Day 22: Western Omelet Casserole

I hope your Christmas season is off to a great start!  We have many traditions we love to do every year at this time, and almost every year we add a new one! This year, I'm starting a new tradition which involves taking favorite Christmas story books (mostly picture books) and wrapping them.  Unwrap and read one each day!  We also always do an Advent celebration each day lighting candles, singing carols, and reading a little devotional.  This year we also added a new tradition involving a very special Advent calendar I bought from an organization that sells goods hand made by widows in Africa.  Every day as we take out the newest little figure to hang on the picture on the quilt, we think of and pray for the widow whose hands made this beautiful Advent Calendar.  I have always wanted a cloth Advent calendar with the little figures you take out and hang each day, and this was the year God directed me to the one we were meant to have!  Love it!!

In this busy time of year, I'm loving my crockpot more and more!  Yesterday the meal I made was breakfast.  It was a good casserole, and everyone ate lots of it, but we all agreed that we liked the Breakfast Skillet from my Day 19 better.

Here is the recipe.  I didn't have to double this one, and there was plenty for everyone and even a  little left over that a couple of children had for lunch.  I was a little worried about the onions in this one, but they softened nicely overnight and you couldn't even really identify them...my kids didn't even notice them.

Western Omelet Casserole (Fix it and Forget It: Entertaining)

Makes 10 servings

32-oz. bag frozen hash brown potatoes (the cubed kind, not shredded)

1 lb. cooked, diced ham

1 medium onion, diced

1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

12 eggs (I ended up using 16 to cover the top of the layers)

1 cup milk

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

1.  Layer one-third each of frozen potatoes, ham, onions, an cheese in the bottom of the slow cooker.  Repeat two more times.

2.  Beat together eggs, milk, salt and pepper.  Pour over mixture in slow cooker.  (I added 4 more eggs and a little more milk to fully cover--I wanted to cover up those onions!)

3. Cover.  Cook on low 8-9 hours.  (I actually cooked on high for 6 hours and the turned to low when I woke up around 6 am.  We ate about 1 1/2 hours after that.  Turned out great.)

4. Serve with orange juice and fresh fruit.

Have a blessed day!  Next up will be a red bean and pasta dish!