Father's Day Breakfast

On Saturday I made breakfast that was delicious; pancakes, fruit and the best bacon ever! On Father's Day Brian requested Egg's Benedict, and I must say it was another fantastic meal. Brian said, "That was a great $30 breakfast, only at home!" The eggs are from my aunt Peggy, she has about 40 chickens and whenever I see her she gifts me the most delicious eggs. And thanks to this video, on how to poach the perfect egg I must say I was able to whip this all out rather quickly. I only took 30 minutes because the home fries take that long, untouched, in the oven! The strawberries are from our CSA, and maybe from our neighborhood foraging (there is a big strawberry patch planted in front of our neighborhood, that I am convinced no one picks but me! I have picked in the last two weeks 12 cups worth! I have even made a small batch of strawberry rhubarb jam in my bread maker from these free berries! That will come later in a post!) And the berries were dressed with honey from my CSA, a new feature this year that is just to die for!

Look at that egg!

When I was a little kid I thought this breakfast was so gross, of course that was only from afar I had never tried it. I would like to think that had I only tried it I would have fallen in love with this dish much sooner, but alas it wasn't until I was an adult that I truly understood that truly great qualities of this dish. Now my daughter on the other hand, doesn't have my hang ups, she dives right in with both hands, literally! Who says three old's are picky eaters!

**See previous posts on roasted potatoes for the recipe.

Fresh, Quick, WW Friendly Dinner after meeting

So at this point I have lost 15 lbs with weight watchers, steady as she goes, I am losing a little over 2 lbs a week at this point (I maintained at Thanksgiving, and the week I went to Vegas and the week prior we had a snow storm that cancelled our meeting so I missed two weeks of weigh ins but still lost 6 lbs!). So a couple of weeks ago I came home from a meeting, mine are late on Monday's so Molly and daddy fend for themselves, and I was hungry at this point so I need a quick meal. I created a quick breakfast sandwich and salad. Just a few quick tips on making a perfect, "Why go to the fast food joint anyway?" sandwich.

Breakfast Sandwich (WW friendly)

Prep time: 5 minutes

WW pts: 6 pts

1 whole wheat English Muffin

1 egg

1 slice Canadian Bacon

1-2 slice tomato

1 slice American Cheese (preferably WW brand - low in points)

*Will need baking spray, & ramekin

1. Toast English Muffins (I use a toaster oven... you will see why this is important in a moment)

2. Spray the inside of a fairly large ramekin, and crack an egg into the ramekin. Using a fork, lightly scramble the egg (helps to not explode egg in the microwave) salt & pepper to taste. Pop into the microwave and cook for 30 seconds. If egg is not cooked at this point cook at 5-10 second intervals until done.

3. Slice tomato and unwrap cheese, as toast is almost done add the Canadian bacon right on the rack in the toaster oven to warm through and slightly crisp.

4. Assemble your sandwich, slice of cheese on top of egg, on top of bacon, and a slice of tomato. DONE!

One of my sorority sisters always used to make fun of me because I have ever size ramekin known to man but you wouldn't believe how much they come in handy! I love them!

This salad had a quick and easy dressing with it. Overall it was a lite and tasty meal!

Weight Watcher's Mushroom Omlet

I wanted to try this at some point this weekend, let's face it I don't have time to cook something like this on a weekday when I am trying to get everyone out the door in time. I decided to make it for lunch on Sunday. It was delicious!

Mushroom Omelet:
For Mushrooms
4 oz sliced crimini mushrooms
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
For Omelet
1 egg white
1 whole egg
mushrooms
2 tbsp reduced fat cheddar cheese
1 green onion, sliced
1. saute mushrooms in olive oil, add butter and Worcestershire sauce till mushrooms cook through.
2. Scramble eggs, spray pan, add to small fry pan and let cook almost through.
3. When eggs are set add mushrooms, & cheese to one side of omelet. With a heat resistant spatula turn over  one side of omelet onto ingredients and cover with a teaspoon of water to steam the cheese through without scorching egg.
4. Turn out onto plate and top with green onions.

Saturday Morning Breakfast (Eggs Benedict?)

