SWISS CHEESE SCRAMBLE

YES, THIS IS A CASSEROLE DISH. I associate casseroles with potluck dinners, family reunions and church suppers—occasions where camaraderie is more important than great food. But well executed breakfast casseroles have their time and place. At our house, that time and place is Christmas morning, a time when there are things to do that are more important than cooking, but when a great-tasting meal is a perfect complement to a morning of wanton commercial selflessness and selfishness. Christmas at our house is a tribute to both.

I’ll admit I was a bit shocked when I first encountered Christmas, Decewicz-style. Decewicz is the maiden name of my wife, Maureen.

Since I was one of six in a family that lived comfortably (but probably closer to the financial edge than any of us ever were allowed to know), Christmas at the Cummings was always exciting and always as full of gifts as anyone could want.

Or so I thought until experiencing a Decewicz Christmas. Actually, I should probably call it a Cox Christmas since I think my father-in-law was as shocked on his first Christmas morning as a married man as I was on mine. Cox is the maiden name of my mother-in-law, Bunny.

But never mind where it started, the Christmas we now celebrate and which I have embraced wholeheartedly is a study in controlled excess. The rule I learned early on in my marriage was that quantity matters. Quality is important too, but never, never sacrifice quantity for quality. It was a lesson that my wife firmly and indelibly impressed on me one day when we were shopping for our oldest, Kimberly (she has just turned one year old), at the Post Exchange in Heidelberg, Germany, my first assignment out of Officer Candidate School. As Maureen placed one gift after another in the cart, I ventured that perhaps buying so many gifts for a child so young was excessive. No sooner were the words out of my mouth, than my wife, with a withering look, began to show me what excessive really meant. Kimberly was opening Christmas gifts we bought that year several years in the future.

But it’s controlled, budgeted excess that we now practice at the Cummings’s. Maureen determines how much she is going to spend for each of our kids. The gifts begin to trickle into the house in late summer, with the buying reaching a frenzied state in the weeks following Thanksgiving. Along the way, she also picks up gifts for the children of the children of our friends who usually stop by Christmas Eve for our open house. Invariably, however, some gifts get misplaced in the final days, necessitating a few final dashes to the mall as the shopping window begins to close down. (The gifts usually turn up a month or so later, although some have never been found.)

On Christmas morning then, we slide the Swiss Cheese Scramble into the oven, (I make it the evening before so we can get right to the presents) pour coffee and assemble in the living room for our delirious descent into wretched excess, loving every minute of it.

The Swiss Cheese Scramble is usually finished at about the same time we are. This recipe is based on one in a cookbook called Three Rivers Cookbook I, published by the Child Health Association of Sewickley, Pa. It serves eight people.

Swiss Cheese Scramble:The Recipe

For eight generous servings

Ingredients

6 ounces of bacon, about eight strips fried crisp.

2 cups of bread cubes

1¾ cup of milk

8 eggs slightly beaten.

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground white pepper

¼ teaspoon Tabasco (Adds a little zing lacking from the original.)

2 tablespoons butter

½ teaspoon Lawry’s seasoned salt

½ pound Swiss cheese, thinly sliced. Use Emmental, the real Swiss, for a richer flavor. Domestic Swiss doesn’t even come close.

½ cup bread crumbs (Combined with the melted butter for the topping.)

2 tablespoons butter, melted

First: Cook the bacon until it is crisp. Drain and crumble the strips. Set aside. Combine the melted butter and breadcrumbs and set aside. Combine the bread cubes and the milk and let sit for five minutes.

Second: Drain the milk and combine it with the eggs, salt, pepper and Tabasco. Melt the two tablespoons of butter in a large fry pan over medium low heat and scramble the egg mixture slowly until it is soft, but not quite fully cooked. Add soaked bread cubes and mix thoroughly.

Third: Pour mixture into a nine-inch round or square baking dish. Sprinkle with the seasoned salt. Arrange the Swiss cheese slices on top to cover. Sprinkle the breadcrumb/butter mixture over the cheese and top with the crumbled bacon.

And finally: Cook in a 400°F oven for 10 to 15 minutes until the cheese is bubbling at the edge and the cheese in the center is melted.