The Recipes

Mini Breakfast Pizzas

(Adapted from Eating Well Magazine)

For each person:
One-half of a whole wheat English muffin
1 egg
pizza sauce (optional)
2-3 pepperoni slices, turkey or otherwise (optional)
shredded mozzarrella cheese

1. For each breakfast serving, scramble one egg, plus one.  For example, to feed me and two boys, I scramble 4 eggs (3 eaters plus one extra).  Add a little milk in your bowl of eggs, whisk around, and put in a non-stick skillet in which 1 Tablespoon of butter has been melted.  Regardless of number of eggs, 1 Tablespoon will do.  Cook over low heat, turning and stirring constantly until not quite dry.

2. Spread optional pizza sauce generously over English muffin halves.

3. Pile scrambled eggs on top of sauce.  There may be some leftovers, and your dog will love you for it.

4. Place optional pepperoni over the eggs.

5. Sprinkle shredded cheese over the pepperoni.

6. Place under the broiler, not too hot, and WATCH CLOSELY.  This is where I get distracted and end up with blackened whatever.

7. Voila.  Fantastic breakfast and happy eaters.

Grandma's Christmas Fruit Salad
1 small can crushed pineapple, drained some
1 apple, peeled and cut into 1/4"  dice (not exact, just make it small)
1 banana, peeled and cut the same
1 orange, peeled and cut the same

I use a small serrated knife, like one used to peel tomatoes to cut the orange without losing too much juice.

1. Cut all the fruit very small and mix it with the crushed pineapple in a bowl.  Add more sugar than you think you ought.  For that amount, I think I added 1/2 cup, but maybe more.  Go ahead, put in a little more sugar and mix it all together.

2. Now cover the bowl and stick it in the refrigerator for a week and leave it.  All that sugar helps the fruit to ferment a little and get some tang.  That's what makes it.

Baked Apples
1.Take the peel off the top of the apples, about 1/4 way down.

2. Core the apples.  This is the hard part.  I used a melon baller to scoop out the core, leaving the base intact.  This worked well with the softer apple.

3. Place the apples in a pan with sides just big enough for them and fill them with the topping.

4. I put a little liquid on top, orange juice, but you could use cider, maybe some maple syrup, or just water.  Just a little liquid.

5. Put in 350 oven, covered for about 30 minutes and then uncover, check and return to oven until they are done to your liking.

6. Put the apples in bowls and spoon as much drippings as you like over the top.

Scrambled Eggs with Veggies
1. Find leftover veggies in your refrigerator that you think will go well with eggs. 

2. Mix together 1 egg per person plus one, and beat with a little milk.

3. Melt 1 tablespoon of either butter or bacon grease in a skillet. 

4. Stir your veggies around in the skillet to warm them up and get them softer if you want them softer.

5. Add the eggs, make sure the heat is on low, and cook, stirring gently.

6. Feel virtuous.

French Toast
1.  Beat the eggs with a little milk, and sprinkle with a little cinnamon.  Sometimes, I get fancy and add a little orange peel chopped up very finely to the egg mixture.

2. Soak the bread in the egg.  If it's squishy boughten bread, this will only take a few seconds.  If it's homemade or harder, stale bread, this will take a little longer.  You want the egg to permeate the bread, but not to the point of disintegrating it.

3. Rub some butter over your griddle after you have heated it up.  Place the soaked bread on the griddle and cook it until it's done, just like you'd do for a grilled cheese sandwich.

Steel-Cut Oats

This makes 3 generous servings or 4 measly servings

1. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan.

2. Add 1 cup of steel-cut oats, and turn the heat to medium.  Set the timer for 20 minutes, and give a stir every now and then.

3. During the first 10 minutes, you'll have time to cook your breakfast meat, pour juice, set the table, and set out the oatmeal toppings.

4. After about 10 minutes, you're going to need to be with the oatmeal.  Turn the heat down further, and stir pretty regularly, to keep it from sticking to the pan.

5. After the 20 minutes, turn off the heat, and let the oatmeal sit for a minute or two.

6. Pour into bowls, top with your toppings and cream or milk.  All we had in the house was 2% milk, and it was fine.

Smoothies
For two or three people

1 banana
Several serving spoonfuls vanilla yogurt (probably 3/4 cup total)
Fresh or frozen other fruit of your choice, about 1 cup (we used frozen mango today)
2-3 ice cubes if not using frozen fruit
Orange juice if needed
Optional ground flax seed or wheat germ for extra nutrition

1. Place the fruits, ground flax seed,  and yogurt in the blender and turn it on.  Hopefully your blender works better than mine.

2. If it seems too thick, add orange juice until it is of a consistency you like.

3. Pour into glasses, add straws, and FILL YOUR BLENDER WITH WATER.

4. Train your family members to fill their glasses with water after they are done with their smoothies.  Smoothie residue is the devil to clean after it dries on the blender and glasses.

Hopple Popple
to feed 4 with leftovers
  • 1 half of a long link of smoked turkey sausage, like Hillshire Farms, cut in half lengthways and then thinly sliced
  • 2 small potatoes, cooked (boiled or baked) and peeled
  • half of a small onion, diced very small
  • 4 eggs, beaten with a little milk
  • shredded cheese
1. Cook the sausage or other meat in a skillet until it is a little crispy.

