Do Ahead Breakfast Burritos

I cannot believe I have not posted this recipe earlier. It is based on a recipe I got from my super sweet mother-in-law. It makes about 50 breakfast burritos that you wrap in foil, put in zip loc bags and then warm up in the microwave. I like to keep them on hand for cold mornings when I want to give my boys something hot for breakfast but fast and easy. They are also great to have when company is coming. Everyone can quickly warm up their breakfast as they wake-up ... the early birds and the late sleepers all get a yummy hot breakfast.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year to you and yours.

Ingredients

50 soft flour tortillas (if you can find the kind that say "homestyle" they are soft enough that you don't have to butter the tortillas, saving you a step)

One Dozen Large Eggs

One Bunch of Green Onion Tops, Chopped (I use my kitchen scissors to cut them up)

1 Pound of Light Sausage

6 Pieces of Thick Bacon

2 Pounds of Shredded Hash Browns

Butter

Reynold Wrap foil sheets (come 50 to a box ... can be found with the foil and plastic wrap)

Shredded Cheese (optional)

1. In a large skillet brown the sausage. When it is finished, pour it out on a paper towel lined plate and let it sit. After the sausuage has drained, pat the top of the sausage with another paper towel to help absorb some more of the fat.

2. While the sausage is browning, cook your bacon in the microwave until crispy. Break into small pieces. Pour the drained sausage and the crumbled bacon into a LARGE bowl.

3. Put a couple of tablespoons of butter or canola oil in a skillet and pour the frozen shredded hashbrowns in the pan along with your cut up green onion tops. Stir and cook them until the hashbrowns are tender and a little browned. Add the cooked hashbrown and green onion mixture to your bacon and sausage mixture and mix well.

4. Crack a dozen eggs and beat them. Cook them until soft (not too hard) in a skillet. Add the scrambled egges to the hashbrown and meat mixture and mix well.

5. If you bought soft enough tortillas, you can skip this step. You know they are soft enough if you can roll them and they don't crack. If they crack when you roll them, put a stack of tortillas in the microwave and heat for about 30 seconds to a minute ... to where they are soft. Then butter the tortilla on both sides. Fill it with a small amount of egg, pototo and meat mixture. Add a little cheese if you like. Then put the loaded tortilla in the middle of a foil sheet. Bring a small amount of the right and left side towards the middle (maybe an inch or so). Then while holding the right and left sides in with your index fingers and middle fingers, roll the stuffed tortilla away from you with your thumbs. Hold the tortilla in a rolled position. Take the right side of the foil sheet and fold it in over the top of the rolled burrito. Fold the left side in over the rolled burrito. Roll the whole burrito up. Next time I make some, I'll take pictures fo the whole process and post some steps.

Once you get all 50 burritos rolled in foil, put them in some large ziploc bags. Store in the freezer and use in about 6 months. To reheat, take the foil off of the burrito and place the burrito on a microwave safe plate. Microwave at 60% power for about 2 minutes to 2 minutes and 20 seconds. Serve with salsa. I also have family members that love them queso on top, too.

Waffle Iron

This is for Jill or anyone else who might be wondering what kind of waffle iron I use to make my French Toast Waffles. The waffle iron I am using now is a $14 Belgian Waffle maker I picked up at Kroger on a whim. It makes the thick, and yet seemingly trendy, Belgian Waffle (my husband and I don't like these because they don't get crispy enough for our taste), but it works great to make the French Toast Waffles. My in-laws have one of those big $80 kind of Belgian waffle makers, and they have made this recipe successfully with that. My husband and I REALLY don't like the waffles made with these ... not that I won't eat them, mind you, I just don't like them as much as the classic, crispy waffles.

I want one of those old, classic waffle makers that my mom used to makes us waffles with. I've been too cheap to buy one of the classic ones, though ... they are usually about $50. Maybe I'll add that to my Christmas wish list this year. I see the one linked above is on sale for $30. I don't know how well the classic waffle maker would work on the waffles made with bread slices. It may work beautifully, I just don't know.

