6 hours, and be warned that the cheese will burn at this length of time (my family loves burnt cheese).
That's it! The longest part was browning the frozen sausage and I was still done in less than 30 mins!

Hope you enjoy, I'll try to get a picture next time... I may also try seeing what veggies I could add to the sausage layer, but I didn't have much on hand...

Proverbs 31:27~ "She's watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness"

Greg's Birthday Dessert means finding our new favorite frosting!

I stumbled across the best frosting recipe ever by accident… and best part is that when I was searching for a frosting recipe, I had forgot that powdered sugar is a main ingredient in frosting and I don’t have any… so here’s what happened: Greg’s birthday is Wed, we celebrated last night since he was off because of the holiday and he has a meeting right after work on Wed that will keep him out until 9 or 10pm… He said “since we are celebrating tonight, will you make this sugar cookie mix that Rick gave us?” I said “I was thinking about that since I can’t get you a cake ” (money too tight)… so I started looking for a frosting recipe and found "that's the best frosting I've ever had" on the Tasty Kitchen Blog… looked at it and thought “you don’t put flour in frosting?” (I keep telling y’all that I am not a Susie Homemaker lol) so anyway, you use 5 Tbs. flour, 1 c. milk, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 c. sugar and 1 c. butter (can do half butter and half shortening which I did to conserve my butter supply hehe)... Whisk the milk and flour together and place over medium heat, stir constantly until it becomes thick (mine wasn't thickening for a long time, then suddenly it did!), let it cool completely! add vanilla and stir together. In a bowl, combine sugar and butter (in my case 1/2 c. butter and 1/2 c. shortening) and whip until fluffy and well mixed. Make sure your flour/milk mixture is completely cooled, add to sugar/butter and mix on medium-high until completely mixed and resembles whipped cream (I beat it for about 3 minutes)... frost your cooled dessert... Oh My!! it is delicious Greg was in love with it as well as O and I! (yes, we taste tested it before frosting the cookies)... So I frosted the cookies, and I stuck a candle in the middle cookie and we surprised Greg by singing Happy Birthday.. we all enjoyed even though it isn’t a sugar cookie frosting (apparently it’s best on chocolate or red velvet cake )... Oh by the way, the frosting was the perfect mix between a buttercream and a whipped frosting! Delicious!

My Crockpot Italian Sausage

So Wed night I need to have an easy Italian Sausage sandwich, that doesn't require a stove... My first thought was a crock pot with some peppers and a little broth, but of course I don't have peppers in my house :( So I went online to look up recipes and most of them required peppers and some even had onions (which sadly I do not cook with hehe)... Then I found one that uses spaghetti sauce and tomato paste and tomato sauce, but I used the last of my spaghetti sauce 2 nights ago- shoot! So I went into my kitchen and came up with this concoction:

8 Italian Sausages (I plan for left-overs for lunch the next day)
1 can tomato paste
1 can tomato sauce
1 can diced tomatoes with chilies
1 can diced tomatoes
approx (I didn't measure this at all) 3-4 cups Chicken broth (would have used beef if my chicken broth didn't need used up right away)

1. simmer sausages in some water (not enough to cover, but enough that it could boil- in fact I accidentally boiled mine for a minute) for about 7 mins (long enough for me to fiddle with figuring out what I wanted to put in the crockpot and put it in)
2. mix together in crock pot the rest of the ingredients
3. add in sausages and make sure they are coated
4. cook on low 4-6 hours, my crock pot seems to cook hotter than most so I will cook mine on low for about 4 hours
5. Serve on Hot dog or Hoagie buns

I'm thinking (and thought while I was adding it) that I added too much broth... so you really can't use the mixture as a "sauce" on your sandwiches, so maybe a little less broth would be better... I didn't take pictures, but the family seemed to like it! Will definitely try again :-)

Another Culinary Success

Woohoo! Thanks to this recipe from A year of Slow cooking I had another success with supper last night... again, I had to alter it but that is what happens when I am picky and don't have everything needed... So here is what I did:
Crockpot Salsa & Chicken
Chicken Breasts (although apparently thighs will yield a juicier outcome)
1.5-2cups Salsa
1/2 bag frozen corn

Dump them into crockpot and cook on low for about 4 hours (if chicken is thawed)... Serve over rice

We liked it, except the chicken did get dried out because I didn't have enough salsa and it cooked longer than 4 hours... Will definitely try this with more salsa and a little less time as well as putting some salsa under the chicken as well as on top of it...