Yummy breakfast 'muffins'

I have been trying to introduce my husband to this thing called nutrition, and it is a slow, slow process.  He loves all things bad for you, like chips, top ramen, snack stuff.  He will willingly eat good stuff if I cook it and put it in front of him without much complaint, but when he is left to make the choices himself?  Well let's just say he reverts to his old habits! 

He works very early and gets up around 3:45 AM to be at work by 5 AM, so he is long gone by the time I wake up in the morning.  I can't tell you how many times I have walked into the kitchen to find a plate in the sink with the remnants of a corn dog and tater tots, or fish sticks, or macaroni salad, or something else bizarre to eat at 4 AM!  He would rather cook this in the microwave than make a bowl of cereal, or toast, and egg or two, or oatmeal, which is what I typically have.

I had a chat with him this morning over breakfast, which was yummy breakfast burritos, love them!  I told him I have been noticing his breakfast dishes in the sink.  ...And with neither of us getting any younger, maybe he should make better breakfast choices?  Oh, and by the way Honey, I love you ;)  I got nothing other than what I expected, however.  A slight narrowing of the eyes looking at me from over the rim of his raised coffee cup, which was stopped half way towards his mouth, lol. 

But, after 17 years together, we are pretty much past the "I can't say what I really mean because it makes us uncomfortable" types of conversations, and are more into the "this may sting a bit, but I say this out of love" types instead.  After all we're both grown-ups, right...?  I know he wasn't exactly thrilled with this topic, but he is smart enough to realize that #1, it's the truth, #2, it's a good idea, and lastly #3, I am right ;)
Sadly, knowing all this he was not happy with the options I provided him!  So after having a lazy Sunday and going through the fridge this evening pulling out the leftovers for dinner, I had an idea.  We had some leftover ground spicy breakfast sausage from this mornings burritos, a few slices of bacon from yesterdays BLT's, and we just bought a bunch of eggs today.  The perfect fixings for a yummy breakfast!  Plus, my friend Tammy and her teenage daughter had been making a breakfast casserole on the weekends to eat all week long, when they are in a hurry and running out the door in the mornings.  Have you ever seen these on Rachael Ray's TV show?  I loved the idea, and have wanted to try them, but just never got around to it, so that was my inspiration.  Simple, portion-controlled, and yummy, perfect!

I tossed a couple chopped potatoes in the micro, and started sauteing an onion on the stove.  When the potatoes were mostly cooked, I added them to the pan to brown them a bit, and added some salt, pepper and garlic.  I layered the potato and onion mixture first, added some thawed and drained chopped spinach, then the leftover sausage and chopped bacon.



I topped it off with a bit of shredded cheddar cheese, and then poured on the eggs.  I mixed up 18 eggs and had enough stuff to fill my muffin tin twice!



They baked for 30 minutes at 375 degrees, and were done perfectly.  Aren't they pretty??



Now my wonderful husband has 24 of these babies to keep him from going hungry at 4 AM.  Should last him for a few days ;)

A new TOY!

I have wanted a KitchenAid stand mixer for ages, and now I have one, woohooo!! 

My hubsband found an ad in the Seattle PI newspaper last year around this time for the professional KitchenAid for $99. They are normally $399-$599 so I said "Go get one right now, I didn't even care what color!!"  But when he got to Macy's they said it was a misprint, sorry ;(  They wouldn't even budge, I was so sad!

So fast forward to this last summer, he found one at a garage sale for a whopping $3.  Just the stand, no accessories or attachments, or even the bowl.  We cleaned it up, and tested it out and it worked just fine, so an awesome deal ;)   Well I promptly forgot about it, though he kept a look-out for accessories, which are not cheap by the way!


I had forgotten about completely until yesterday, and I wanted to use it.  So I ran to the Kitchen Collection store in the mall and bought a bowl, paddle with a built in scraper, and whisk attachments.  So all in all my mixer coast us $3 plus $80 in accessories, not too shabby!
 
Here she is, and now I have to think of a name ;)




Mixing away!!


All broken in and messy ;)  Learned the hard way to add the flour slowly, lol!  This is sugar cookie dough for THIS recipe.

Some misc holiday pics...

We decorated a Gingerbread House the other night,.  Aaron helped for a bit, but wasn't into it like Adrian was.





