Cheese Puffy Bubbly

Clearly this recipe book blog has started to take its toll on me. By this I mean that yesterday I discovered a rogue breakfast recipe for crepes tucked in the back of the breakfast section and proceeded to have nightmares about opening a pack of all these weird implements I was going to have to use to make them. That and swine flu. These are the things that haunt me when I sleep.

But before I have to tackle the most delicate of French delicacies, I got to try my hand at the relatively easy Cheese Puffy Bubbly, contributed by Nancy Strickland, who doubles as both my friend's mom and the minister who married us. Reverend Strickland's recipe for 'jiffy lasagna' is one of my favorite all time recipes and my go-to for a large dish to serve a lot of people--and give them a cheese hangover. This is mostly because I don't really have the recipe written down anywhere, I just have vague memories of it, which results in basically a festival of cheese death that is simultaneously delicious and intestine-arresting. And by arresting I mean exploding.

But I digress. The point is I had high hopes for another non-fancy but solid recipe from Mrs. S, one that perhaps could turn my feelings about breakfast right around. Cheese Puffy Bubbly bears a striking resemblance to Margaret Knox's Ham & Cheese Souffle, so I had a pretty good idea what it would turn out like.

Once again, this one called for a bunch of de-crusted white bread (what IS it with the white bread without crusts?), which I think makes son-of-nutritionist Josh's heart hurt a little. But I bought it.

And then I left it out on the counter overnight, not counting on the fact that Olie, the 100-lb boxer we were babysitting, evidently has a thing for bread.

I discovered this thing he has at 4 in the morning when Josh and I were awoken by the unremitting click click click of Olie's nails on the floor. Josh (bless his heart) finally got out of bed to discover Olie was parading around with the loaf of bread (in the plastic wrapper) in his mouth. Evidently, the big lug was absolutely so beside himself with pride for stealing said bread that he couldn't get past running around in joy to actually get down to the business of eating it. A slier dog would have quickly realized that silence and stealth were of the essence should he want to enjoy his prize, but big-hearted Olie was so overwhelmed with celebration that he gave himself away. Poor guy.

Fortunately (for me, not for Olie), he didn't even make it through the wrapper. There were some teeth marks, but nothing that made the bread at all unusable. Seriously, Olie could take some lessons from every other dog I have ever met in my life - from my grandmother's schaunzer who ate pencils and tinfoil, to my childhood poodle who once snagged a porkchop from the table and hightailed it to the basement, to Sean & Bekah's dog, Judah, who countersurfs so thoroughly that I lock up shrink-wrapped boxes of tea in the cabinet lest he gobble them, to Big, who lulls you into complacency and then breaks into your friend's bag and ferrets out trail mix or underwear or God knows what.

The Cheese Puffy Bubbly itself was another piece of standard breakfast fare. I feel I am woefully inadequate for judging any of these since they mostly bore me. My favorite part was the cheese and bacon top which made it look like one giant potato skin. Oh, now that would be a heavenly breakfast.

Josh had several of the sugar cookies for breakfast, but still managed to eat a good portion of this because he liked it so well. And he ate more of it over the weekend while I was gone. Perhaps not as much of it as I ate of the knishes (i.e., enough to turn your digestive process into a festival. newsflash: an all-knish diet might not be the most sensible option), but nonetheless, seconds are seconds.

Photo taken with the fancy new camera Josh got me. Jealous?

Cheese Puffy Bubbly

3 cups milk
3 eggs
6 pieces cooked bacon, crumbled
1 tsp dry mustard
9 slices white bread, crusts cut off (of course)
8 oz sharp cheddar

Select pieces of bread least damaged by Olie's midnight assignations. Chop off crusts while the normally un-hungry Olie uncharacteristically snorts, stares fixedly, and tries to angle for crumbs.

Soak bread overnight in mixture of milk, eggs, and mustard in lasagna-sized casserole dish (of course). Be thrilled you this is the maiden voyage of the new lasagna dish that you bitterly had to buy to replace the previous lasagna dish that went missing, which was a double insult because at some point you had two lasagna dishes and actually returned one.

Try not to burn the living Hell out of yourself while making the bacon. Think thoughts about the phrase 'bacon grease.' Try to control urge to just eat the goddamn bacon; you're going to like it more on its own anyway.

Add cubed cheddar and bacon. Be surprised the cheddar was supposed to be cubed since this was the first you heard of it. Use the slices Josh got you in the jumbo cheese pack from Costo and decide it will have to be fine.

Bake 1 hour at 350. Feed to Josh as a thank you for being very helpful and understanding while you are up to your armpits in work. Hope he eats it while you're away for the weekend.