Christmas Eve, we host a party for some close friends. Then we all go to church for the Christmas Eve service. After that, by the time the kids are settled down and in bed (which keeps getting later as they get older!) I’m ready to crash… but I still have to play “you know who.” And once the present opening has commenced, the last thing I want to do on Christmas morning is figuring out breakfast! Know the feeling? Today I’m sharing my breakfast casserole, a family favorite. Cabot cheese and Zulay for sponsoring (sharing my own opinions).

Find my easy breakfast casserole and keto carb friendly options. Great for brunch, Christmas and holiday mornings. Make ahead. DomesticDeadline.com

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Tradition

Growing up, my mom always made homemade cinnamon rolls and breakfast casserole for Christmas morning. When my sisters and I would wake up, she would put everything in the oven. Then, by the time presents were opened, breakfast was ready!

IronFish grew up having kringle for Christmas breakfast. Now, my mother in law has it sent to us in time for Christmas and we have breakfast casserole and kringle.

We do have this more than just at Christmas, but usually when I am feeding more than just the five of us for breakfast if it’s not a holiday. But, after making this to be able to photograph for the post, we had it for dinner one night… JuneBug and O-Man have already asked if we could have it for dinner again!

So, maybe I need to make it more often… I’ll add chopped broccoli to it and make it a complete meal if I do! It’ll be my luck that they won’t eat it then…

Twas the Night Before Christmas

This is a great recipe to make the day before. Sometimes leading up to Christmas, I’ll use ground sausage in a dinner recipe. If I do, I cook up extra sausage and either freeze or refrigerate it, making this super quick to throw together.

When I was little, and remember my mom making this, it’s the only time I remember her ever buying white bread. Or even buying store-bought bread at all! She baked bread so much when I was little, my school lunch sandwiches were never made on store-bought bread!

To start with, cut all the crusts off a loaf of white bread. (Pst, I save the crusts and make French toast muffins out of them!) Iron fish and I are trying to stay low carb so I tried the 365 bread with it and no one knew the difference! I have made it with gluten-free bread as well. Since Tasha has to be gluten-free. But, she doesn’t do well with eggs, so she gets something different. I’ve made her special things in the past, but now we get a baked goody for her when the single arrives. This year, in addition to her gluten-free breakfast treat, she also asked to make a Christmasy latte.

Line the bottom of a 9×11″ casserole dish with half of the bread. Spread the crumbled, cooked sausage and cheese over the bread. Cover with another layer of bread and more cheese. The Cabot Vermont Sharp is excellent for this recipe. I love really sharp cheddar

Yes, I used an 8×8 casserole dish this time, I made one with the low carb bread and one with regular bread for JuneBug and O-Man.

In a large bowl, beat 8-12 eggs and add a cup of milk. Salt and pepper to taste. If you like seasonings, they can also be added to the eggs. Then pour the egg mixture over the bread, covering as much of it as possible. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.

The next morning, preheat the oven to 350 while the hot coffee is brewing. Pop it in the oven for 50 minutes, remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes until the cheese begins to brown.

This is a great recipe to get young kids involved with. Cutting the crusts off the bread and mixing up the eggs and milk is a good lesson. Even little ones can line up the bread and sprinkle cheese on!

Time-saving tips… A day or two before Christmas, I make a quick “egg roll in a bowl” dinner. I cook all the sausage together and use this handy ground meat chopper from Zulay. It really makes ground meat cook quicker than just using a wooden spoon or spatula to break up the meat. Especially when cooking up several pounds of meat at once! I swear it cuts 10 minutes off of cooking 5 lbs of ground beef (which I sang when I find on sale at Aldi and cook it all right away and freeze in meal-sized portions).

Sorry, extra tips in there… Anyway, refrigerate the extra sausage already cooked. The even easier and less clean up method is to use a carton of egg beaters! I skip the milk and salt and pepper after the first layer of cheese and then a bit more on top. Saves me cleaning a bowl, whisk and any egg that doesn’t make it to the bowl when cracking.

Peppermint Latte

A few months ago I transitioned myself to drinking black coffee while Tasha started adding coffee to hot chocolate and trying lattes! Both of us will drink coffee hot but have discovered we love cold brew (it was the only way I could drink black coffee at first).

Most mornings, I just pour the coffee iron fish makes over ice. When I was in a roll, I was making cold brew in a mason jar, making up a new jar each morning to drinking the following day.

But… Zulay sent me a cold brew coffee maker along with that handy meat chopper. Tasha has been experimenting with recipes for a Christmassy latte.

Know what we decided?

We are not baristas!

However, we did have one big success. Adding dried mint leaves to the coffee grounds makes mint-flavored coffee!

We’ve been keeping a pot of cold-brew in the fridge, sometimes with mint. Adding chocolate almond milk turns it into “mocha-mint” but vanilla almond milk or cream also tastes yummy with it.

I still have a few weeks, maybe I’ll figure out how to make our morning cold-brew special for Christmas morning. Or maybe we’ll just look at this picture and then close our eyes while we sip our coffee…

If you’re wondering how we can drink cold coffee in the winter… there is a fire burning in our fireplace the whole winter break. It actually can get hot in our living room so a cold drink is perfect.