Hashbrown Egg Breakfast Casserole

Confession:  I have never prepared REAL bacon. 

Sure, I've cooked up lots 'o turkey 'bacon' and that pre-cooked microwavable stuff, but never any honest-to-goodness, pork fatty bacon.  I've watched my mom do it, and I've seen it done plenty of times by others (both in real life, and on TV)...but somehow I never worked up the courage to do it on my own.  It might have something to do with my fear of hot, splattery oil (this is the gal who's terrified of deep fat frying, remember?).  But then I saw THIS RECIPE for Hashbrown Egg Breakfast Casserole* over at Cooking with Carrie.  And somehow it didn't seem right to make it with anything other than the real deal.  Which could only mean one thing: time to put on my Big Girl Pants and fry some up! 

As it turns out, frying bacon wasn't so bad after all.  This may or may not be a good thing.  Only time (and my pant size) will tell...

*I went ahead and made the executive decision to throw in a handful of chopped green onions to add a splash of color and flavor to the dish.  Bad idea.  The casserole was good, but could've been better had I left out all those onions!