Breakfast started last night.  In the Food & Wine, Best of the Best there is a breakfast casserole with a twist.  It uses bagels instead of cut up bread and there is no meat in it.  In my freezer from a New Year’s party I had the remaining small rolls from Costco in the freezer.  I decided that these chopped at this point would be as hard as bagels.  Also as I would probably have chosen sesame bagels, I sprinkled the casserole with sesame seeds before baking.  This full recipe serves 8-10 so great for company.  I had less rolls than the weight of bagels called for so I scaled down accordingly. 

Ingredients:

8 C bagels cut into 1” cubes (approximately 1 ½ #)

8 oz. cream cheese, chilled, cut into irregular small bites (I used 8 oz. of mixed cheeses that I had leftovers of in the ref.)

¼ medium red onion, halved lengthwise, thinly sliced

1 ½ C tomatoes (They used cherry tomatoes halved.  I used large red tomatoes that I chopped)

8 large eggs (I used a carton of Better than Eggs= 8 eggs)

2 ½ C milk or half & half (I used buttermilk)

1 t table salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Capers, for serving

Lox or bacon, for serving

Directions:

1.      Spray a 9” X 12” casserole.  Spread a third of the bagel cubes in the dish. 

2.      Dot the bagels with 1/3 of the cheese and mix in 1/3 red onion and tomatoes.

3.      Repeat in 2 more alternating layers.

4.      Whisk eggs with milk and salt.  I freshly ground the pepper over the layers of bread. 

5.      Pour the egg mixture over the bread and cheese mixture.

6.      Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. 

7.      In the morning heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Bake on a tray, uncovered, in the middle of the oven until it has puffed, turned golden brown, and cooked through about 1- 1 ¼ hours. 

8.      Let rest for 10 minutes before serving.  Sprinkle the servings with capers and serve with lox or bacon on the side. 

I did not sprinkle with capers as we did not have any lox.  This was delicious.  Not sure if it was my mixture of cheeses or the buttermilk, but it was a great taste.  I am rid of the roll, freeing up room in the freezer.  I loved that it was meatless, not as greasy as most breakfast casseroles.  I served with mixed fruit.  As you can see it is definately company gourgous.