Breakfast on the Run

Sunday mornings at our house are often a hurried affair.  Getting 7 people ready for church does not leave a whole lot of time to prepare a hearty breakfast, but not having breakfast is not an option.  The few times I've hustled my family out of the door before feeding them I ended up regretting it - seriously.

Although I am sure that breakfast cereal is the quickest option, I can't quite reconcile myself with throwing sugar-laden fruity-O's at the children right before I expect them to sit quietly for 3 hours.  And so, I am always looking for ways to produce a good, hearty breakfast with the least amount of work in the shortest amount of time.  Well, a girl can dream, right?!

One of my favorite standbys is eggs in sausage cups.  They take about 5 minutes to prepared and 25 minutes to cook (during which time I can get everybody ready).  During the last 5 minutes of baking, I put homemade bread in the oven to toast and by the time the sausage and eggs are done, we have a complete breakfast - hot, hearty and full of protein.

Cracking eggs into the sausage cups

Notice the ones with just the whites?

The sausage cups are ridiculously easy - pinch off about 3 tablespoons of bulk sausage and press into each cup of a muffin tin.  Although the original recipe used olive oil to grease each muffin cup I thought that step was unnecessary since sausage really is self-greasing.  After the sausage has been pressed into the tin, I crack an egg into each muffin cup.  Generally, when I crack the eggs, there is too much egg for each cup, so I reserve a little of the egg white from each cup.  This works out really well since a couple of my children love egg whites but not the yolks.  With the reserved whites, I fill a few sausage cups with whites only - the children love them!  I fill all of the sausage cups with egg, except for the ones Sir Knight and I plan to eat - those we cook without egg.  We allow the sausage cups to cook for about 15 to 20 minutes, pull the muffin tin from the oven and break eggs into Sir Knight and my sausage cups so that the yolks are a little runny when the cooking is complete.  Cooking the eggs for different lengths of time works perfectly.  The children have eggs cooked through thoroughly and Sir Knight and I have eggs "over-easy".  Paired with toast, these sausage cups are a perfect way to start the day!

Mostly cooked - I add Sir Knight and my eggs now

Add some toast and breakfast is ready!

Bake the sausage cups at 350° (or thereabouts) for 25 to 30 minutes (or until the eggs are done to your satisfaction).

Remember, sausage doesn't have to be pork.  Just about any ground meat mixed with sausage spices will work well.


NOTE:  Our children love to eat these cold - grabbing one on their way out the door to work or to play!