Food Friday - Breakfast On the Go

from Kris B.

Tracey and I do our best to share recipes on Food Fridays that we both enjoy making and eating and our hope is that you will find a few that you like as well.  There is no question that we both enjoy the cooking, photographing, and then eating whatever it is that we share in these posts as well.  But honestly, often the “behind the scenes” conversations that we have about what we are doing is the most fun of it all!  I am going to share a bit of this week’s text messaging about our progress toward getting this week’s post done.  You guys will either lose complete respect for us (assuming you ever had any, LOL!); or, you will wish you were part of our circus!

One of my favorite things to think about is text messages that are sent that if were read and of context are either hilarious, frightening, or grounds for a stay in a mental health facility.  Here is one such exchange between us this week.

Me: I need to go shoot muffins.

Tracey: “And what did you do on Saturday?  I shot some muffins!”

Me: It is hunting season, right?

Tracey: Small game I think, so that would be mini muffins…

Me: Uh oh!  I am shooting jumbo muffins…without a license!

Tracey: I won’t tell the DNR!

I am so glad that I have a friend who has my back!  Oh, and this whole conversation was going on amidst another conversation about cup sizes…and not measuring cups!!!  You are going to have to wait for Tracey to share that one with you!!!  Trust me.  You won’t want to miss it!

Now for this week’s recipe, which I believe originally came from Taste of Home…

I have been trying to get up early enough on school mornings to have a nice, calm slow breakfast that involves multiple cups of coffee.  (Nope! Not coffee cup sizes either.)  This works fairly well on the days when my first class is a 9am.  Tuesdays and Thursdays when class starts at 7:30, it’s a once cup morning, with that cup being a travel mug, and sometimes a grab and go breakfast.  These Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Muffins are a great compromise when my taste buds want oatmeal and my schedule say, “Not today, sweetheart!”

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 Cups quick cooking oats

 1 1/4 Cups all-purpose flour

1/2 Cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp  baking soda

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 Cup unsweetened applesauce

1/2 Cup milk )I used almond milk)

3 TBS canola oil

1 egg white

For the topping:

1/4 Cup quick cooking oats

1 TBS brown sugar

1/8 tsp ground cinnamon (I probably used closer to 1/4 tsp)

1 TBS melted butter

Mix together all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl, excluding those used for the topping.  In a second bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring just until incorporated.  *Fill greased muffin cups 3/4 of the way full.  

Mix all of the topping ingredients together and sprinkle evenly on the tops of the muffins.

Bake at 400 degrees for 16-18 minutes.

This recipe yields 10 regular muffins, 6 jumbo muffins, or 20-24 mini muffins.  Choose responsibly depending on whether or not it is muffin hunting season in your area!  

And, using muffin liners negates the need for greasing the tins. :-)

One more thing...There is great debate in food photography as to whether drips and crumbs should be left in photos.  I am a realist.  I think they should.  And, I can't get muffins in the tins without dripping somewhere. So, I left the burnt on drip.  That is me!  If you are a perfectionist and secretly, or not so secretly, want to be Martha Stewart, clean your pans carefully before you bake and photograph.  Or, become a Photoshop whiz!  I have neither the real skills of Martha nor the PS skills to make me look like a fake Martha. Therefore, drips it is.  

Enjoy!

from Tracey G

Ok, I'll admit it - after reading through my friend's post first, before I sat down to write mine, I realized I am a drip-wiper-upper before I bake! LOL! There's never really been any thought to it, it's just something I do, whether I am photographing it or not! Now I wonder if it's not some other manifestation of my tendency toward the perfectionist regime...something to think about for sure as to my motives to do so! Ha!

My post has been quite the project for me this week - not the making of or photographing of, but the getting-it-done-and-all-put-together done kind of thing. I've had a nasty cold and other another illness, involving needing antibiotic, that's been making me feel yucky as well. Geesh, when it rains it pours! So, my attention span has been really shallow, due to feeling tired and just plain blah and icky. It's hard to think when you just want to vegetate and sleep! So, I apologize now for it being later than usual!! Unfortunately, it now seems to have morphed again into a sore throat thing, which is not pleasant at all to deal with and making me rather annoyed, I just want to be back to normal healthy! LOL And here I thought I was starting to feel better....silly me! I should have known better!

