Chorizo and Egg Burritos - You Can Freeze

When we were at Costco the other day, I stumbled onto the Hugest tortillas. I grabbed up two packages and decided I was going to make giant breakfast burritos. 

Now you don't need to make giant ones, the recipe that follows is for normal human sized burritos. But I highly recommend that you make some and stock up your freezer for quick breakfasts,  hearty snacks and midnight burritos in bed. (I totally made that last one up, *No, I didn't!)

Having breakfast is a huge part of living a healthy lifestyle. Fueling your body with grains, proteins and sneaking in some veggies starts your day and your body off right. 

You'll do better in everything you try and accomplish that day, your brain works better and your body runs happier when it has fuel. 

Visit My Plate - Breakfast to learn about making small changes to have an amazing start to your day.

Egg and Ham Breakfast Burritos

When I make take the time to make these, I wonder why I don't do it more often. It makes life so much easier for all my hungry men in the morning. Days start pretty early around here and these are there most favorite breakfast in the world.  - It doesn't get much cheaper than eggs, potatoes and a tortilla either. 

While I'm not going to give you a specific recipe. - Because I don't use one. I just sorta make them with what I have or what I found on sale and then I make them until I run out of filling.  I am going to give you the instructions to how I do it, and what I think makes them successful. 

 I cook all my ingredients separately and then add them all together. I don't worry about warming up the ham, but if you were going to add bacon or sausage, you would want to cook that before.  If I make them with onions or peppers, I also cook those before.  I always cook the potatoes / hash browns separately so I can get them nice and crispy. And then I cook the eggs very last.  I just cook them and then add them to a giant bowl as I am done cooking them. I don't mind that they are all together, I just think they cook so differently that it is hard to get it "right" when doing it all at once.

  I also let the filling cool off significantly before I fill the burritos. I added a lot of cheese to these, so once towards the end of filling them, they weren't so easy to scoop up. but if your filling is too hot, your burritos will get soggy. 

I like to buy the really really big tortillas, so I can make really big burritos.  I wrap them tightly in plastic wrap and then put them in a freezer bag. 

When you are ready to eat them, put it in the microwave on high for a minute - since these are so big, they take almost a minute and 45 seconds and then I always always let them sit for a minute or so. I think these helps the heat distribute, but I could be wrong. 

When I made these this last weekend, I cooked 2 cartons with 18 eggs in each of them. It took me less than a hour from start to finish to make 20 burritos for the boys during the week.  I don't know if they'll last that long - they have been disappearing quite fast as midnight snacks and such.  But they are totally worth the time to make a batch for your family.

Huevos Rancheros - create an omelet

I have grown a real affection for Mexican food. Perhaps it is because I am married to a man completely in love (like wild mad crazy love) of all Mexican food. He could eat salsa on everything for every single meal of the day - probably even cold cereal. So when he suggested at our usual Breakfast for Dinner night that we make Huevos Rancheros, I was all for it, but I confess, I had to google them to see what they were. 

I think that dishes that are considered Comfort Food in different cultures are really interesting. They are usually really simple and inexpensive to make - they are usually hearty and filling and don't take a lot of skill to prepare. All of those things are very "comforting" to me. 

When I discovered how easy these were to make, and the way my family went just crazy for them, I resolved to make them quite a bit and put them into our regular Sunday night rotation. 

Ingredients
4 6- to 8-inch soft corn tortillas
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 16-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 chipotle chili in adobo sauce, diced; or 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 cup mild salsa
4 large eggs, fried to your liking... Hard.. over medium, soft.. (my husband makes an over medium egg that has me just dying!)
2/3 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 ripe avocado, sliced

Directions
Heat oven to 425° F.
Put the tortillas on a baking sheet and place in the oven to warm, about 5 minutes. (Cover with foil if you don’t like crisp tortillas.)

Toast the cumin in a small, dry saucepan over medium heat until aromatic, about 3 minutes.

Add the beans and chipotle or red pepper (if using).

Remove the tortillas from the oven.

Spoon some beans onto each, then top each with some salsa, 1 fried egg, and some cheese.

Bake until the cheese has melted. Serve with the avocado.

Keep in mind that this isn't a "hard dish", keep it simple - tortillas, salsa, egg and beans.  Then build from there, if you have avocado use it, if you have cheese you can use that. But enjoy the simplicity of delicious ingredients served in a simple way. - Enjoy.

Create an Omelet - By My Teen

I have a few breakfast chefs at my house. They actually plan to wake up a little bit earlier than they need to so they can make themselves a really delicious breakfast. 

You can see there, that I said, "make themselves" because I am on the other end of the spectrum where I calculate the last possible moment I can roll out of bed and still have time to brush my teeth and still be on time. 

