Saturday, October 27, 2012

{31 Days to a Stress-Free Christmas} Day 27~ The Night Before Breakfast


It's the night before Christmas- one thought has you blue
"a nice breakfast" you're thinking - but what should you do??!
OK.. it's not as good as Clement Clarke Moore but I tried. Growing up, it was the tradition to have breakfast before opening the gifts. We had to wait for Daddy to get up and the coffee was made...it seemed like eternity. I will never forget the year that my brother was so excited to open his gifts but mom said we needed to make breakfast first so he grabbed a cookie tray she had made up, put it in the middle of the table and said "here's your breakfast!" We all laughed and had cookies for breakfast. Dan & I have continued the "breakfast first"  tradition with our children also. In order to not make the waiting seem endless for my excited children, I plan Christmas breakfast the night before. Sometimes we have something simple like bagels and fruit and other years I have made a breakfast casserole of some sort. These are my go-to favorites:


Ham & Egg Bake
(plan to get up early to put this in the oven)
6 cups french bread cubes
1 lb. cheese, cubed
4 cups ham, cubed
6 Tbs. flour
2 Tbs. dry mustard
6 Tbs. butter
8 eggs
6 cups milk 

Easy Baked Ham N' Egg Casserole. Photo by *Parsley*Mix together the flour and dry mustard. Melt butter. In a 10 x 14 baking dish alternate layers of bread, ham, cheese, flour mixture, and melted butter; using two layers of each. Beat eggs. Add milk and a dash of hot sauce, if desired. Pour this over bread Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. In the morning- preheat the oven to 325*. Bake uncovered for 2 hours or until well set in the center. I have also used bacon or sausage in this dish with great results.

Stuffed French Toast
8 slices of bread, cubed
2 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, cubed in small pieces
12 eggs
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 cups milk
Place 1/2 of the bread cubes in a greased 9 x 13 in. pan. Next, add the cream cheese cubes over the bread in pan; add rest of bread on top of cream cheese. Beat eggs, add maple syrup and milk, beating until well combined. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate over night. In the morning, preheat oven to 375* Bake for 45 min. or until set in the center. Serve with extra syrup. This recipe is delicious made with cinnamon raisin bread. 

2 comments:

Kristin said...

Our traditional Christmas breakfast is cinnamon rolls, but we usually begin presents first and then take a break to eat while we sit around the tree. Christmas is also the one time of the year that I buy orange juice. We all love it, but somehow we associate it with Christmas!

Jodi-Marie said...

I never thought of doing cinnamon rolls for Christmas. I might surprise everyone and make them this year instead. I have a good recipe to make the dough in my bread machine so I program it to be ready in the morning. All I have to do is roll out, add the cinnamon and bake.