Six-Week Bran Muffins

This recipe brought back a lot of memories when I came across it in my old recipe notebook.  I think this recipe is about 20 years old because I remember it being really popular among many of my friends when my kids were very young.  This recipe makes a huge batch of batter that you store in the fridge for up to six weeks.  When you are ready for a quick and easy breakfast, just make however many you want, serve with some fresh fruit and you are ready for the day.  These muffins are incredibly moist and flavorful and when you have a batch in the fridge, you always have something to serve surprise visitors.

1 12 oz box Raisin Bran cereal

2 tsp salt

3 cups sugar

5 cups flour

5 tsp baking soda

4 eggs, beaten

1 cup vegetable oil

1 quart buttermilk

Instructions:

In a large bowl, mix the cereal, salt, flour, sugar and baking soda.  Add eggs, oil and buttermilk to mixture.  Mix well and put in a large covered container. You can store this mix in the fridge for up to six weeks.  When ready to bake, heat oven to 400 degrees and fill greased muffin pans 2/3 full; bake for 15-20 minutes.  They can also be baked ahead of time and frozen in zipper top bags.

Breakfast Enchiladas

This recipe has a very funny story behind it.  It is very common for Geoff and I to make 3 to 4 recipes on a Sunday afternoon and then put them up in the freezer for later use.  One day we made 2 trays of chicken enchiladas, 2 trays of breakfast enchiladas and 2 trays of Baked Ziti.  When it came time to put them in the freezer, we covered them with foil and labeled them.  One morning, when we had our extended family visiting, I pulled out a tray of breakfast enchiladas and stuck them into the oven.  An hour later, we all sat down to breakfast to find that I had mislabeled the pans and my breakfast enchiladas were in fact the chicken enchiladas.  Everyone had a good laugh over this and then proceeded to eat them anyway!

Ingredients:

1  (1-pound) package hot ground pork sausage

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

4  green onions, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

14  large eggs, beaten

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

Cheese Sauce (See recipe below)

8  (8-inch) flour tortillas

1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Monterey Jack cheese with jalapeños

Toppings: halved grape tomatoes, sliced green onions, chopped fresh cilantro

Directions:

Cook sausage in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, stirring until sausage crumbles and is no longer pink. Remove from pan; drain well, pressing between paper towels.

Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add green onions and cilantro, and sauté 1 minute. Add eggs, salt, and pepper, and cook, without stirring, until eggs begin to set on bottom. Draw a spatula across bottom of pan to form large curds. Continue to cook until eggs are thickened but still moist; do not stir constantly. Remove from heat, and gently fold in 1 1/2 cups Cheese Sauce and sausage.

Spoon about 1/3 cup egg mixture down the center of each flour tortilla; roll up. Place, seam side down, in a lightly greased 13- x- 9-inch baking dish. Pour remaining Cheese Sauce evenly over tortillas; sprinkle evenly with Monterey Jack cheese.

Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until sauce is bubbly. Serve with desired toppings.

 

Cheese Sauce:

• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/3 cup flour
• 3 cups milk
• 2 cups (8 ounces) shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1  (4.5-ounce) can chopped green chiles, undrained
• 3/4 teaspoon salt

Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over medium-low heat; whisk in flour until smooth. Cook, whisking constantly, 1 minute. Gradually whisk in milk; cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, 5 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat, and whisk in remaining ingredients.

Breakfast Pizza

This recipe is great for a weekend breakfast or even a “Breakfast for Dinner” night.  I clipped this recipe out of a Cooking Light magazine many years ago and have enjoyed it many times over the years.  The original recipe called for Turkey sausage and egg beaters, but I’m not a fan of either so I modified the recipe to my liking.

Ingredients:

1 can crescent rolls

Cooking spray

1 lb breakfast sausage

1 cup frozen shredded hash browns, thawed

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 cup milk

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp black pepper

4 eggs

2 Tbs fresh parmesan cheese

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 375

2.  Separate dough into triangles.  Press triangles together to form a single round crust on a 12-inch pizza pan coated with cooking spray.  Crimp edges of dough with fingers to form a rim.

3.  Cook sausage in a large sillet over medium heat until browned, stirring to crumble.

4.  Top prepared dough with sausage, potatoes, and cheese.  Combine milk, salt, pepper, and egg substitute, stirring with a whisk.  Carefully pour milk mixture over sausage mixture.  Sprinkle with parmesan and bake at 375 for 25 minutes.

Geoff’s Amazing Pancakes

I’ve said this before, but Geoff is the breakfast maker in our house.  Geoff is most famous for his biscuits and gravy,  but in my opinion, his pancakes are the best I have ever tasted.  They are light, fluffy, and moist.  His secret is that he always makes them from scratch and he uses fresh buttermilk.  He makes these pancakes so often that he keeps this recipe taped to the inside of one of our cabinets so it is always handy. Serve these with real maple syrup and you will have yourself an amazing breakfast.

Image via Wikipedia

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, whisk, set aside:

2 cups flour

2 tbsp sugar

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

Combine the wet ingredients in a second bowl, whisk:

2 cups buttermilk

4 tbsp melted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 beaten eggs

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and whisk until just combined.

Fry in a pan with butter. Top with maple syrup and devour.

 

Sausage, Egg, And Cheese Biscuits to Go

Geoff has always been the breakfast maker in our family.  He came up with this idea when our kids were preteens and he used to make a double batch to keep in the fridge.  The kids would not only eat them for breakfast, but they would eat them for snacks too. With three kids, the double batch would usually last less than a week!

1 Pkg Grands Frozen Biscuits (We like the buttermilk flavor)

1/2 lb of breakfast sausage

1 dozen eggs

8 oz of shredded cheese

1.  Cook biscuits according to package directions

2.  Crack the eggs into a large bowl and whisk till the yolks are all broken and mixed well

3.  Cook sausage in a large skillet until browned.  Drain grease if necessary.

4.  Add the eggs and cook over medium heat.  Stir constantly and don’t overcook the eggs!

5.  When biscuits are done, cut them in half and then top each biscuit half with egg/sausage mixture.

6.  Sprinkle on the cheese and then place the biscuit top onto the biscuit.

7.  Place each biscuit into a sandwhich baggie and place in fridge.

8.  When you are ready to eat, heat the biscuit in microwave 30-45 seconds