2. Add some bacon grease (or butter or oil) if you need a little more grease.

3. Add the potatoes and onions and cook until the potatoes are getting some brown.

4. Add the eggs and be sure that the heat is on low.

5. Scramble it all together until the eggs are how you like them.

6. Top with cheese and mix that in.

Stillwater Bagels

1. For each bagel, spread both halves with cream cheese.  I like to use Neufchatel, as it's lower in fat.  And nowadays, I use whole wheat bagels.

2. Place 3 or so slices of thin, deli ham on one half and top with the other half.

3. Wrap in foil, and put in a 300 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

4. Have lots of napkins handy, unwrap, and enjoy!

Roughy

1. Take whatever fresh fruit you have on hand (I had oranges, apples, and bananas) and cut them into bite-sized chunks.  I didn't peel the apple, and no one protested.

2. Throw in some dried fruit.  I used a handful of dried cherries and a handful of dried cranberries.

3. Stir in enough vanilla yogurt to cover all the fruit well.

Creamed Eggs on Toast
From Betty Crocker
Feeds 4
  • 4 hard boiled eggs
  • 4 slices of toast
  • 2 Tablespoons butter
  • 2 Tablespoons flour
  • 1 cup milk
  • salt and pepper to taste
1. Boil your eggs, and when cool enough to handle, peel them and cut into quarters longways.  Put in a serving bowl.

2. Get your toast toasting.

3. Melt butter in saucepan and then stir in the flour.  Let it get just a tiny bit brown.

4. Add the milk and whisk around to prevent lumps.

5. Keep stirring until it thickens.

6. Add salt and pepper, and then pour the sauce over the eggs and stir gently.

7. Put your toast on a plate and top with eggs and sauce.

Sausage Gravy
biscuits (or bread torn up into little pieces - that's how we ate it growing up)
sausage, about half a pound
flour
milk

1. Make sure your sausage is not low fat.  You need the fat for the gravy.  If you don't have at least a Tablespoon of fat, just add some bacon grease.

2. Fry the sausage, breaking it up into small pieces.  When it is done, remove it to a plate lined with paper towel to absorb the grease.

3. In the grease left, and with the heat on low, add a little flour.  Stir it in, and add more until you have enough to make it kindof stiff.  This is all by feel and gets easier with practice.
 
4. .After you have gotten your flour stirred into the grease, add some milk, slowly.  keep stirring in more milk until the consistency is what you like.
5. Stir the sausage back into the gravy and put it all in a serving bowl.

Broiled Grapefruit


serves 1 or 2
  • 1 grapefruit, which has been stored in the fridge for that cold contrast
  • brown sugar, about 1/4 cup
  • butter, softened, about 2 Tablespoons
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1. Preheat your broiler

2. Cut the grapefruit in half.

3. Use a small serrated knife to cut the fruit away from the white part all the way around and also cut between each segment.  This makes for easy eating and takes 1 or 2 minutes.  It's worth the time.

4. Mix together the topping ingredients and spread over the cut grapefruit.  What I mixed together this morning wasn't quite enough to allow for a nice thick layer, so I just sprinkled a little more brown sugar on top.

5. Broil until the top is bubbly.

Crescent Rolls with Devilled Ham
makes 8
  • 1 can of crescent rolls
  • 1 4oz. can devilled ham
1. Preheat your oven to 375.

2. Separate the crescent rolls into 8 triangles.

3. Spread each triangle with devilled ham.  If you don't want it too thick, you don't have to use the whole can, but I do.
4. Roll up the crescent rolls starting at the large end of the triangle.

5. Bake for about 13 minutes.

Roast Beef Hash

Roast Beef Hashleftover roast beef
leftover carrots
leftover potatoes
leftover onions
leftover pan drippings or gravy

1. dice the beef and anything else you have into small pieces.

2. Put some kind of grease in a cast iron skillet.  Today, I used olive oil, but I could have used Crisco or bacon grease.

3. Add all the chopped up bits, plus gravy or drippings,  and then go get dressed, pour juice, set the table.  The point is that you want the stuff to just sit in place in the skillet for a bit to get browned.

4. Turn it and check it every now and then.  Add more liquid if needed.  When it is good and crusty on one side and warm through, serve.  Total time, no kidding, 10 minutes.

Apple Cran-Dowdy
Courtesy of King Arthur Whole Grain Baking Book

3/4 cup whole barley flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
6 TBSP. butter
2-4 TBSP. milk

Combine dry ingredients.  Cut in the butter until it is the size of small peas.  Add enough milk to make the dough hold together.  (For me, that was all 4 tablespoons.)  Shape into a disk, and refrigerate while you prepare the filling.

7 cups peeled, cored, chopped apples
1 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
pinch of salt
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup apple cider or apple juice
2 TBSP butter, cut into small pieces (I forgot to add this, and everything was FINE.)

Toss the apple slices with the cranberries in a large bowl.  Combine the brown sugar, spices, and salt, and add.  Pour the syrup and cider over the fruit and toss.  Put into buttered 9-inch square pan, and dot with butter.

Roll out crust to fit over the fruit.  Place it on top, and stick in a 350 degree oven.  Bake 50-55 minutes.  After it comes out of the oven, let it rest a few minutes, then cut the crust up, kindof turning it into the fruit.  Leave some large chunks, leave the edges alone, and leave some sticking up.