I am still in my mode to find things that can be convenient to eat and convenient to store - preferably in the freezer until they're needed and can then be heated and eaten. No muss, no fuss. I found a few recipes for breakfast items that can be an individual serving right out of the oven or the freezer. This one is my own version of a few breakfast-in-a-muffin-cup kind of things. I adjusted ingredients and amounts to suit  my tastes, so that should tell you that you too can do the same thing. Adjust it, add to it - make it yours. Among the variations in my research, things like chopped onion or chopped green pepper can be added to change it up. I am thinking I am going to try a "Greek Version" using feta and spinach, and possibly chopped tomato in the egg mixture. I've lots of ideas for this one, and decided that if the child didn't like them, it didn't matter because I did - and this is something that can help me be on the healthier eating straight and narrow. It's quick and easy to make, and to reheat to eat later - especially if it's one of those times I'm rushed and would be tempted to turn to something either processed or not-so-healthy! And they even are good for brunch/lunch, not just for breakfast, I tested that out as well, lol.

So, here we go, here's the super simple recipe that could potentially have quite a few variations! Let me say here though, that I had a heck of a time getting them out of them out of the muffin cups, even though I sprayed them well. I am thinking that next time I make them, I may use the foil cupcake liners. I'd just have to make sure to remove the foil liner BEFORE I reheated in the microwave!

Egg and Sausage Muffins

Makes 12

1/2 lb bulk pork sausage

12 eggs

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp onion powder

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 c shredded cheddar cheese (or more to taste! Or even a different cheese if you prefer!)

1) Preheat oven to 350°F. In a skillet, cook sausage, breaking into crumbles, until no longer pink; drain.

2) In a large bowl, beat eggs. Add garlic powder, salt, onion powder and pepper. Stir in sausage and cheese.

3) Prepare muffin tin by spraying with cooking spray. Spoon egg mixture into muffin cups, about 1/3 cup in each. Bake for about 20-25 min, or until a knife inserted near center comes out clean.

Freeze Option: Cool baked muffins completely. Place on wax paper lined cookie sheets and freeze until firm. Transfer to a resealable plastic freezer bag (or another tightly covered freezer container) and store in the freezer. To use, place in greased muffin pan, cover loosely with foil and reheat in a 350°F oven until heated through. Or microwave each muffin on high 30-60 seconds or until heated through.

Nutritional Information (approximate), per muffin: 160 calories, 12g fat, (5g saturated) 207mg cholesterol, 346mg sodium, 137mg potassium, 1g carbohydrate, 11g protein

Food Friday - Eggstravaganza

from Kris B.

When me girls were little and we had all of those dyed hard-boiled Easter eggs, I remember being so happy when I had eaten the final deviled egg and egg salad sandwich!  Those were the only things that I knew to do with the eggs once they had been hunted and were no longer  of interest to the kids and I didn’t want them to go to waste.  I wish that I had discovered Scotch eggs back then!  They would have provided me with another alternative and my non-vegetarian child would have enjoyed them.

What I’m sharing with you is more of a process than a specific recipe.  The process involves cooking eggs somewhere between soft and hard boiled, covering them in sausage seasoned somehow, then coating them in some crispy carbohydrate, and then cooking them somehow.  I’ll tell you how I did them, but know that there are variations that you may want to try.

INGREDIENTS

5 eggs

1 pound bulk sausage

1/2 finely diced yellow onion

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup fine bread, cracker, or corn flake crumbs

1/2 panko

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Hard boil four of the eggs.

Finely dice the onion and in a medium combine with the sausage.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Divide into 4 equal parts and flatten into patties.

Carefully peel the cooked eggs.  Pat them dry with a paper towel.  Dredge the eggs in the flour, then place each one on a sausage patty.  Wrap the sausage around the eggs, completely closing the seams.  

Whisk the fifth egg.   Dip each sausage covered egg in the beaten egg and then dredge them in the bread crumbs covering completely.  Then again dip them in the egg and this time coat them in the panko.

Place the eggs on a baking sheet and bake for 35-40 minutes, until the sausage is cooked through and contains no pink.  Turn the eggs over two or three times during the cooking process to achieve crisping on all sides.  Traditional Scotch eggs are deep fried.  I’m not a fan of deep fat frying anything so I baked mine.  This is one of the reasons that I double dipped the coating.  I wanted them to be as crispy as if they had been fried.

