Egg Biscuit Bake — The Breakfast That Carried Me Into the MCAT

MCAT day. July 2025. I woke at 5 a.m. I ate a breakfast that Mama would have approved of: eggs, toast, fruit, coffee. Not too much. Not too little. The food equivalent of "exactly right." I drove to the testing center in Baton Rouge and sat in the parking lot for fifteen minutes before going in, not because I was scared but because the sitting was the last quiet before the storm and I wanted to inhabit it fully. I thought about MawMaw Shirley. I thought about the step stool. I thought about the roux and the thirty-five minutes and the chocolate color and every Saturday in Baker and every Monday jambalaya and every bowl of gumbo I have ever eaten and cooked and served. I thought about DeAndre, who should have been alive, who should have been at a testing center somewhere, taking some exam for some future that was stolen. I thought about Daddy rebuilding the house. I thought about Mama's red beans. I thought about Jada's white coat drawing. Then I stopped thinking and went inside.

Seven and a half hours. Four sections. The Biological Sciences section was mine — the questions fell into place like ingredients into a pot, each one logical, each one answerable, each one a confirmation of four years of work. The Chemical and Physical Sciences section was harder — Physics, my old professional acquaintance, appeared in force, and I managed it the way I manage Physics: with respect and without love, accepting each answer as the best I could do and moving forward. The Psychology section was surprising — more nuanced than the practice exams, more real, more "this is how people actually work" and less "this is what the textbook says about how people work." I leaned into it. I answered from experience as much as from study.

The Critical Analysis section was the section I was least worried about, because I am a writer and writers read and reading under pressure is not pressure for someone who has been reading since before she could spell "pediatrician" (which, for the record, I spelled correctly at the parish spelling bee at age eleven).

I finished. I walked out. I stood in the parking lot again, the same parking lot, but the standing was different — lighter, emptier, the weight of six months of studying no longer on my shoulders but in the building behind me, converted from preparation into performance, from knowledge into answers, from roux into gumbo. I called Mama. She said, "How do you feel?" I said, "Like I just made a four-hour gumbo." She said, "Then it's perfect."

When I say I ate a breakfast that Mama would have approved of, I mean I ate something grounding and real — nothing fancy, nothing fussy, just eggs and bread doing exactly what they’re supposed to do. This Egg Biscuit Bake is the kind of dish that captures that feeling: warm, filling, and steady, the sort of breakfast that doesn’t compete with the day ahead but quietly fortifies you for it. I’ve made it on ordinary mornings since, but every time I do, I think about that parking lot, that quiet, and how the right food at the right moment is its own kind of preparation.

Egg Biscuit Bake

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 6 large eggs
• 1 can (16 oz) refrigerated biscuit dough (8 biscuits)
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup diced green onions
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, for greasing

Instructions

1. Preheat oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking dish with butter.
2. Arrange biscuits. Cut each biscuit into quarters and spread them evenly across the bottom of the prepared baking dish in a single layer.
3. Mix egg filling. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper until fully combined.
4. Add toppings. Pour the egg mixture evenly over the biscuit pieces. Scatter the diced green onions across the top, then sprinkle the shredded cheddar cheese over everything.
5. Bake. Place the dish in the preheated oven and bake for 28—32 minutes, until the eggs are set in the center and the biscuit pieces are cooked through and golden at the edges.
6. Rest and serve. Let the bake rest for 5 minutes before cutting into portions. Serve warm.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 310 | Protein: 13g | Fat: 16g | Carbs: 28g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 620mg