Paula Deen’s Hash Brown Casserole

Wow, I went for two days without posting a new blog article - we had a busy weekend. Our son and his wife came to stay with us for two days because they were attending a wedding. Saturday, my wife’s family had a gathering so we attended that and I took Bonnie’s Baked Beans and Sunshine Cake, both were a huge success. On Sunday, I decided to make the Paula Deen Hash Brown Casserole. I watched her TV program when she made it and I thought it looked good, so I printed the recipe and waiting until we had some company to make it.

I made the casserole and about the time I took it out of the oven, I noticed a pain in my left lower back that was getting worse. I remembered the downside to potluck family dinners, is you never quite know how someone else handles their food. I let our family eat while I went a laid down to see if the pain would subside. No such luck, I had several bouts of nausea, but none of the other effects of food poisoning. A quick check of the internet showed the appendix on the right side, so that’s not the problem. After suffering with this for 12 hours, my wife convinced me to go to the ER at 9:30 pm to see if I had a kidney stone. After three hours and pokes, prods, and a CT scan, the results came back that outside of a slightly inflamed kidney, all the tests were normal. The doctor thought I might have a pulled muscle, but to take Tylenol, which has eliminated the pain. However, I lost a full day while lying in bed trying to get comfortable and sleeping.

I confirmed my decision to make this recipe for breakfast when I got up Sunday morning and everyone else was asleep (they had a late night). I had already thawed my one pound of Jimmy Dean Maple Sausage and rummaged around in the freezer to find a loaf of buttermilk bread.

I started by melting the butter in a large skillet while I chopped one-half a white onion. I sautéed the onion while I trimmed the crusts off the slices of bread, this was very easy because the slices were still frozen. Into another skillet, I browned the bulk sausage, realizing after I put the sausage in the pan, the skillet was almost too small so I had to be careful while turning the sausage to keep if from flying out.

Once the onions were cooked, I added the half package of frozen hash browns to the skillet with the onions and cooked the hash browns for about five minutes. I had to switch from a rubber spatula to one made of metal so I could loosen the browning potatoes from the bottom of the stainless steel skillet. Once the potatoes were cooked, I spread them in the bottom of my prepared 9x13 inch glass-baking pan.

On top of the potatoes, I spread the bread cubes over the potatoes and the sausage over the bread cubes. I quickly mixed the egg and 2% milk with the salt, pepper, nutmeg, and mustard. I poured the egg mixture over the top of the three layers in the baking pan trying to coat all the bread cubes. I shredded the parmesan and cheddar cheeses and spread them over the casserole then put in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

By now everyone else in the house was up and ready to eat. When the casserole finished cooking, I took removed it from the oven, set it on top of the stove, and told everyone to dig in, and then I left to deal with my back pain.

I still have not tasted the casserole because the thought of it makes me feel a little nauseous. Everyone who ate the casserole really like the flavors, taste and texture, though it is very rich. Fortunately, my wife has agreed to freeze the remainder because I am not sure I could look at it right now. I do look forward to tasting it in the future, and it seems to be a hit when you have a group people for breakfast.

Find the recipe here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paulas-home-cooking/hash-brown-casserole-recipe/index.html

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

Hogs In a Sleeping Bag

Hogs In a Sleeping Bag, just the name makes me smile.  I saw this recipe on a Paula Deen program on the Food Network (yes, while exercising), and when I returned home, I printed the recipe so I would be prepared to make it.

This is a very fun and easy recipe, there are just two ingredients: sausage and pastry.  I used one package of the Hillshire turkey kielbasa and one roll of Pillsbury Crescent Seamless Sheet Dough.

I cut the sausage into six roughly equal pieces, then spread out the dough on my work surface.  I lightly rolled the dough to make it a little larger (that’s what Paula did on TV).  Then I cut the dough into six equal rectangles.

The next step is to roll each piece of sausage in a piece of the pastry dough.  I folded some of the edges over to make them look like unzipped sleeping bags.  After all my little hogs were wrapped up, I beat an egg and brushed it over the dough to help it brown.

Into the oven set at 400 degrees for about eighteen minutes and then out they came, nice and brown and ready to eat.  On the TV program, Paula had first boiled the sausage pieces to make sure they were warm in the middle, but we found that after cooking these little hogs were all nice and toasty hot in their sleeping bags.

