Breakfast Bake of Champions

Remember that day when you looked at your child and realized she was not a baby anymore? That happened to me the other day when Elli essentially took over in the kitchen. Like a proud coach watching her prize athlete perform a flawless routine, I watched Elli in her little apron pouring and mixing and mashing and smiling her way through this latest recipe discovery from Taste of Home.

Weekend Breakfast Bake

1 pound bulk pork sausage

1/2 cup chopped onion

4 cups shredded Monterey Jack or cheddar cheese

8 eggs, lightly beaten

1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted

Cook sausage and onion over medium heat until pork is no longer pink; drain. Transfer to a greased 13x9 baking dish. Sprinkle with cheese. Combine eggs and soup; pour over cheese. Bake, uncovered at 400 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Let stand for 5 minutes before cutting.

I had cooked the pork and onion and let the mixture cool in a mixing bowl prior to Elli coming into the picture. And for those of you still keeping tally, I am down to 3 pounds of sausage from the Gift of a Third of a Pig from last fall. I can see the light.

With the meat ready, Elli helped me first spray the baking dish with cooking oil. Then, we were ready for the meat mixture.

I pointed to the bowl. "Can you pour that meat into the pan?"

"Mmm'hmm," she replied and cradled the large bowl in her arms. At first I was a little nervous about how this might go, remembering in vivid detail the time she helped me sprinkle sausage on Daddy's Birthday Pizza...and all over the floor. But when I saw her patience and strength in handling the bowl, I worried no more.

What form! Look at that precise positioning of those precious little hands!

"Now can you spread the meat out, like this?" I pushed some of the meat out from the center of the mound she had created on one end of the pan. She quickly followed my lead, creating an even meat crust. "That's perfect. It's time to add some cheese." I consulted the recipe again. "Four cups?! Geez." I was afraid the cheese would overrun the casserole. It didn't, by the way. "Well, Elli, looks like we're going to use this whole bag. So, I'll open it, and you can dump it in the pan. Sound good?"

"Eddi dump cheese."

"That's right." I tore open the bag and handed it to her. "Can you dump the cheese in the pan?"

Look at that. Not a single shred over the side, onto the floor. I give it a 10.

"Let's spread out the cheese, just like we did the meat," I said.

She didn't need an illustration this time; she just carried through.

Total concentration, folks. Couldn't ask for more from such a young cook.

The tricky part about the next step was keeping Elli from eating the eggs. Though she is tremendously more discriminant than she was about what she puts in her mouth, I did catch her today munching on sand. I kept her busy by helping me count and crack all 8 eggs. She is going through a thing right now where she is very physically reactive to sounds she knows or thinks will be loud. The sound of a vacuum makes her leave the room; the stand mixer's buzzing motor makes her cross her arms over her chest, wince and say, "Dat's scaredee." I guess she thought the sound of an egg crack would rival that of either one of those. Each time we were about ready to crack the egg on the side of the bowl, she cowered a little and srunched up her face, preparing for impact. I thought maybe by egg 4 she wouldn't be so nervous about the noise, because really it's not that loud, but she was still intimidated by it. It was kind of sweet, and I would have taken a picture, had my fingers not been smeared with egg yolk.

My hands were free on the next step. And that's because Champion Elli took over beating the eggs. Actually, she had a different verb to describe it.

"I smash, I smash!" she insisted, reaching for the wisk in my hand.

"All right, you can smash. Let's see you do it."

Brilliant. Best smashing in history. The eggs stayed in the bowl, and we moved on to dumping in the mushroom soup. She had perfect aim in smacking the bottom of the can to coax the soup out.

Slllloooop! out slid the soup into the bowl, and Elli smashed some more.

"Gorgeous, Elli. Well done. Only thing left to do is pour this over the cheese. Think you can handle that?"

"I pour."

"Go to it."

Though I was confident she could pour, I guided her on where to pour, making sure we got every corner of the pan. When we were done, Elli leaned over the pan, took a big sniff and declared, "Mmmm, dat smell good!"

"It does?" I looked at the soupy goop in the pan. "Well, OK, if you say so. But I'm sure it will smell so much better after it's cooked." I covered the pan with plastic wrap, and Elli held the refrigerator door open as I gingerly placed the pan on the top shelf. When I pulled my hands back, Elli took her cue and shut the door. She then erupted into applause.

"Yea! Did it!"

Spoken like a true, independent victor.

Overall Weekend Breakfast Bake:

Elli-friendly Cooking: 5

Elli-friendly Eating: 5

Simple: 5

Fast: 4

Frugal: 4

Question: What is your favorite recipe using sausage? (I have 3 pounds to go!)