One of my favorite holiday treats to make is Christmas Crack, so-called because it is soooo good you get addicted ;)

2 sticks of butter
3/4 cup sugar. 
2 sleeves saltine crackers
1 bag chocolate chips
nuts optional

Line a cookie sheet (with sides) with foil, and arrange crackers tightly.  Melt together butter and sugar in a saucepan, and bring to a boil for THREE minutes.  Pour over crackers and spread evenly.  Bake for FIVE MINUTES at 425 degrees.  Remove pan from the oven and immediately pour entire bag of chips onto the crackers.  Let stand for 5 minutes and spread chips with a rubber spatula.  Sprinkle chopped nuts on top if desired. Let cool completely and break apart to serve.

Here's some I made, right after I sprinkled the chips on and they wre starting to melt.



And after I sprinkled the nuts on....



And ready to eat!





And after I let Adrian lick the spatula ;)







Here we are on the way to our first turkey dinner on Thanksgiving, to my husband's grandmother's house in Ferndale.  Then we went to another at my dad's house in the evening!  It seems like I can never get a picture of the four of us together on the actual holidays, and this is the second year in a row our Thanksgiving picture has been in the car, lol!





Remember the Turkey Lentil Chili I made the other day?   This is the bird my husband cooked, and I used the leftovers in that recipe.  A 20 pounder!!

Today's yummy soup, Thanks Gayle!

So I changed it up a tiny bit to fit what I had in my pantry, but not much.  SO YUMMY!


Italian Sausage Soup

Brown 1 package of sausage in a soup pot (I didn't have spicy sausage, so used plain smoked sausage)


Add 2 cans beef broth (None in my pantry, so I used 6 cups water and beef bullion to taste)

1 quart stewed tomatoes ( I used 2 cans, one with green chiles, one without, plus the juice)

Veggies - onions, carrots, and celery, chopped and sauteed first, plus chopped garlic

Add 2 cans red wine (I am not a huge fan, so used only one can, but was pleasantly suprised!)

Let simmer . 10 minutes before serving - add your favorite kind of noodles (I used macaroni)

Since I didn't have spicy sausage, I added some chipotle flavored Tobasco sauce, plus a few sprigs of fresh Thyme and Rosemary.


This was soooo good!

I am making chili...

And my house smells amazing right now!  We still had a bunch of turkey to used up and I wanted to make a pot of something hot in this cold COLD weather.  I started browsing my favorite recipe site, allrecipes.com and found this one for Turkey Lentil Chili, which sounds so yummy.   After reading the reviews and a few other recipes, I made a few changes...

Ingredients


2 cups dry lentils (I used a whole bag, not sure if it was more than two cups)

2 quarts vegetable broth (I used 3 quarts of homemade turkey stock)

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (I substituted bacon drippings)

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 large onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped ( used what I had in the fridge, about 6 stalks)

1 pound turkey sausage (substituted a LOT of chopped turkey, white and dark meat)

2 tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped (used one can of diced tomatoes and the juice)

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon ground cumin (I used 2 tsp)
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves

1 pinch crushed red pepper flakes

sea salt to taste

1 (8 ounce) container plain lowfat yogurt

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley for garnish


**Here's what I added that wasn't in the recipe**

1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained

1 1/2 tsp chipotle Tobasco sauce

1 1/2 tsp Worchesterchire sauce

1 tsp finely chopped jalepenos

1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp poultry seasoning

Directions

1.Bring lentils and vegetable broth to a boil in a large pot over high heat. Reduce heat to medium, and simmer for 10 minutes.

2.Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in the garlic, onion, celery, and sausage; cook and stir until the sausage is crumbly and no longer pink, about 10 minutes. Stir in tomatoes, turmeric, cumin, thyme, and red pepper flakes; cook 5 minutes more.

3.Stir the sausage mixture into the simmering lentils. Continue simmering until the lentils are tender, 20 to 30 minutes. Season to taste with salt. Garnish each serving with a dollop of yogurt and a sprinkle of chopped parsley to serve.


And here it is simmering on my stovetop, mmmmmmmmmmmm....

Chicken Pot Pie...

Ever since we have had kids, I work part-time in the afternoons and evenings, and we work it out so they don't have to go to daycare.  One of us is always home with them, which is nice, plus it helps the pocketbook also!  That means between his schedule and mine, I head out the door about 20 minutes after he gets home, and I usually don't get home until around 7PM or so.  For the last oh, EIGHT years, he has been the primary cook around here for dinner.

