A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Jiffy Mix Cornbread Breakfast Egg Casserole

 

  Mmmmm....weeeknd breakfast casseroles.  They can range from the greasy to the sublime and I have to say this is one of my favorites.  Quick and easy to put together, I have have a few tricks to make it go even faster.

This little gem is an easy mix of breakfast sausage patties, hashbrowns, sweet bell pepper, onion, eggs...and cornbread! Yes, cornbread.  The best part about it is that you can pull the sausage and hashbrowns from the freezer and the cornbread doesn't have to be pre-baked so the whole thing can be prepped and in the oven in about 10 minutes.

It's a great combo of savory, sweet, eggy goodness perfect for a lazy Saturday or Sunday morning at home.  Makes 10-12 servings but our house, we love it so much, it's more like 4-6 servings!

Other great baked egg breakfasts:

Paula Deen's Artichoke Frittata: Sunday morning with the Nieces

Classic Quiche Lorraine for Breakfast

Scotch Eggs

Easy Baked Custard with Caramel Sauce

 Baked Custard... one of my top comfort foods since I was a kid.  Baked custard is very similar to the caramel flan found in Mexican restaurants, although good caramel flan usually has a crunchy sugar coating on top rather than a caramel sauce topping.

This recipe is very quick and easy to put togetherr and makes for a great dessert warm or cold. 

Halloween: Spider's Eggs and Halloween Roundup

These Spider Eggs were a huge Halloween hit. They're easy to make but they do take a little time so if you're making a couple dozen, be sure  to allow yourself and hour to place the spiders. A tiny bit tedious but very cute and a great appetizer table showstopper! Worth it!

To make:  Make Devilled Eggs, adding any food paste coloring you want.

Using a small can of small whole olives, cut olive in half to make spider bodies.  Then for the legs, cut olives in half and the cut the halfs into thin slivers.  Place by hand or using tweezers.  Chill 1-2 hours before serving.

Other fun stuff from the evening:

Mini jack-o-lanters "puking"  Spinach Dip. Gross, but fun for Halloween!

Hagatha our Halloween Table wich looking over the spread, including the Candy/Pretzel Witch's Fingers the kids (and adults too) loved.

Monster Cookies from Aunti Miranda. So cute. So...sugary! Niece Sydney and I split one towards the end of the night and, boy howdy, were our tongues bright red and green for an hour!

Fruit Rice Krispy Squares--follow the regular recipe using Fruity rice krispy.  So yummy!

The spread...well...part of it. The part you don't see is the huge crockpot of chili with all the fixin's on the stove and the jack-o-lanter pepperoni pizzas from Papa Murphy's coming out of the oven every 20 minutes.  I don't think anyone left hungry or without a smile. 

Lazy Sunday Morning: Classic Quiche Lorraine for Breakfast

After all the rain and thunderstorms last night followed by a late night of movie-watching and gloriously sleeping in to a chilly fall morning, eggs seemed to fill the bill of fare this morning.  Not just any eggs, not plain scrambled or even the richness of dipping toast into the rich yolks of fried eggs over easy, but the cheesy, bacony goodness of the classic Quiche Lorraine.  With pre-cooked bacon and previously rolled pie crust in the freezer, shredded parmesan in the fridge, and a couple of green onions in the crisper, it took less than five minutes to beat the eggs along with the other ingredients and pour them into the pie shell--so worth it this morning! 

Copycat Benihana Fried Rice

 Just like a kid, I love having dinner at Japanese steakhouses like Benihana but sometimes I want the rice and/or veggies without the 1 1/2 hour program and all that food in the different courses.  When I have the desire but not the patience, I make my own at home.  Chicken Fried Rice is a great one-pot meal in the style of Jambalaya or other stove-top one-potters.

Easier and faster than it looks, just think about how quickly those Japanese chefs whip up the fried rice before moving on to the steak/chicken/shrimp entree.  And the leftovers are great for lunch the next day or my work lunchbox.

 

Holiday Deliciousness: Panettone Bread Pudding with Orange Rum Sauce

 

 

 It's only five months until Christmas! Yes, I know we still have tons of triple digit days left to go--that's why I'm thinking about Christmas!  Without being a begger, it sure would be nice ot have a crisp, cool fall this year, or any fall. But enough of my whining.  I'm showcasing this recipe today to remind myself to "Giddyup", start knitting those Christmas presents and as hope that this heat will end. Some day.  Probably somewhere over the rainbow or something. In the meantime, mark this one for your holiday season this year because it's one of my favorite bread puddings.