Anyway, there is the scoop on my waffle iron that I use to make French Toast Waffles.

Let me know if you've tried this recipe and how it turned out for you! :o)

French Toast Waffles

This is one of my boys' favorite breakfasts. Since we had extra time this morning, I made it for them and they were thrilled! I like this recipe because it is easy, I can use high fiber bread for the dairy poster boy, and making it in the waffle iron makes the bread much less soggy than normal French toast. My husband and I are probably the only two people in the world who don't like the over night French toast casserole everyone makes. We just really hate soggy bread! Yuck! If you are like us, you'll like this recipe because it gives you the flavor of French toast without being soggy.

INGREDIENTS

Bread (as many slices as you want ... I guess I usually make around 8 pieces with this and like I said I use double fiber bread. A friend made this for her niece who doesn't like whole wheat bread and she loved it until she came back for a second piece and saw my friend using wheat bread ... kids ... and some big people, too! :o)

2 eggs

3/4 to 1 cup of milk (I use 1%)

Cinnamon and nutmeg to taste

3 kitchen tablespoons of sugar (sorry I didn't measure with a real measuring spoon ... I normally don't measure at all)

1 tsp. of vanilla (I forgot to add that today, but they were still really good without it)

Preheat your waffle iron. Mine is big enough that I can do 2 at a time, but many waffle irons will only be big enough to do one at time. Beat the eggs, milk, sugar, and cinnamon and nutmeg together. Dip your bread into the mixture to coat it. Open your waffle iron and spray it with cooking spray. Put your egg mixture coated bread on the iron, close it and cook it until desired doneness. If you like your bread soggy, don't cook it as long, if you like it crispier, cook it a little longer.

I top it with light butter and sugar free Mrs. Butterworth syrup. The sugar free Mrs. Butterworth brand is the BEST sugar free syrup I've ever eaten ... this is not an advertisement, I just really like this syrup. (There are several types of food that I have to have only one certain brand. I may list those one day.) This sugar free syrup is thick and doesn't have as bad of an artificial sweetener twang to it as some do. Being thick and not watery helps a bunch, too. Yummy! The kids don't know the difference and it cuts WAY down on their sugar consumption.

Whole Wheat Banana Bread

Do you ever have bananas that end up looking like this to the left? Don't throw them away, make them into something beautiful and yummy, like this loaf of bread. You can even freeze them until you are ready to make some bread. I wish you could smell how WONDERFUL my house smells right now.

My kids love bananas, so they rarely stick around long enough to get to this state, but this bunch did. I have a GREAT recipe for Whole Wheat Banana Bread that I got from the Recipe Zaar website. A funny thing about this recipe is that I've been making this since last summer when I found it. When I looked today on the page to see where it came from, I noticed that the recipe was submitted by Kelly Vaughn. I have a friend named Kelly Vaughn. I don't know if this is the same Kelly, but it would certainly show what a small world we live in if it was! Is this you, Kelly? Anyway, here is the yummy recipe the way I make it. Of course, I've done my own thing to it! :o)

Ingredients

1/2 cup of butter melted (one stick)
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs
3 medium extra ripe bananas (about 1 to 2 cups mashed)
1 tsp. of vanilla (I forgot to put this in my original post!)
1 cup of all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. of salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of whole wheat flour
1/3 cup of hot water
1/2 cup of chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Put the melted butter, sugar, bananas, vanilla and eggs in a blender. Blend until smooth. In a separate bowl, stir together the flours, salt and baking soda with a wire whisk. Pour the banana mixture into the flour mixture and mix until moistened. Add the hot water and stir. Stir in chopped nuts if you are using them. Spray a loaf pan well with cooking spray. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake it in the 325 degree oven for and hour and 10 minutes. If the top starts getting too brown before the middle is done, cover it with foil.