So my hubs asked me what I wanted to eat the other night, and I told him I was in the mood for homemade chicken pot pie...  He hesitated for a second, and then said ok, he would make one.  I asked him if he wanted something else instead, and he replied, no, that was fine, but he didn't think he had enough time to make the crust plus a few other errands he had planned.  Yep, my hubs likes to bake, gotta love that!  So I said no worries, throw some Bisquick on top and call it good and headed out the door to work.

I got home and what did I find?  A delicious dinner with a homemade crust :)  He even commented that is was so pretty that maybe I should "take a picture of it and post it on that blog-thingy" of mine, LOL!

So here it is folks!  It IS pretty darn nice looking isn't it?  He even put his initial "K" as the steam holes in the top, that made me literally LOL!




He even made the sauce from scratch, and it was thick enough that the inside didn't slide out all over the pie plate, it was so good :)  Thanks Hubs!

You put your chocolate in my peanutbutter!

Haha! Do you remember those commercials??

So this morning my daughter decided she wanted to make cookies, but I had no intention of turning the oven on... So off I went on a search for no-bake cookie recipes from my favorite recipe site, www.allrecipes.com. I found this one, and OMG they look delicious!!

After reading the recipe reviews, I made it with the following revisions...

INGREDIENTS
1 cup white sugar (I used half white, half brown)
1 cup white corn syrup (I used half light corn syrup and half honey)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups peanut butter (I used crunchy)
4 1/2 cups crisp rice cereal

I also added 1/2 cup each of raisins and chocolate chips, mmmmmm!

DIRECTIONS
Add the sugars, syrup and honey to a large saucepan. Cooking over med-high, bring to a full rolling boil for one minute. Remove from heat and add the vanilla, peanut butter and stir until thoroughly combined. Add the crispy rice cereal, and raisins, and mix completely. Add the chips last so they only melt a little bit. Drop by teaspoons onto wax paper (I used a small ice cream type scoop). The cookies will be slightly soft when done.

Dinner last night...

...Was the BOMB! My husbad made these for dinner and they were so good, and I didn't have room for anythign else ;)


Bacon, Onion and Cheese Stuffed Burgers

Pampered Scrappers Retreat, June 09

... is all over, but was so much fun! I was there from 9 am Friday to 3 pm on Sunday, and we enjoyed ourselves so much! The food was fabulous, and almost (almost!!) too pretty to eat. It was a B&B style place, and the husband and wife team that run it were so nice. He carried all our bags upstairs to the crop room, which was a definite bonus!!


Here' my lil' corner of heaven. The tables, Ott Light, cup holder, trash can and a comfy chair were already waiting for us. There was even a Cricut and a huge library of carts to use, plus a computer and nice printer too.








The view from the stairs coming down to the dining room was so pretty!




Chicken pot pie, mmmmmmmmmm... At each meal the whole table setting was different, the table cloth, place mats, everything.







Dutch babies for breakfast!




Lori and Dolora, and Lori was VERY happy we were having Mexican food :)





Mal was fooling around with my camera lol!




Cheryl and Mal having a 'gun' fight....




Renee, Lori, Me, Cheryl, Gayle, Dolora and Jennifer



Mal hard at work....




Dolora and Jen slaving away!




And one of the highlights of the weekend... Lori very generously donated 2 baskets of scrap goodies to be raffled off and the money would go to my 3day account. We emailed friends and posted it on Facebook, and in just 3 days of selling tickets we raised $394!!!!! A few of the ladies cut up a bunch of scrap paper and stamped the initials of all the ladies that bought tickets....




Renee and Gayle hard at work, folding tickets!




All 394 'tickets'! We drew 2 names, and the winners were Renee and Annemarie!!!!!!!!!!!




Here are the pages I completed...








This was our 'theme' for the whole weekend, and has absolutely nothing to do with the picture, haha! It got silly and more funny as the weekend went, it was hilarious!



Calie, Matty, Kim and I at the 3day Expo last year. It was a 10 mile 'practice' about 3 months prior to the 60 mile event. We stayed in Bellevue the night before, and walked from 7 am to 11:30 or so.




The teacher tag in this one is a swap item.








The school tage is a swap item!




This is my favorite layout of the whole weekend! Thanks Melanie for the monkey, it was perfect ;)








It wasn't until I was taking a pic of this one that I noticed the 'c' was missing, oops!




The cake tag is a swap item.











The pink tag is a swap item...