Serve immediately.  Or, let the eggs cool to room temperature and then freeze them in a plastic freezer bag.  To reheat, place on a baking sheet in a 375 degree oven or toaster oven for 25 minutes.  I would not advise reheating in the microwave.  

Scotch eggs are delicious served with your favorite mustard or mustard mixed with a bit of mayonnaise.

You may wish to season your sausage with a little thyme or rosemary.  You can also use this same recipe and deep fry your Scotch eggs if you wish.

from Tracey G

I love breakfast/brunch casseroles. I love the idea of preparing something the night before, throwing it into the fridge to sit overnight and it comes out ready to be baked the next morning. Talk about making a morning easy with just a small amount of effort the night before! So, these things are always popular with me for holidays. Especially the big ones, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Those are the mornings when there is so much going on, it's a nice convenience to be able to just throw breakfast (or brunch) in the oven and let it cook while you attend to other things, be it hunting Easter Eggs, prepping turkeys for the oven or opening Christmas presents. These kinds of things help take one more thing off your to-do list!

I have run across a lot of recipes through the years, and I'm always willing to try a new one, generally the combination of ingredients are ones you know you can't go wrong with. I found the original recipe for this at Taste Of Home, which can be found here: Farmer's Strata, and used it as a basic guide for my own twists.

Some of my tweaks were for convenience - as in I had a certain ingredient I wanted to use up AND it was already prepped, then some were for my tastes and preferences - for example I don't like soggy bacon, so instead of adding to cook in the strata, I decided to use it as a topping. It worked wonderfully, and kept it's integrity! But I was really pleased with what I ended up with by the time I got to eat it! There was only one thing I'd do differently, add more potatoes, I used 2 cups, but they could easily have been increased to 3 or 4!

Breakfast Strata

1 lb sliced bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 c chopped fully cooked ham (I used Smithfield brand fully cooked ham cubes for convenience)

1 small onion, chopped

1 clove of garlic, finely minced

10 slices white bread, cubed

2 c cubed frozen hashbrown potatoes, thawed

3 c (12 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese

8 large eggs

3 c milk

1 1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 1/2 tsp ground mustard

dash of salt and pepper

1) In a large skillet, cook bacon until crisp. Remove from pan and set aside. Add onions, ham and garlic, and cook until onions are tender. Remove from pan and set aside. Add hashbrown potatoes and cook until tender, set aside.

2) In a greased 13x9-inch baking dish, layer half of the bread cubes, potatoes and cheese. Top with all of the ham/onion/garlic mixture. Repeat layers of bread, potatoes and cheese.

3) In a large bowl, beat the eggs; add milk, Worcestershire sauce, ground mustard, salt and pepper. Pour over all. Cover the pan and chill it and the cooked bacon overnight.

4) Remove from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before baking. Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake uncovered for about 65-70 minutes or until a knife inserted near center comes out clean. About the last 10 minutes of cooking, top with the reserved cooked bacon to reheat and re-crisp.

Food Friday - Christmas Brunch

from Tracey G

I love this dish - and I'm sure most people have some kind of version of a "ring" in their bag of recipe tricks, lol. It uses the refrigerated crescent roll dough to make it pretty. My mom found this particular recipe years ago, and I know she's added a few tweaks here and there and I've even made my own on the fly with it. I discovered that what's written in my book is different from what she had written down, lol. So I made my version this time, but I know we've made hers more, lol. She called for shredded Colby Jack, I used shredded Swiss, so you can go with whichever you like - or change it up each time you make it. Sometimes ham and Swiss is what you after - so go for it, as I did!

 I also upped the Dijon mustard amount - I go by taste, so I start with the 2 tbsp called for and go from there. I think in this particular go, I added a couple more extra (could even have been 3 extra for a total of 5, lol) - I love the flavor it adds. It also calls for chopped/minced onion and since Harry is not a big fan, I used some onion powder (to taste). Although, since it has broccoli in it, my hopes of him eating it were dashed. But I did decide it would be good without the broccoli, lol.

The longest part of the recipe, for me is arranging the crescent roll dough in an even pinwheel - I'm so particular I arrange and rearrange more times than I can count so I can get if fairly even. You really don't have to be too particular because once it bakes it looks pretty anyway. ;-) It's also one of those recipes that tastes better the next day - so leftovers, if there are any, are really good if not better than the day before!

