Cozy Autumn Breakfast Casserole

Thanksgiving was good. The turkey took eleven hours from start to finish, which is about right for the size of bird we do. Tom Whelan arrived at eleven with a pecan pie from the bakery in town and sat at the kitchen table and told me stories about horses he'd shod in the 1970s — horses with names I recognized from ranch families in the valley, horses that had belonged to men who were now old or gone. He has a memory for animals the way some people have a memory for faces. Every horse he's ever shod is still in there, organized and accessible.

Five of us at the table: Mom, Dad, Tom, a cousin of Mom's named Ruth who came down from Billings, and me. We went around and said what we were grateful for, which is a tradition Mom has insisted on since I was small. I said: another year sober, the ranch still standing, and good work to do. Dad said: same as last year. Everyone laughed. He meant it.

The turkey came out right — brined meat is forgiving and stays moist even when you're carving it and it sits for twenty minutes while the rest of the table gets sorted. I've ruined turkeys before. The years when I was drinking, mostly. One year I forgot to turn the oven on. One year I left the bag of innards inside the bird and didn't discover it until carving. These things happen. They stop happening when you stop drinking and start paying attention. That's the least poetic version of what sobriety is, but it's accurate.

We ate until nobody could eat anymore and then we ate pie. Ruth told a story about her daughter's new apartment in Seattle. Tom fell asleep in Dad's chair. Dad watched football on the television he pretends not to care about. Mom and I did the dishes together without talking much. The evening wound down slowly, the way good evenings do.

The next morning, Mom’s cousin Ruth was still sleeping in the guest room and Tom had driven home sometime after the football game ended, but the kitchen still smelled like the night before — turkey and butter and the particular warmth of a house that held people in it. I wanted to keep that going a little longer. This breakfast casserole is what I put together from what we had: eggs, a little sausage from the freezer, the last of the autumn vegetables I’d bought earlier in the week. It’s the kind of thing you can slide into the oven and then sit down with a cup of coffee while it does its work — which, after eleven hours of turkey the day before, is exactly the kind of cooking I was looking for.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 lb bulk breakfast sausage
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and diced (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 cup diced yellow onion
1 cup diced apple (such as Honeycrisp or Fuji)
3 cups cubed day-old bread (about 4 slices)
8 large eggs
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided
1 tsp dried sage
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking dish and set aside.
Cook the sausage. In a large skillet over medium heat, brown the sausage, breaking it into crumbles, until cooked through, about 7 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate and drain excess grease from the pan.
Sauté the vegetables. Add olive oil to the same skillet. Add the diced sweet potato and onion and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 8 minutes. Add the apple and cook 2 minutes more. Season lightly with salt and pepper.
Layer the casserole. Spread the bread cubes evenly in the prepared baking dish. Top with the cooked sausage, then the sweet potato and apple mixture. Sprinkle 1 cup of the cheddar cheese over the top.
Mix the custard. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, sage, thyme, garlic powder, salt, and pepper until well combined. Pour evenly over the casserole layers.
Rest and top. Press down gently with a spatula so the bread soaks up the egg mixture. Let rest for 10 minutes, then scatter the remaining 1/2 cup of cheddar over the top.
Bake. Bake uncovered for 40—45 minutes, until the center is set and the top is golden brown. A knife inserted in the center should come out clean. Let rest 5 minutes before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cozy Autumn Breakfast Casserole — The Morning After a Thanksgiving That Went Right