Stuffed French Bread Breakfast

And for my next trick... the blog post to accompany my 1000th recipe post on Facebook!

I used to make this all the time, back when I was younger and a little wilder. My sister used to host this weekend at her cabin where a bunch of us would get together for a good time, and I usually made something for breakfast. Stuffed French Bread Breakfast made an appearance more than once, since it's simple, tasty, and easy to eat with your hands around a bonfire.

The ingredients are simple, and can easily be adapted to whatever you prefer. I usually do sage sausage, bacon, extra-sharp cheddar, Monterey Jack, onion, and green pepper, along with the bread, eggs, and milk. That's what I did this time, to keep it simple, but at the end of the recipe you'll find several suggestions for variations.

Once again, I've not taken a picture of bacon frying in a pan. You know what that looks like. I started the bacon going, then whisked the eggs and milk together in a large bowl. Make sure it's a big one, because you'll be adding a lot more stuff.

For this, it's important you don't use a traditional thin baguette with the hard crust, but rather the larger loaf. You want to have enough room for the filling!

Slice the bread in half lengthwise, being careful to keep the halves even. Using your fingers, scoop and rip out the interior of the bread, leaving about a half-inch shell. You'll also need to be careful here, as it's easy to accidentally break the loaf or put a hole in it.

Tear apart any large pieces of bread, then stir everything you scooped out of the loaves into the egg and milk mixture. Make sure every piece of bread gets soaked. Then leave this to stand while you go back to the stove.

Somewhere in there I scooped the bacon out of my skillet to drain on paper towels, then drained off the grease. Crumble and add the sausage and cook until nearly done, then add onion and green pepper and continue to cook until vegetables are tender and meat is no longer pink. Drain off any excess grease.

Stir the sausage mixture and the bacon into your bowl of soaked bread, making sure to combine well. Let stand while the oven preheats.

I wait to stir the cheeses into the mixture until just before I'm going to stuff the bread so they don't start to melt, but I didn't bother to take a picture that would've been identical to the one above except with shredded cheese. If you're making this ahead of time, this is where you'd cover the bowl and refrigerate it until you're actually going to bake. Just put the loaf back together and wrap in foil (or the bag it came in) so it doesn't dry out.

The fun part! Spoon the filling into the hollowed-out loaves, mounding a little but no more than about an inch above the top of the bread. Make sure you get a good mixture of ingredients throughout.

You may have noticed in the previous picture that the loaves had an end torn off. Here's how that happens: A full loaf of French bread does not fit in my oven. Most days, I love the new oven, but days like this are when I really miss my old one. So what I did was tear about six inches off the end of each loaf, and made mini stuffed loaves. You can see them here, wrapped in foil just like their big brothers.

You'll probably have filling left. I just dump it in a casserole dish, cover with foil, and bake along with the filled loaves. It's pretty tasty all on its own!

Less than an hour later, deliciousness comes out of the oven! If you've wrapped the foil correctly, there should be very little filling stuck to it. Slice into pieces and serve.

If you're going to reheat leftovers, the microwave can work but will leave the bread chewy. Instead, since you've probably used the foil to wrap any leftovers, just put it back in the oven for a few minutes to reheat. It'll be just as good as the first time.

Stuffed French Bread Breakfast

Serves 10

1/2 pound bacon, diced
1 pound sausage (I use sage)
1 onion
1 green bell pepper
4 large eggs
1 cup fat free milk
1 (16 ounce) loaf French bread
1 cup extra-sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup Monterey Jack cheese, shredded

Cook bacon over medium-high heat until crisp, about 8-10 minutes. Remove to paper towels to drain and pour grease out of pan.

In same pan, crumble sausage and cook 5 minutes, breaking apart as necessary. Add onion and cook 3 minutes, then add green pepper and cook until vegetables are tender and sausage is no longer pink, about 3-5 minutes more. Drain.

Meanwhile, whisk eggs and milk together in a large bowl; set aside.

Slice bread in half lengthwise. Using your fingers, scoop out center of each half and break into small pieces, leaving about a half-inch shell.

Stir bread chunks into egg mixture until well-coated and let stand 5 minutes.

When bacon and sausage are done, stir them into the bread mixture and let stand while the oven preheats.

Preheat oven to 350F. On a large flat baking sheet, place two pieces of foil that extend about 2-3 inches past each end. Place loaf halves on foil.

Stir cheeses into filling mixture, then spoon into loaves. If you have extra filling, you can pour it into a small casserole dish and cover with foil.

When loaves are filled, bring sides of foil up and fold the edges together, making sure the foil isn't pressed against the top of the filling. Fold up the ends to enclose the bread entirely.

Move to oven on baking sheet and bake for 40 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before opening foil.

Slice each loaf half into 5 pieces to serve.

Variations:
Use different flavours of sausage, or use all bacon or all sausage.
Omit the bell pepper and add canned sliced mushrooms, drained.
Change which types of cheese you use... this is especially good with pepper jack instead of plain Monterey Jack.
For more flavour, whisk your favourite seasoning into the egg and milk mixture.
This can be made meatless, just use an equal amount of vegetables, sauteed until tender.

*Filling mixture can be made up to 48 hours ahead. Just cover and chill until needed, and increase baking time to 45 minutes.

Per serving:

Calories: 539

Total Fat: 32.4g

Saturated Fat: 12.6g

Trans Fat: 0.1g

Cholesterol: 160mg

Sodium: 1330mg

Total Carbohydrates: 29g

Dietary Fiber: 1.9g

Sugars: 3.4g

Protein: 31.7g