We tried a couple of different mustards to see which was just right and we both settled on the basic French’s yellow mustard for this meal.  I really enjoyed making these little guys and it will be on my list for another time.  This is very easy to make and it would be a very fun meal for children of just about any age to help make.

Find the Recipe at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/hogs-in-a-sleeping-bag-recipe/index.html

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

Traveling - Oktoberfest Munich Germany

Oktoberfest in Germany is an event that I thought I would never get an opportunity to attend.  While Oregon has several “Oktoberfest” celebrations with the best known being in Mount Angel with it’s large beer gardens, they cannot begin to compare with the celebration in Munich.

In 2007, I had to fly to Europe for a business trip and I used the opportunity to travel with my wife.  We planned the trip so that the first two weeks would be our vacation starting in Germany and the last two weeks would be the business portion that concluded in England.

We flew Lufthansa directly from Portland to Frankfurt, and then flew on to Munch where we would spend the night and pick up our rental car.  We knew that it was the last weekend for Oktoberfest (a two-week long celebration) in Munich because it was very difficult to find any accommodations within 20 miles of Munich.  I searched the internet and found a Bed and Breakfast about five miles from the airport (about 15 miles outside of downtown Munich) and we had arranged to pickup our car at the airport – very nice!

When we fly to Europe and arrive at our destination, we like to stay up and not go to bed until it is bedtime at that location.  This really helps us quickly adjust to the local time.  It was about 1pm when we arrived at our hotel and checked in.  As we were going to stay up anyway, we decided to spend our time traveling into Munich and checkout Oktoberfest.

The train ride was a lot of fun as many of the residents attending Oktoberfest were wearing their traditional clothes of long dresses for the women and lederhosen for the men.  The train station is in the center of Munich and just a five-minute walk had us at the Oktoberfest site.  Though most of the year, the site is just a very large paved oval.  In early September, the various beer companies start assembling their beer gardens, which are incredible multi-story buildings.  The buildings, constructed just for the festival, are taken down once the celebration is over.

We were amazed by the number of people in attendance.  We walked through the crowd taking in all the different sights; foods, displays and people.  At times, we could only move with the flow of the throng of people around us.  Where they went, we went, and then in an instant, the crowd would thin and we would have a ten-foot open area around us.

We had not eaten for hours, so our first order of business was to secure some food.  Our first stop was for some traditional German fast food: sausage.  We found a stand serving sausage on a bun and we each consumed one with lots of the local mustard.  The sausages contained just the right amount of spices and were an excellent starter for two hungry travelers!

We walked a little further and saw some of the fish-on-a-stick which is salted fish skewed on a stick and roasted (head and all).  We passed on the fish, but headed for some pastry.  The pastry we tried was ok, but not the soft-sweet confection we expected.  It was very dry and seems a little old, we could have passed on pastry.

Now that we had some food (some good, some not), it was time to find some beer!  We checked all the large beer gardens but they were all full and closed to new attendees.  We knew it might be a problem to get in as once the beer gardens fill up, the attendants close the doors and will not allow anyone else in. 

While looking for beer, we wandered the loop of the festival grounds looking at the restaurants and different kiosks selling souvenirs.  We purchased one of the gingerbread hearts that have a message iced on the front.  These are a traditional gift from a man to a woman and the woman wears it around her neck on a ribbon (sealed in plastic so the frosting does not get all over).  You can purchase them with all kinds of messages from serious to funny.  The one we purchased said “Greetings from Oktoberfest”.  While they are edible, they are designed for use as decorations.

We are still looking for beer!  A complete circuit of the grounds brought us near the location where we entered.  It was here that I saw the beer carousel.  The beer carousel is just that, a revolving circular platform were you work your way through the other beer seekers to the center of the carousel to get your beer.  I climbed on with my Euros in hand and after three revolutions, worked my way to the bar where I could order my beer and get the glass refund marker (if you return the glass and the marker you get your glass deposit refunded).  Making my way back to my wife, we shared the beer and kept the glass (I occasionally use it at home).  I would have preferred a darker beer, but the Franziskaner Weissbier (wheat beer) was still refreshing to drink.

We were amazed at how orderly and courteous the people were in the crowds.  I would recommend only wearing shoes with sides when attending Oktoberfest as at times we could tell we were walking on the remains of smashed beer steins thrown from the beer hall windows.  Even through we had jet lag and were very tired it was still a fun experience,.

For us, this was something we only need to experience one time, but we are glad we had the chance to go.  Now if we would have been able to get into the beer halls early in the day…