One of the things that my oldest breakfast chef likes to make is an omelet. It isn't anything Too official and certainly not difficult. There are a lot of french techniques and broo-ha-ha that can be made over an omelet, complete with special tools and pans and lots of ways to make it overly complicated.

I am here to say to you, "Do Not Be Scared to Make an Omelet!"

Food $ense has an amazing Step-by-Step plan to help you get started.


Here We Go: 

Prepare fillings of choice; set aside - This is a great way to use up leftovers. Especially things you just have a little bit of left. 
• Vegetables-onion, green pepper, mushroom, tomato, salsa, green chili, broccoli, squash, etc.
• Grated cheese–cheddar, mozzarella, Swiss, American, Parmesan, feta, etc.
• Cooked meat–ham, bacon, Canadian bacon, chicken, etc. (Pepperoni is a big favorite)


Crack two eggs in a small bowl
Add salt, pepper, water, and herbs to bowl and gently stir.
• Water: 2 tablespoons
• Herbs: 1 tablespoon of chives and/or parsley (optional)


Fold the omelet with a spatula and carefully slide it onto a plate.


Heat omelet pan or non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Spray with cooking spray. The pan should be hot when you add the cooking spray so that it sizzles.

Add egg mixture to pan and tilt to evenly coat bottom of pan with eggs.

Pull cooked egg from edge of pan with spatula and let liquid eggs run underneath.
When the eggs are mostly set but the top is still a little runny, add any filling of choice. 

Add fillings down center of omelet.

Fold omelet in thirds and slide onto plate -

You can cook your eggs are "hard" or "soft" as you want them. I like mine to be on the softer side and really creamy. Jarren (who made this omelet) likes his cooked hard with no liquid left at all in the egg. That is one of the great things about making an omelet. You can make it how you want it to be.

** I know the flipping and folding seems like it is hard and going to be difficult, but give it a try. If you don't succeed the first time - No Problem... you just make the most awesome scrambled eggs ever!

German Style Oven Pancake

My mom used to make these for us growing up. We absolutely LOVED them. We called them "Popeye Pancakes" and we would fight over who would get a "muscle" piece that had grown all tall and puffy in the oven. 

I still absolutely love to eat Pop-Overs. But Pop-Overs are a little tricky to make in technique and you have to have the special pan that most of us don't have. 

But you don't need any special equipment to make these oven pancakes and you can whip them up and get them in the oven and finish your morning routine while they bake. I love the fluffy-eggy texture of them and the flavor is both something new and also something familiar and comforting.  

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup all-purpose flour, sifted

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons melted butter

1/4 teaspoon salt

PREPARATION

Gradually add flour to beaten eggs, beating with an electric handheld mixer. 

Stir in milk, butter and salt. 

Pour batter into greased 9-inch oven-safe skillet. Bake at 450° for 15 to 20 minutes. 

Serve hot. Cut into wedges. Sprinkle the pancake liberally with powdered sugar and drizzle with melted butter.

  Or, make a lemon syrup by stirring about 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice and an equal amount of melted butter into powdered sugar. Serve this delicious pancake hot from the oven with berries or fresh sliced fruit, along with bacon or sausage.

Serves 6.

French Toast Sticks a Freezer Breakfast

The frozen food breakfast aisle really has my kids' number. They would think I was the best mom in the entire world if I would let them do all the grocery shopping from that one aisle. Frozen waffles, little pancakes, breakfast burritos and sausage sandwiches, they would go crazy. The thing is, breakfast foods are one of the absolutely easiest foods to prepare ahead of time, pop into the freezer and reheat later. 

Take a little bit of extra time one morning when you have it and made a double batch (heck! make a triple batch) of french toast sticks and freeze them. You'll be set with an easy re-heat breakfast that will have your kids thinking they are enjoying the high class dining of the frozen food aisle and you'll feel awesome knowing how healthy you are really feeding and your wallet will be feeling pretty fine too. 

Ingredients:

3 eggs

3/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon butter

1 tsp cinnamon

4 slices bread, each cut, lengthwise, into 4 pieces

confectioners' sugar (optional)

cinnamon-sugar (also optional)

butter and maple syrup (if you ask me, not optional at all!) 

Preparation:

Melt butter in skillet. (We make ours on a griddle because we cook large batches of them - even when we aren't freezing them)

Whisk eggs, milk, cinnamon and vanilla in bowl. Dip the bread in the bowl to soak.

 When the butter is hot and foamy, brown the soaked bread in the skillet.

Sprinkle with a little confectioners' sugar or a sugar and cinnamon blend and serve with butter and maple syrup

To store them, let the bread cool and then place in small freezer safe food storage bags. To reheat them, take out a portion of french toast sticks and heat in the microwave for 30 seconds to 1 minute depending on your microwave oven's power. 