During the week in the classroom I had a couple of classes that we were talking about poached eggs, believe it or not a lot of my students had no idea what I was talking about! I was talking about them so much they were really on my mind, so I made them this weekend. This is old fashioned I did not use any silicone poaching cups I literally just dumped them into water with a touch of vinegar. I didn't have English muffins, I had toast, and I didn't have Canadian bacon but I had regular bacon. I worked with what was in my fridge for this spur of the moment thing. So we had eggs Benedict of a sort, poached eggs on top of bacon, on top of toast, with a bit of Hollandaise (not from scratch - it was a mix packet I hate to admit) and a sprinkle of paprika to top it off. Overall I knocked this out in under 20 minutes. The bacon I tried to get Brian to do on the grill so I wouldn't have bacon smell permeating my house all day but he didn't want to. So I did the bacon in the microwave, toast in the toaster oven, Hollandaise in a sauce pan on the stove as the water is boiling for the eggs. I did put in a cap-ful of vinegar in the water, I don't know if this really matters to the egg or not, but I like the flavor it imparts. I have embraced the poached egg, they cam out great! YUM, runny golden yoke. My daughter loves bacon, she loved the sauce (probably not the healthiest thing on earth but she ate it! It was whole wheat toast, and the sauce was made with soy milk but still it had a 1/4 cup of butter in it and she was dipping her bacon in it!)

Lunch Time, & Breakfast for Dinner

I had a mini-tub of whipped sun dried tomato cream cheese from Noah's Bagels and it was just sitting in my fridge and I wanted to use it before it went bad. I was thinking pasta sounded pretty good. So I boiled up some noodles added a little bit of sauce from a jar, and a couple tablespoons of this cream cheese. Has anyone tried this? So creamy and tasty, you must try it for an easy pasta dish for lunch or dinner. Some extra Parmesan cheese and ta-da!

I didn't really want to cook anything last night so I thought... hmmm... what can I whip up fairly fast? I made the decision to go with breakfast for dinner. This brings me back to nights from my childhood when my dad had a late credit union board meeting and Mom and I were on our lonesome, mom always made it seem like we were getting away with something by having breakfast for dinner. My dad always helped too by seeming so upset that he missed out because he had to be at a meeting.

Now is there anyone else out there that likes bacon but doesn't particularly like the smell that lingers in the house? Well I am not going to take credit for this one, my mom decided to do this one morning when we were at their house and I thought it was pure genius. You know how I am always talking about using my BBQ for most anything I can, but have you ever thought about cooking bacon on it? Yes, you read it right, bacon on the grill. I am sure you are saying, wait wouldn't that start a grease fire or something? Well this is how you avoid that: you line a cookie sheet (one with a lip) with tin foil for easy clean up. I like to put in a cooling rack so that the bacon isn't sitting in it's own grease, and then line up your bacon on the cooling rack and place in the BBQ. You don't even need to turn it, just watch it for your desired doneness (I like mine extra crispy but not burnt). And when you are finished, carefully bring the bacon inside, but the best part... that lingering bacon smell stays outside! Genius, pure, genius!

For the eggs I used fresh parsley, leeks (cooked in a touch of olive oil before I added the eggs to soften, and I used these because I have a bunch to use from my CSA bag) garlic powder, and salt & pepper to taste. They also had a sprinkling of mozzarella after they were fully cooked, delish! These pancakes were made with my pre-mixed pancake mix, see the recipe by clicking here.

**Side note yes those are those horrendous sausages that we all know and love, they were bought for a camp out and didn't get used... no excuses...but this is in super fine print so you get how I feel about it! HA HA HA!

Mother's Day

I have mother's radar like no other, if my child is up I know it. If she is crying, I can hear her no matter how hard I try not to. Like this morning my husband got up at 6:20 am, of course after I prodded him awake because he could sleep through a tordnado (when my water broke for instance he went back to sleep three times! THREE TIMES! Before he realized that yes indeed the baby was coming and he needed to get up). He was doing this to allow me to sleep in obviously, which was very difficult for me to do, Molly was a bear this morning. I thought I was getting breakfast in bed, in fact I kept having all these totally weird dreams one of which was that my husband brought me breakfast and I just left it on the side table and fell back asleep. I eventually got up close to 8:00am which for me is SLEEPING IN! My husband made me French Toast, fresh strawberries with honey on them (his own little touch) and some sausage. Now when you see this plate of food I would like to point out that I only ate half of it, it was monstrous, he cut our homemade bread into Texas toast siced slices.