Broccoli Ham Ring

Preheat oven to 375°

2 - 8 oz. tubes refrigerated crescent roll dough

1 ½ c shredded Monterey Jack cheese with Colby (Colby Jack)

¼ lb fully-cooked ham, diced (1/2 c)

2 ¼ c finely chopped broccoli

1 small onion, finely chopped

2 tbsp Dijon mustard (more to taste)

1 tsp lemon juice

Unroll crescent roll dough and place triangles on 12” pizza pan (or large cookie sheet), forming a ring with pointed ends facing outer edge of pan and wide ends overlapping. Press wide ends together.

Combine remaining ingredients; spoon evenly over wide ends of rolls. Fold points over (towards center of pan) and tuck under wide ends (filling will be visible). Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

from Kris B.

First let me apologize for my uninspired photo of this week's recipe.   This poor shot has nothing to do with the fact that I am behind with everything and am not yet fully feeling the Christmas spirit.  It is much more traumatic than that!  My tripod, with camera attached, tipped over and my lens took the brunt of the fall.  Thankfully, despite the fact that for some reason I had taken my UV filter off of it, the glass didn't break.  The plastic ring around the edge, however, is another story.

I logged on to the Nikon website to see what the procedure was for sending it in for repair.  Surprisingly, it was an easy process, not often the case these days.  I was presented with a multiple choice menu from which to identify the nature of my problem.   #2 "Dropped or Impact Damage". I guess I am not the only unfortunate person to have such a problem.  Once all of the pertinent information was supplied,  I was given an estimate of the cost of repair.  Mind you, it is only an estimate; but, I had to provide payment information at that point in order to proceed.  The good news is that the estimate is a great deal less than the cost of replacing the lens.  The bad news is that this lens is the most expensive one that I own.  So after school this afternoon, I'll make my way to UPS with all those who are trying frantically to get holiday gifts shipped and send my lens on its way.  Hopefully it will not get lost in the Christmas rush!

Once Nikon receives the lens and assesses the damage first hand, they will send a specific cost of repair and I will again have an opportunity to decide how to proceed.   Until then, I will be forced to use some of the lenses in my bag that I haven't used much lately.  That is a good thing, I think.  I have been kind of lazy and have been relying on my "workhorse" lens rather than pushing myself to be a little more creative with some of my other options.  We'll see what happens...

Back to breakfast...

Despite what the photo looks like, this egg dish with a southwest touch is really good!  The recipe was given to me by a friend several years ago.  I believe she got it when she was working as a substitute innkeeper for a bed and breakfast.  I wish that back then I had been more diligent about making note of such details.

Because my older daughter is a vegetarian, our Christmas morning main course is always meatless.  (The rest of us have bacon or sausage on the side.).   And truthfully, the "protein dish" is never what anyone in my family looks forward to.  For the last ten years, said vegetarian daughter has made homemade cinnamon rolls by the dozens for Christmas morning.  (Leftovers are a must!). These are the part of the morning feast that we all anticipate!  But, I insist on something with protein during the morning to help mediate the sugar and caffeine high on which we all find ourselves.  Hyper adults on Christmas  are not nearly as cute as sugared up excited children. Lol!

INGREDIENTS

1 TBS olive oil

1/2 yellow onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, chopped

12 corn tortillas, taco sized cut into pieces

2 4 oz. cans diced green chilies

2 Cups Mexican blend cheese

4 eggs

2 Cups buttermilk

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp oregano

Dash of cayenne pepper, to taste (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

I make this is an cast iron skillet, but it can be made in a 2 quart casserole dish as well.  Coat the pan or dish with non-stick cooking spray.

Sauté the onions and garlic in the olive oil until browned.

In the cooking pan, layer half of the tortillas, all of the onion mixture, half of the green chilies, and half of the cheese.  Continue layering with the remaining tortillas, chilies, and cheese.

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, and spices.  Pour the egg mixture over the layered ingredients.

Bake for 40 minutes.  Remove the pan from the oven and let rest for ten minutes.

This dish is good just like this, but can also be topped with sour cream, extra cheese, and/or diced fresh tomatoes.

I'm f you haven't yet settled on your Christmas morning menu, I hope you'll add this one to the list of contenders.

During this hectic and crazy time of year,  make sure to give yourself the gift of a few moments of peace in every day!