Freezer Breakfast Sandwiches

It is officially that time of year! The Christmas of Motherhood - Back to School!!

I love the start of summer when it gets here and I love vacations and three-day-weekends, but when the ends of August rolls around it is back to school time, I am counting down the days like my kids wait for Santa Clause. 

Here is a super quick and pretty healthy breakfast option for those school mornings. Kids who eat breakfast do better in school, and mom's who have time to make that breakfast in the morning and few and far between. Almost all my kids are old enough to use the microwave and so these are the perfect option for us. 

It takes no more than 1/2 hour of time to cook, assemble and wrap about a dozen of these. You can find your own shortcuts once you have made them once or twice. You could even teach your kids how to make them and have them do it for themselves! ( I just thought of that one, and the brilliance of it has me reeling) 

Freezer Breakfast Sandwiches

12 English muffins

12 large eggs

12 slices Cheddar cheese

24 thin slices deli ham

salt and pepper

The trickiest part to these is cooking the egg. You can fry them in a pan easily enough, or if you have large muffin tins or ramekins you can bake them in the oven for 12-15 minutes. But we just cook ours in the microwave. 

Crack your egg into a glass bowl, add salt and pepper to taste and then whip it gentle with a fork. Microwave on high for 45 seconds to a minute depending on the strength of your microwave. (Once you have done one, you will know the exact time for your own microwave). 

Once your egg is cooked, give it a minute or two to cool down while you assemble your sandwich, English Muffin, Cheese and Two slices of Ham ( you can use bacon or a sausage patty if you would like, but we like ham here - and it is healthier that the other choices) then add your egg and wrap the whole thing up in plastic wrap. 

To reheat the sandwiches, remove the plastic wrap, microwave on a plate for 30 seconds, open the sandwich and cook for another 30 seconds. Total heat time will depend on microwave strength. It could take anywhere from 1-2 minutes to be completely cooked.

If you are so inclined these are great with salsa, ketchup or mustard. But you can eat them just like this and they are delicious too. 

Create an Omelet - Mexican Style

We did something a little special for breakfast this morning. At least it seemed "special" to me. I have never made an omelet before. I was shocked and pleasantly surprised at how easy it was. We are going to be having these a lot more often around here. 

Omelets are easy to make and there is no end to the ways that you can get creative with them. Let your kids pick and choose what they want in theirs or make everyone's the same it is completely up to you. 

I think the only tricky thing about making an omelet is that you have to have all your ingredients ready to go before you start cooking. Once the eggs hit the pan it is going to go pretty fast and you won't have time to start chopping veggies or get the cheese out of the fridge. So get all the yummy ingredients ready before you start cooking. If you want to pre-cook things like bacon, onion, mushrooms, or other meats now is the time to do it.

Crack your eggs into a small bowl and add 1 TB of water, this will help to make your eggs nice and fluffy. Whisk the egg / water mixture vigorously in incorporate as much air into the eggs as possible. Now is also the time when you want to add your salt, pepper and any herbs or seasonings. We added our green onions here. 

Heat your non-stick skillet over medium-high heat until a drop of water sizzles, but doesn't evaporate immediately. Then spray your pan with cooking spray. Add the eggs. Gently tilt your pan around so the eggs can spread out to the edges of the pan. 

Let the eggs begin to set and then start pulling the edges into the center of the pan and letting the uncooked eggs run out to the edges of the pan.  (This part will feel like a mess and you will worry that your omelet is going to really turn into scrambled eggs - Take Heart - You are doing amazing!) 

Once the eggs on the outer edges of the pan start to become cooked and the center begins to set add your toppings down the center of your omelet.  You don't want to fill it too full, even though you have decided on lots of delicious toppings. We add two slices of avocado, some black beans, cheese, and decided top it with salsa when we were done cooking it. 

Once you have your toppings down the center of your omelet just fold in each side (into thirds). And that is all there is too it! 

 You can top your omelet with anything you want. Salsa was what we choose, but I have heard of ketchup and BBQ sauce also being popular choices. (Really I have). You can also use at a topping or garnish some of the ingredients that you put into your omelet, say if you used come cilantro or parsley. 

 The ideas are almost infinite, but here are some suggestions from Food $ense Creates that you might want to try.


Ranch Style Omelet Filling
• Cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• Sliced mushrooms
• Diced red onion
• Fresh parsley
• Cheddar cheese
• Fat-free ranch dressing

Greek Style Omelet Filling
• Sliced mushrooms
• Sliced green onions
• Diced tomato
• Sliced olives
• Feta cheese

Garden Style Omelet Filling
• Sliced mushrooms
• Sliced yellow summer squash
• Sliced zucchini
• Diced red pepper
• Diced onion
• Parmesan cheese
• Basil and garlic powder (added to eggs