Pintember: Crock-pot Breakfast

Since today was the first day of school, I decided to make breakfast for the boys. Most mornings they fend for themselves. (Especially the one with the 6:58 am pick up, he's always on his own!) But since I'm not a morning person I decided to crock pot it. My husband wasn't quite sure why I bothered...but then, he's not a Jewish mom! The guilt comes along with the job!

I had pinned several crock-pot breakfasts but I wasn't thrilled with any of them. So...I kind of combined a few. I took the ideas mostly from these...I think...

This recipe from:

Source: recipe4living.com via Samantha on Pinterest

and this one:

Source: kalynskitchen.com via Samantha on Pinterest

I have also had a lot of experience just throwing together egg stratas. But today I wanted it to be gluten free, so I decided to leave out the bread. I wasn't wasting expensive gluten free bread on 3 people who would not appreciate it! 

My biggest problem was that I had never made an egg dish in a crock pot or over night. When I was trolling trough the recipes (and their comments) I found that most over night egg dishes tend to dry out and over cook or burn. So since I am all about convenience, I put some frozen additions to the pot hoping that it would slow down the cooking even more than just putting it on low. My pot does not have a "warm" setting. I also made sure to reduce the milk added to the eggs since I knew that my food would defrost and add extra moisture to the dish. 

I was still so paranoid that I was going to ruin breakfast that every time I woke up last night, I went to check on it. I had turned it on at around 10 pm and ended up turning off...I think...around 3 am. I then came down at 6 am to turn it back on so it would be warm for everyone to eat. 

When my husband was serving himself breakfast he said I was kind of defeating the purpose for having put it in the crock-pot in the first place. He gave me a great idea...Get a timer for it! I'll have it turn on in the middle of the night by itself! Genius!

This is what I finally came up with...

Crock-pot Baked Eggs (serves 4, generously)

8 large eggs

1/2 cup milk (I used skim, If using fresh vegetables and meat add a little more milk)

1/2 tsp dried basil

1/2 tsp dried minced toasted onion flakes

1/2 tsp dried chives

dash granulated garlic

sea salt and pepper to taste

1 c chopped ham, frozen (I used leftover ham steak)

1/2 c chopped sweet red peppers, frozen

1 c chopped spinach, frozen

1 sm finely chopped onion, fresh

1-1/2 c shredded pizza cheese (mine had mozzarella and provolone)

1) Place eggs, milk and seasonings in medium mixing bowl. Whisk well. (I hate when I have scrambled eggs that have a bit of white in them!)

2) Spray crock-pot dish really well with cooking spray.

3) Layer veggies, cheese and meat in pot. I alternated with the eggs. (I wanted to make sure I had enough egg mixture to cover the extras.)

4) Place in crock in crock-pot on low for 5 hours.

5) Maybe, make yourself a piece of toast...and enjoy! 

Oh...and all of my seasonings (but the salt) came from Penzey's Spices! I love this place! And just so you know...the catalog is very worth having in hand! It has recipes and it tells you what each of the seasoning are used for.

Salty

Oh come on...really!!!

I was making cheesy grits for breakfast. Yes, grits. Hey, the lady that helped my parents raise me was southern born. And I love grits!

First of all, I was starving before. It was already after 10 am when I started.

Everything was going great until I went to put salt in and the lid fell off...over the stove, of course!

[This isn't the worse part...I had already started to clean up...only because I didn't know what was going to happen if I burned the salt.]

It made a huge mess! 


Half of the kitchen floor, 3/4's of the stove (only 'cuz there was junk on the other burner), and all around the counter.

So I had to test my luck...Is it salty?

Yup! It tasted like ocean water. OK, it really is time to dump it and start over. At least it wasn't tonights dinner!

OK...I'm still hungry! But I needed to wait for the grits to solidify before I could toss them in the garbage without making another mess.

Sure...when I don't want them to get solid, they do...

Now, they take forever! 


Really?!? Come on!

Do SomeTHING: day 8.5

Well...

My dinner actually came out and I got compliments all around!

I didn't think to take any pics.

But, I started with leftover grilled chicken that had been marinated in a mix of lemon vinaigrette and basil pesto.

To that I added (mind you, thrown together without looking in a cookbook):

*Cauliflower (frozen) lightly cooked and doctored up with garlic lemon, olive oil and Italian seasoning (the seasonings actually made the frozen veggies taste great)
*White rice (yes white, D won't eat brown) cooked in chicken broth
*Onions caramelized in olive oil with a touch of butter salt and pepper
*and finally red, yellow and orange peppers sauteed in olive oil.

*...each of those to be combined to however the eater preferred.

I think Pete said to me twice..."This is a really good dinner!"

Hooray! I can't remember when that happened last.

Oh...and the topper...I only used two pots! It's the first time I've made a nice dinner and Pete did not complain about how many pots I used!

Do SomeTHING: day 8

Today's someTHING was going to be cooking...only it ended up being a big cleaning project instead.

Really? Ugg!

Instead...

I had to dump the onion skins out of the crisper. Then I had to look to see if there was dust/crumbs on the floor of the fridge. Instead, I found a hard, stuck on mess on the back of the fridge. It must have been  a really old spill that either nobody noticed or thought that it just needed a little bit of wiping up on a higher shelf. I couldn't just leave it could I? Of course not!

First, I tried some "409". Then I thought that the "Mr Clean Eraser" was going to be my best friend...NOPE!

OK...will it scrape off?

Yes, thank you!

It all started out because I just wanted to start some onions caramelizing to try to make some leftover chicken a little more interesting.

Now...a half hour later, I finally have two clean crisper drawers, a clean shelf (thank goodness they are glass or the mess would have been even worse) and the back wall and floor of the refrigerator are sparkling clean. But still no caramelized onions!

I guess I better get to chopping some onions!

Do SomeTHING: day 3

Today's idea was D's. He wanted matzo brei for breakfast.


I'm going to cheat a little in today's post. I found a fabulous set of instructions on the Gothamist.com. These instructions have great pictures. Click on Gothamist to see them.

I make mine a little differently. I break up the matzos first (before moistening them) and I don't use pepper .


D loved It. We eat it with just plain granulated sugar...and it's delish!


P.S. D helped my write up this blog today...including all of the images and links.


Thanks D!



Do SomeTHING is a month long of creativity, project finishing, exploration, and imagination.  What was your THING for today?  Leave your link in the comments for us all to see.

Peaches

What do you do with over-ripe peaches? On a cool summer morning?

Make peach cobbler!

Of course I didn't have enough peaches so...I threw in a nectarine and a few plums.

I just need to put the crumb topping on.

Then...YUM!

Thing a Day:15

I know that I have skipped a bunch of days but I am trying to get back on track...

My thing on the 15th was to take a trip to my local Penzey's Spice store (with my husband).

My husband, Pete, decided that his Valentine's Day Present to me would be to take the day off from work to spend with me. I love spending the day with my hubby...even if it's just running errands. But this errand was special and fun for both of us.

This store is full of spices and herbs...and you get to smell each and every one of them. You get attacked at the door with the conglomeration (is that actually a real word?) of smells.

The best part of shopping there...and finding a new seasoning is that you will be able to make different kinds of dishes and flavors that you couldn't before. Now it is time to do 2 more "things". They will be coming in the next few days. (1) Re-organize the spice cabinet so that we can find everything. (2) Search for new recipes that we'd like to try. Hopefully D will eat at least some of them.

Everyone should take a look at the catalog. (Clicking on the picture of the catalog will get you to the page to order a catalog.) We have been using their products for about 10 years and we love 'em.