Broccoli Sausage Bake

I love any type of breakfast/brunch "bake," pie, frittata, or quiche type thing.  Why? Because these make great left-overs.  This is the type of thing that I put in Atzin's lunch.  It's great eaten cold, if you don't have access to a microwave or a way to heat it.  You can get creative, adding the veggies you want to add (I had to hold back from adding kale or other greens to this because I add kale to almost everything!  Atzin has even said, "mom, what's with you and the kale?") and also the type of pan you want -- for example, I tend to make this type of thing in muffin tins, particularly if it is something I'm going to pack for lunch.  This is also a great pre and post workout type of meal, with the carbs from the butternut squash and the protein sources.  Plus, yes it has green veggies -- the broccoli!

You will see here that my second obsession lately, in addition to the leeks, is using all types of squash, partly because they are dense sources of carbs in a Paleo diet and good for Atzin's and my workout.  In addition to the "good carbs" butternut squash is a good source of vitamin A and vitamin C.

So here is the recipe.....

Ingredients:

1 small butternut squash (about 1 lb), peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2 inch chunks.
(I use the pre-cut that I buy at Coscto - 2 lbs in a container because I had peeling and seeding hard squash.  If you do cut it yourself, I recommend microwaving it for about 2-3 minutes so it's a bit softer.  Cut the ends off, then use a vegetable peeler to peel the skin off.  Then, but into chunks.)
1 TBS olive oil or coconut oil
sea salt and black pepper to taste
1/2 lb turkey or chicken sausage
1 cup chopped broccoli
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
11 large eggs
2 TBS almond milk

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Toss the squash with your preferred oil and season with salt and pepper.  Bake for about 25-30 minutes.
3. In a large skillet, cook the sausage, crumbling it up, add the onion, and then the broccoli.
4. Spray or oil the bottom of the pan you are going to use for baking and arrange the roasted squash in the bottom.  I used an 8 x 11 baking pan.
5.  Add the sausage and broccoli mixture and even spread in the pan.
6. Whisk the eggs in a bowl with the almond milk.  Pour it over the squash, broccoli, sausage mixture in the baking pan, also evenly spreading it.  Add more salt and pepper to taste. ( I also added about 1/2 tsp of New Mexico green chile powder because I add that to almost everything when I have it!)
7. Bake for 35-40 minutes.

We had this for another "brunch" - late breakfast with a side of blackberries in a small bowl.