Breakfast Hash in the Crock Pot (Mostly)

We had our end of the year party at work and I'd volunteered to bring the main dish - aka something that does not include sugar. Rather than ordering a breakfast pizza (like a massive omelet on a pizza crust) or doing the fall-back quiche I decided to do something different. Like - home cooking, nothing fancy, meat and potatoes different. It seems a strange world where that qualifies as something different, but with all the new quasi foodies out there basic cooking is now a lost art. Or a neglected art.

So I made breakfast hash. In the crockpot. Mostly. Kinda. Here's what I did...

I started with this recipe:

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/03/overnight-breakfast-potatoes-with.html

Then I -

• Omitted the onion since I wasn’t sure if everyone would be ok with that much onion
• Added about a Tbsp of dried minced onion because there should be some onion
• Added 1tsp of dried minced garlic because everything needs more garlic
• Used sweet Italian sausage and chopped it up - any sausage would do really, and chopping it up makes it look like more for a potluck
• Added about 2 Tbsp of maple syrup (if I used a sweet breakfast sausage I’d skip the maple syrup)
• I cracked the lid right before I went up to bed to let out some of the steam because the potatoes seemed really moist
• Peppers and/or mushrooms would be a good addition too, and personally I’d like the chopped up onion in there

The next morning the potatoes were a little soggy and not as flavorful as I’d like. So –

• I moved it all to another bowl and wiped out the excess oil from the crock
• I heated up a big skillet and worked in three batches to brown it, about 3 minutes per batch (no additional oil needed)
• I added a generous pinch of salt, a good shake of pepper, and a good shake of garlic powder to each batch
• I put it back in the crock
• Then I scrambled 8 eggs with some salt, pepper, garlic powder and oregano (and milk, because scrambled eggs have milk) and tossed it all together

The morning part, including waking up hubby when he slept through his alarm, stumbling around when I flicked on the light, grumbling to myself, the egg scrambling, taste testing, chatting while hubby ate his cereal, etc, took all of 20 minutes. Combined with the chopping the night before, the dish took maybe 30 minutes total. In reality, probably 15-20 minutes if you don't include the stumbling, grumbling, eye rubbing...

I brought the crockpot in to work and kept it on the "keep warm" setting for the hour or so before the party with the lid cracked so it wouldn't get soggy. And... it was a huge hit! I got several compliments and yum noises, and there's only a tiny bit left (that I'll probably eat for lunch if no one else does) out of 5+ total pounds. My boss' boss asked for the recipe. :) SO, I highly recommend this one, as do my coworkers. Easy, fast (if you don't include the 8 hours of overnight cooking), and tasty.