hash brown casserole, fresh pico de gallo

This morning after my yoga class -- Yes I am now regularly 'practicing' yoga! This has been a long time coming, as you can see here and here -- I was trying to figure out what to cook for breakfast. Neither Tom or I really wanted to have the typical eggs, I didn't want pancakes, and we didn't want to go out to eat.

In truth, I really wanted home fries from scratch - diced potatoes, onions, green peppers - crispy on the outside. We don't have any potatoes at the house right now, bit we did have half a bag of tater tots. You might call tater tots the next best thing, or you might call it a cop out.

{are you having flash backs to fourth grade right now like I am?}

After cooking these bad boys in the oven, I threw them in a skillet, mashed them up, and added six eggs. Let them cook for a while (I like my potatoes/eggs cooked well and a little crispy on the outside) and then add cheese.

Add the homemade salsa. Mix the salsa into the potatoes and then remove the skillet from the heat. You don't want to get rid of the fresh taste of the pico de gallo by letting it cook for too long.

Of course you can use store bought salsa, but I didn't have any. I did, however, have all of the ingredients to make pico de gallo. I might forget to buy salsa at the store more often.

When I make meals that can be described as 'different,' Tom's usual response is some variation of 'what the heck is that and why do you expect me to eat it.' Not so with this one... With delight, he exclaimed: "This looks exactly like Cracker Barrel's hash brown cassarole!!!" Great.

But I bet they don't make their own pico de gallo from scratch.

Ingredients
Hash Brown Casserole
1/2 bag of tater tots, cooked in the oven
6 eggs
salt
pepper

Pico de Gallo
two tomatoes, diced
half an onion, diced fine
one jalapeño, diced fine
handful of cilantro, chopped
juice from half a lime
salt