Recipe #19: Sausage egg casserole

This recipe is from the same book I made the croissant egg casserole from (recipe # 18). It's amazing to me that you can create an entire cookbook of casseroles (or at least an entire section) with essentially the same ingredients. Hey, can't fault the author for having an amazing editor and an amazing publisher, clearly. Anyway, the concept is the same, obviously - eggs, some kind of bread and in this case -- leeks again (I'm still obsessed with them) and breakfast sausage.

You can't see the bread, but it provides the bottom layer and really helps make this casserole quite hearty. Again, it was easy, quick to assemble, and since I made it the night before, all I had to do was pop it into the oven in the morning. 4 stars.

Good food, good friends

There's nothing better than great food enjoyed with great company. My girlfriends and I enjoyed a leisurely brunch at a fairly new joint called Sweet Maple. We actually hadn't intended to eat there, but our regular place was way too packed. Sweet Maple isn't located in a high traffic area, so we literally just stumbled upon it. What a find! Delicious. We each ordered a dish, with the intention of sharing it amongst us ourselves. I'm glad we shared, because it was great to taste (again and again) several dishes, each with its own merits.

Here's the BLT panini, served with fries:

Holy moly! Look at that thick cut bacon, and the gorgeous chunks of creamy avocado.

Here's the french toast, with fried banana and candied walnuts...and a generous dusting of powdered sugar. Hey-oh...look out now!

The other dish was an egg scramble, but I wasn't as impressed with that. But it was still pretty tasty.