I used pannettone, an Italian Christmas egg bread made with raisins and citrus, but any sweet egg bread or Christmas bread such as stollen will work beautifully.

By the way, there are no nutrition counts for this one....because I'd like to continue enjoying it.

Halloween Food: Eyeball Rice Cereal Treats, Devil's Eye Eggs, Blood Clot Cranberry Dip, and I See You Meatballs

Bwahahahaha! Halloween--my very favorite holiday!  And a family favorite as well. No matter how old "our" kids get, this will always be our tradition: get together at Aunt Gonnie and Uncle Gene's house, eat great creepy food, dress up or dress down, take any little ones trick-or-treating the neighborhood and just hang out..

This year our creepy food was all eyeball in theme. We didn't really plan it that way but as the eyeballs piled up we just kept running with them it:  Gummy Eyeball Rice Cereal Treats,  Devil's Eye Eggs,  Blood Clot Cranberry Dip, I See You Meatballs, and just for fun, the un-eye-ball Mexican Villa Cheese Dip and Chips. There was also two crockpots full of chili and a few others goodies on the table like spinach dip, witch's pretzel/candy fingers, etc.    

 

 And now for recipes....

Scotch Eggs: It's What's for Breakfast

I first heard of and tasted Scotch Eggs at a Renaissance Festival near Kansas City with my cousin Ann. We both reacted "No way! This is so cool!"  And tasty too!  It's a great way to use up leftover hard-boiled eggs and a great presentation for company.  I also like, especially for company, that they can be prepped in advance and finished quickly for a charming presentation. 

It's Not That Complicated: Julia Child's Croques Monsieur/Croques Madame

 

While watching the movie "It's Complicated" on cable recently I found myself salivating at Meryl Streep's character's chocolate croissants, roasted chicken dinner, and something I'd never heard of before: Croques Monsieur.  In the movie she serves it to Steve Martin's character on a business-ish date while "hilarity ensues" from Alec Baldwin's character as he window peeps on them.  The dish, that they ate with knife and fork, appeared to have been baked and looked creamy and cheesy melty.  She makes reference to having learned to make this dish while in France studying pastry and the reference is repeated by Alec's character talking about how much he misses this dish and how special it was to him.

I thought to myself "Self, you need to investigate, create, and blog this wonderful cheesy thing they're spreading Dijon mustard on and eating with a knife and fork."  As myself often listens to me, I did, and I found that, like my polenta adventure, I was pretty familiar with the dish and remembered how much I liked it:  Grilled Ham & Cheese Sandwich.  That's the basic form and I've included that stripped down bare bones version as Julia Child made it.  There are gussied up versions that include baking in the oven rather than grilling in a pan, and added vegetables, eggs, and sauces, but the basic idea of the Croque Monsieur, or "Crispy Mister" is a Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwich that was originally served in France in casual bistros around 1910 and has survived ever since. Why? Because it's yummy!  The key difference between a Croque and it's American cousin would be quality of ingredients.  It eschews Wonder Bread for a nice homemade loaf, Kraft American Slices for gruyere or Havarti or Swiss, and a nice ham slice. 

Crispy, hot, and cheesy, it's yummy comfort food with an exotic name.

Not Always a Dessert: Ham & Swiss Bread Pudding with Tarragon Mustard Sauce

 

When I think of bread pudding, I think of a wonderfully sweet creamy concoction created out of bread, eggs, sugar, spices and fruit.  But last night I stepped out of the plane of usual and created a  wonderfully creamy SAVORY bread pudding using that same base of cubed stale French bread and eggs, but added ham, celery, carrot, and savory spices that I served with a tarragon mustard sauce.  It was a huge hit in our house.  It has the down home tastiness of a ham and cheese casserole but with a little more downtown taste of the tarragon mustard sauce. This will be on our table again and again!

One of the great things about this recipe is that it's very versatile in the ingredients it will take to make a wonderful dish. I call recipes like this "This or That" recipes, meaning you can use this or that or some other thing and still make it turn out very well which comes in handy when you have, like the title of this blog, a fridge full of food...but not necessarily every exact ingredient for a certain recipe.