Mountainman Breakfast

Tonight we are having breakfast for dinner so I am making my "Mountainman Breakfast Casserole" in out 12" dutch oven. This meal can be made over a campfire of in the oven. Ours was in the oven tonight.

Ingredients:
2 pounds of sausage
2 pounds hash brown potatoes
8 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup of water
2 cups of shredded cheese

Step 1 - If using a campfire,heat fire to a bed of hot coals, else preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Step 2 - Beat 8 eggs with 1/4 cup of water.




 


Step 3 - Crumble sausage and cook. I choose to do this in a separate pan, but you can do it in the dutch oven as well.


Step 4 - Remove cooked sausage and drain on paper towels, reserving sausage grease in the pan.



 


Step 5 - Using the sausage drippings, brown the hash browns.

Step 6 - Coat the bottom of the dutch oven with the layer of hash browns. Here is where cooking the sausage and hash browns in the dutch oven would've saved some time (and clean up).
 
Step 7- Place the cooked sausage over the layer of the hashbrowns.

Step 8 - Pour your eggs over the sausage layer


Step 9 - Sprinkle the top of the casserole with the 2 cups of cheese. We used Colby-Jack for ours.



Step 10a - Cover the dutch oven and place in the oven, or...

Step 10b - Cover the dutch oven and cook with 8 coals underneath and 16 coals on top

Step 11 - Cook for 20-35 minutes, until the eggs are done

Step 12 - Enjoy!


I hope that you enjoy this recipe!

 

Homemade Bread

Some of the earliest memories that I have are of going down our family friend, Mamie's house. Mamie and her husband Jim lived a simple life. She cooked everything fresh from scratch and he hunted. I remember going out back and looking at all of the hunting dogs who always seemed to be incessantly barking.

Mamie used to sit with me on her front porch and tell me stories and share some old wives tales as well.

One of the things that I really liked was going over her house and smelling fresh homemade bread being baked with the scent filling the whole house and even drifting outside. Even going inside and seeing bread pans covered with dish clothes was enough to make my mouth water.

Since then, I've been hooked on homemade bread. The recipe below is not Mamie's recipe, but is a basic one for homemade white bread.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup warm water
• 1½ T yeast
• 1 T sugar

• 1 cup boiling water
• ⅓ cup oil
• ⅙ cup sugar
• 2 t. salt

• 1¼ cups cold water
• 6½ cups flour

  

Instructions:

---

Step1

In a small bowl mix the ½ cup warm water, 1½ T yeast, and 1 T. sugar.

Let it sit for about 5 minutes or so.

---

Step 2



In a mixer or in another bowl mix the 1 cup of boiling water, ⅓ cup oil, ⅙ cup sugar, and 2 t salt.

Stir until it dissolves.

---

Step 3


Add in the cold water and mix and then add in the yeast mixture. (You want the mixture temp to be lukewarm before you add the yeast and thats why do you do this.)

---

Step 4



Add in 3 cups of flour and stir.
Let this mixture rise for 30 minutes.

---

Step 5


After 30 minutes, the mixture should have some bubbles from the yeast.

Add in 3 cups of flour. It should form a nice not sticky dough. Let this rest for about 30 minutes.

---

Step 6



Add in remaining 3 to 3½ cups of flour. It should form a nice not sticky dough.

Let this rest for about 30 minutes.

---

Step 7



Grease (with butter) and lightly flour the bread pans. This will help the bread to release from the pan and to come out easier.

---

Step 8


Separate dough into bread pans.

Cover with a dish towel and let these rise for about an hour (or until the dough has doubled in size) in a warm place.

Bake bread at 350°F for 35-40 minutes.

---

Step 9



Remove the loaves from the oven and brush the tops with butter.

---

Step 10


 Enjoy with butter or your favorite jam or jelly spread!

The Prepper's Cookbook - BOOK REVIEW

Recently, I had the pleasure to review The Prepper's Cookbook, 300 Recipes to Turn Your Emergency Food Into Nutritious, Delicious, Life-Saving Meals by Tess Pennington. This book contains practical information for the beginning as well as for seasoned preppers, but doesn't stop there. It's more than a cookbook of great recipes. It's a how-to guide for preppers and newbies.

In the introduction to the book, Ms. Pennington sets up a beautiful and rich story of the history of these recipes from tales of her great, great grandmother, who traveled across Oklahoma in a covered wagon with seventeen children. They not only lived on the food that they produced, but also put a portion of their harvest aside for future use.

She addresses homesteaders and preppers as neo-pioneers and begins her book by starting with the basics of prepping, food storage and rotation. Topics such as how much food to store, how to rotate your supplies and why you need to store certain types of foods are covered. There is even good advice offered on how to economically stretch your meals.

Ms. Pennington then addresses how to store and treat potentially unsafe water for use.

In the next section, food preservation is tackled. This section contains information on water bath and pressure canning including considerations for "Canning Off The Grid". It also covers the topic of dehydration, including some delicious recipes for jerky.

The Prepper's Cookbook then moves on to the mouth-watering recipes which encompass everything from breakfast to dinner and from snacks to desserts. The meals listed go from from simple to complex and include a great variety of cultural (Southern, Italian, Greek and Tex-Mex) recipes as well as comfort food. This book is packed with a lot of different ideas and recipes for food that would suit even the pickiest of eaters as well as those with special dietary needs, such as diabetics.

When I received this book, my wife saw it and literally ran with it, looking through it, noting various recipes for us to try. One of our personal family favorites is King Ranch. Thank you, Tess!

I'd like to conclude this review with some thoughts from my wife, who is a great cook in her own right.  My wife read the book as well and when I asked her her thoughts, she commented, "It is a great cookbook and is not just for preppers. It's a great cookbook in general and the author was brilliant in creating it."

This book is kid friendly and contains something for every palate, from drinks to full meals. As the author recommends, "Don't just survive, thrive!" This book will definitely help you to do just that and belongs on your list of "must haves."