Here's another tip if you have and old gas oven like I do (I love cooking on the stove top with gas and won't do it any other way ... don't like cooking in a gas oven). I have to really watch my oven or it gets too hot. I suggest everyone, whether they have a gas or electric oven, get an oven thermometer. I noticed that the top and sides were getting extra brown but when I stuck a knife in the middle, it was still batter-y. So, I just turned the oven off with 24 minutes to go and put the loaf back in. By the time the timer went off, it was done in the middle and not over cooked on the outside. That is just a little trick for my oven ... don't know about yours, but if you often burn stuff, you might try that ... and ALWAYS set the timer for 5 minutes earlier than a recipe says it will take to be done. I've saved many a dish by doing this.

Mexican Breakfast

Can you tell I'm from Texas with all of this Tex Mex food!? :o) I love Mexican food the way it is done in Texas. Anyway, I got this recipe from Amy Landry who got it from her mom and I don't know where she got it, but it is WONDERFUL! I've made it a couple of times when we have had overnight guests, and it is ALWAYS a big hit!

Ingredients

1 cup of sour cream
1 can cream of mushroom soup
4 oz. can of chopped green chilies
2 T. LaVictoria green chili salsa (I've used other brands of green chili salsa and it works fine ... LaVictoria brand is hard to find around here)
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. ground coriander
Combine the above for sauce

1 pound Jimmy Dean hot sausage (can do half bacon and half sausage)
2 T. butter
7 eggs beaten
1/4 c. cottage cheese
1 T. chopped parsley
1/4 C. chopped green onions
12 buttered flour tortillas
2 C. shredded Mexican cheese blend

Brown and crumble the sausage. Drain on paper towels. Melt butter in the same skillet, add eggs and cottage cheese. Add parsley and green onion. Cook until lightly set (the eggs should be pretty gooey). Add sausage and 2 T. of the sauce to the egg mixture. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spread a small amount of the sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Divide filling and roll into buttered tortillas (the number of tortillas you use depends on how fat you stuff them :o) but you can probably get about 12 out of this). Arrange rolled tortillas in a single layer. Top with the rest of the sauce. Cover with grated cheese and bake for 30 to 45 minutes.

You can prepare this dish the night before and refrigerate it. Cover it with foil and bake for 30 minutes and then uncover and bake for another 15 minutes. It won't take as long to cook if it hasn't been in the refrigerator. You can also use 1/2 bacon and half sausage.

Low Fat Migas

No one has actually asked me for this recipe, which is funny that it is the first recipe I'm posting here. But, I had it for breakfast today, and it is SO good! Also, if you are doing WeightWatchers, it is only 6 points, and it gets in BOTH of your healthy oils for the day.

2 corn tortillas
2 tsp. of extra virgin olive oil (evoo)
1/4 c. of chopped onions or to taste (I use frozen chopped onions)
1/2 c. of drained Rotel tomatoes (or to taste ... less if you like it less spicy or use mild Rotel)
3 egg whites
1/4 c. of 2% shredded cheese

Before you get started, here's a tip. Get your egg whites ready (if you are actually using eggs and not a carton of egg whites) and get your tomatoes ready, too. Open the can and drain them.

1. Heat the evoo in a small skillet over a medium flame.
2. Tear the tortillas into small pieces and fry them until they are firm but not burned.
3. This is where I add my frozen chopped onions. If you are using fresh, go ahead and add them. Cook the onions until they are soft (quicker if you are using frozen onions)
4. Add the Rotel tomatoes. (Here's a tip ... if you are out of Rotel tomatoes, you can use chunky salsa ... won't be quite as good but it works) Cook and stir until warmed.
   
5. Add the egg whites and stir until cooked (firm).
6. Serve the Migas on a plate and sprinkle with the 1/4 c. of 2% cheese. Let it melt and add salsa if you want an extra kick!

This makes a LOT of food and could serve two if you add fruit, toast or ham on the side.