Overnight Breakfast Pie

I am never going to have my own cooking show for oh so many reasons, not the least of them being, I don't like people watching me cook. There are very few recipes I feel so comfortable making that I can tolerate folks watching me as I put all the ingredients together. Maybe this is because I'm not a tidy, picture-ready cook - when I'm preparing a dish I do try to clean as I go but, somehow, it always manages to look like a family of chimpanzees were set loose in my kitchen. Really clumsy chimpanzees.

So, it kinda goes without saying that my favorite recipes are often those that can be made ahead of time or, at the very least, assembled a day ahead so the ready-to-be baked product can be whipped out and thrown into the oven when company arrives.

This recipe has two things going for it - you make it the night before and it came from my friend Iris. Everything she recommends is always a hit and when you have one of her recipe cards that also includes her handwritten editorial comment saying, "Barbara, I really love this overnight breakfast recipe!" you know you have a winner on hand.

I made this recently for my women's bible study group. Since our brunch started at 10 am, preparing the breakfast pie the night before meant I didn't have to feel rushed that morning, before the ladies came to my house. (This is where we get back to my beginning point...I make a huge mess cooking and that would've had to be cleaned up before opening my home to nice, genteel Christian ladies who would probably have suffered a stroke when they saw the state of my kitchen in cooking mode.)

One of the ladies at the brunch liked the recipe enough to request a copy - so she could hand it over to her children in time for them to make her a breakfast pie for Mother's Day. I wonder if they cleaned up the kitchen after they took their mom breakfast in bed????

Overnight Breakfast Pie

8 slices bacon, fried crisp
1/2 c. crushed corn flake crumbs (you can also use potato chips, according to Iris' notes)
1 T. bacon grease
5 eggs
2 and 1/2 cups frozen hash browns
1 and 1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1/3 cup milk
2 green onions, chopped
salt, pepper

The Night Before: beat eggs, add hash browns, cheese, cottage cheese, milk and green onion. Pour into lightly greased (or sprayed) 9 inch pie pan.

Toss corn flakes crumbs into 1 T. of remaining bacon grease. Chop bacon and mix with the crumbs. Sprinkle on top of pie. Cover and refrigerate.

Next Morning: Bake 1 hour in a 325 degree preheated oven. Let set 5 minutes. Serves 6. (Iris notes that it can take up to an hour and 15 minutes, depending on your oven.

(I have become lazy with my camera so no pictures of the actual pie were taken. Instead, you get to see the women who ate it.)