Sausage, Egg and Cream Cheese Breakfast Casserole

Last week four of my dear friends came to my home for a book club meeting. We had breakfast together and discussed the book we are reading together - The Gospel Comes with a House Key by Rosaria Butterfield.

This book is all about what the author calls "radically ordinary hospitality". She wrote the book based on her own salvation experience and it is compelling to read. The book calls us to use our homes to minister to those in our neighborhoods, partnering with our kindred in Christ, for the purpose of making strangers into neighbors and neighbors into the family of God.

Let Rosaria tell you in her own words in the following video:

After having seen this video for the first time, I told my husband, Robert, that I wanted to read Rosario's book so I could understand how she approached hospitality - her radically ordinary hospitality. So on my birthday, one of my gifts was this book. (Thank you, Robert!) 

But I'm not reading the book by myself. Reiterating, there are four other ladies from my church joining me as we search out this topic of hospitality per Rosaria Butterfield. 

At our first meeting at my home, we sat and ate breakfast together, everyone having contributed to the meal. And not just the meal itself, but also to the clean-up after the meal and any other chore the hostess needs help with, such as folding the laundry. This is because we are not only learning how to be gracious hostesses but also how to be gracious guests. Each of us are also committed to hosting the book club get-togethers. Next week we will meet at one of the other ladies homes. 

But one of the main reasons that I'm writing this post is to share the recipe I made for our breakfast. The other ladies asked for it and this is the way I chose to get it to them and to anyone else interested. Sausage, Egg and Cream Cheese Breakfast Casserole is very GOOD! You may want to try it along with Rosario's compelling book.

This casserole is chockful of wonderful veggies and oh, so good! And then there's the cream cheese and the gouda! And if you have chickens for egg production and you're up to your eyebrows in the pretty little orbs, then this breakfast dish will relieve the overabundance by using 12 of them.

The recipe calls for hash browned potatoes, but you can also use riced cauliflower in place of the potatoes and it's every bit as scrumptious while contributing zero carbs to your diet.

Sausage, Egg and Cream Cheese Breakfast Casserole

Ingredients:

1 pound sweet Italian sausage
1/2 teaspoon each, salt and pepper
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
2 cups broccoli florets
20-oz bag frozen shredded hash browns or same size bag of frozen riced cauliflower
12 eggs, well-beaten
6 green onions, chopped
1 8-ounce block cream cheese, cut into 1/2" cubes
1/2 teaspoon each, salt and pepper 
1 cup Gouda, pepper jack or other type of cheese that grates well

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Brown sausage in a skillet over medium-high heat, breaking up the sausage with a spatula.
3. Immediately after breaking up sausage, add onion, peppers and broccoli florets to skillet and continue to cook until there is no pink in sausage and vegetables are slightly softened.
4. Add the hash browns and salt and pepper to the sausage/vegetable mixture and stir to combine.
5. Spread the hash brown/sausage mixture into the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish.
6. Whisk the eggs in a separate bowl till well beaten. Add cream cheese cubes, green onions, salt and pepper and stir gently to combine. Pour the egg mixture over the top of the sausage/hash brown mixture.
7. Spread the remaining cheese over the top of the casserole.
8. Bake on the middle oven rack for 35-45 minutes or until the eggs are set and cheese is golden.
9. Cut casserole into squares and serve.

Have you hosted neighbors in your home? How did you approach that and what was the response of your neighbors?