Cinderella’s Hearth: The Hammiest Casserole, by Kate Wolford

With Mother’s Day coming this week, I thought sharing this brunch casserole recipe might help some readers find the perfect dish for next Sunday. 

This is the point in my posts where I try to connect the topic with Cinderella, but I must admit I’m struggling. After all, she wouldn’t have wanted to celebrate it with her stepfamily. And I don’t remain hopeful that her mother-in-law was much better, but I hope her kids gave her a good one!

Now, on to the recipe.

We are a brunch family. In fact, it’s what we usually enjoy when we all get together. This means that we have a breakfast casserole when we celebrate Mother’s Day, and this year will be no different. We plan to have the hammiest egg casserole ever. It’s simple to make, but remember, the quality of the ham is very important, because the dish takes on the flavor of the meat. I do think you could probably make this with cooked sausage or bacon—make a pound if you substitute one or the other of them for ham.

We will use very high-quality ham, and it will be worth it, because the ham taste will be so predominant. We also will use high-quality dinner rolls for the bread, and (this is very important), we will pull the bread the night before and put the pieces on paper towels to get stale before making the casserole Sunday morning. The casserole would be too mushy had we not dried out the bread.

With those tips in mind, here’s the recipe, adapted from the website, The Happy Brown House.

The Hammiest Casserole

2 cups of best diced ham (a little more is

     fine)

6-7 good quality dinner rolls, pulled

     small pieces

6 large eggs, beaten

2 cups of milk

2 cups of shredded cheese, your choice

Salt and pepper to taste

1 teaspoon ground mustard (powder

     form)

Preheat oven to 375 and grease a 13-by-9-inch casserole dish (contents will be shallow in the pan after baking). By the way, I haven’t tried it yet, but I think this could be quite good in a smaller dish. 

Mix the meat, dried bread and cheese together thoroughly. Put mixture in the bottom of the greased casserole dish, and spread it around evenly. 

Mix all of the other ingredients together thoroughly. Pour the wet mixture over the dry, and tip the dish around so the egg mixture is spread evenly. This mixture will not look super wet before you cook it, but it comes out just fine.

Bake for 40 minutes, but you may need to do more, depending on your oven.

Let rest for 10-15 minutes, then serve. This is great with fruit salad and three bean salad.

I hope you enjoy this as much as we do. And to those who will be celebrating, Happy Mother’s Day!

(This post was adapted from one I wrote years ago for a weekly newspaper.

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Kate Wolford was the publisher and editor of The Fairy Tale Magazine for many years. She’s now enjoying being Resident Fairy Godmother