WFMW--Make Ahead Schoolday Breakfast

I have a favorite breakfast casserole recipe that everybody seems to love. One day I decided to make it in individual muffin cups to keep in the freezer. Then we can just heat one or two in the microwave for a quick weekday breakfast. It's a nice change from cereal, and probably a little better for the kids too.

Original recipe:
Egg and Sausage Casserole Serves 6

5 slices white bread
1 lb bulk breakfast sausage
1 tsp prepared mustard
1 c shredded swiss cheese
4-5 eggs
1 c milk
3/4 c light cream
1/4 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper
dash nutmeg
1 tsp worchestershire sauce

Place bread in well-greased 9x13 pan to cover bottom, cutting to fit if necessary. Cook sausage in skillet until done; drain off fat. Mix sausage w/ mustard, then sprinkle evenly over bread. Sprinkle cheese over sausage. Combine eggs, milk, cream and seasonings. Pour over casserole. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 mins., or until set in middle.

My changes:
whole wheat bread
sometimes cheddar instead of swiss
omit cream, just use all milk

For individual muffin cups:
I am unscientific about it, but 1/2 lb sausage should be enough for about 18 muffin cups. I had reserved some sausage from the soup I made Sunday and threw these together very quickly and put them in the oven with supper tonight.

Grease muffin tins [**Note: be sure to grease them and grease them well! I wrote this post last week before I realized it was a themed WFMW and I spent nearly the whole week soaking and scraping trying to get my muffin tins clean because I forgot to grease them!] Tear bread into pieces to place in bottom of cups. Top with cooked sausage/mustard mixture, and sprinkle with cheese. Pour about 1/4 c egg mixture in each cup and bake about 15-20 mins. at 350. When cooled, pop them in a ziploc bag and toss them in the freezer. For breakfast, heat frozen 'muffin' in microwave for about 1 minute.


Visit Works For Me Wednesday at Rocks in My Dryer!

Eleven Years Ago Today

On 11/11/97, I became a mother. After four miscarriages, a lot of tests with no answers, and a lot of discouragement and despair, we finally gave control to God. Nine months and many prayers later, our perfect, healthy, eight pound boy was born. I had a fantastic natural birth, with a doula and a birth ball. I was at the hospital for only about three hours before he was born. He was my only hospital birth; the other two were born at home in water.


Today, he turns eleven. Believe me when I tell you what everybody else has already said--those of you with little bitty children will be completely blown away by how quickly time flies. He has been a joy and we are so proud of him!

HaPpY BiRthDaY, Firstborn!

Chicky-Poo and Banana Muffins

What is this? Is it this year's hot new Christmas toy? The next big decorating trend (move over, roosters!)? No, this is my new favorite kitchen gadget.


This is Mashy the Egg Masher. You can call him Chicky-Poo (a name my kids coined). I found him a few weeks ago at Homegoods. I make egg salad fairly frequently, and have always found egg mashing to be, not difficult, but kind of a pain. Nothing really did the trick for me...potato masher? too big; pastry blender? mine's a piece of junk. What I had been doing is the old-fashioned pastry "cutting in" method with two knives. I wasn't sure how good Chicky would be at his intended job, but at $1.99, it was worth a try.

Well, I am happy to say that Chicky does an egg-cellent job at egg mashing! Fantastic, really! And he's kind of cute and funny, too. Not only that, but he is multi-purpose. Last night I made guacamole, and, light-bulb moment!, I put Chicky to work. He smashed up those avocados with panache. This afternoon, I decided to make banana muffins, and there was Chicky looking at me hopefully from the countertop.

[I more or less used Lindsay's recipe; I used regular sugar instead of rapdura and skipped the crumb topping, but I did use coconut oil.]

Here he is gettin' down and dirty with the 'nanas (as you can see, one in particular was really ripe).


Here he is standing proud in the finished product...perfect banana mash.


Here he is keeping an eye on me as I mix up the muffins. I heart my vintage Pyrex mixing bowls.


And here he is getting ready to enjoy the fruit of his labors...with butter, please! Yum.

If you can find one of these little guys, add him to your staff.

Souper Saturday--Pumpkin Black Bean

I didn't realize until I typed out the title that this just sounds like a slightly modified version of last week's Pumpkin and White Bean. However, I chose it because it is actually very different. The recipe comes from Tammy's Recipes and she describes it as "a delicious black bean pastrami soup with pumpkin, tomatoes, onion, and garlic in a flavorful beef broth". She also says you can't really taste the pumpkin, so I figured it would be a good way to hide use some of the pumpkin I had from last week.


Tammy's Original Recipe

Yield: 10 servings

Ingredients:

1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons butter
4 to 4 1/2 cups freshly cooked black beans*
1 1/2 cups fresh or canned tomatoes, diced
3/4 teaspoon sugar
4 cups beef broth
16 ounces (2 cups) pumpkin puree
1/3 to 1/2 pound turkey pastrami, diced or chopped**
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Instructions:

1. In a 6-quart stock pot, saute the onion, garlic, cumin and pepper over moderate heat, until onions are translucent.

2. Add beans, tomatoes, sugar, broth and pumpkin, stirring to combine. Simmer uncovered for 25+ minutes.***

3. Add pastrami and vinegar and heat through.

Additional Notes:

*Can substitute three 15-ounce cans of black beans, rinsed and drained. The original recipe also said to puree the beans, but we like them left whole!

**I order my turkey pastrami thin sliced and then dice it for this. You could also use turkey ham.

If you haven't figured it out yet, I rarely follow a recipe exactly. Here are my changes:

a) oil instead of butter to cook the onion in
b) I used 2 cans of black beans
c) I used Trader Joe's concentrated beef broth packets (plus water to equal the 4 cups)
d) instead of turkey pastrami or turkey ham, I used Black Forest ham because that's what Trader Joe's had
e) used only 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
f) I pureed the tomatoes and beans, as the kids protest vegetable chunks

The family liked last week's poll, so I'll probably make that a regular feature. This week's verdict:
Handsome 8 "hearty"
Me 7
Firstborn 7
Skippy 4 "too meaty"
Pinkerbelle 10 (although her reaction did not support this...should be a 6, maybe)

Average: 7.2 but slightly skewed by P's false 10

Nobody knew there was pumpkin in it until Firstborn read the title of this post. They were somewhat taken aback, but didn't make a big deal of it. After all, they had already eaten it.

I thought it was very good, but slightly too acidic or tangy, hence my 7 rating. I would further reduce the vinegar next time, or cut it out all together.

Frugal Friday

We have always been paper napkin users. I can make it through an average meal with just one, but somehow the rest of the crew 'needs' to use somewhere between two and five napkins each.
Not only is this wasteful, but paper napkins cost money, of course. So this week I made the switch to cloth. This initial change was free, because I just gathered up our random bandanas and set them around the table. If I had needed more, I could've purchased them at Hobby Lobby for I think about 89 cents each. I figure we can get a couple uses out of them before they need to be washed, and at that point they can easily be tossed into an existing load of laundry.

Bandanas are fun because we can each have our own color. We happen to have 4 drawers in our dining table, which make a convenient storage spot, and we each have our own drawer (well, Handsome and I share), so we know who's napkin is where. Another way to do it would be to get some inexpensive napkin rings that could be personalized. You might argue that the cost savings are negligible...paper napkins are about $2 for a package of 500, which lasts roughly 6-8 weeks...but remember, we're taking small steps here. It's all the steps together that add up.

Photo from Country Living...mine do not look this cute.

Another similar thing I've been doing lately is using microfiber cleaning cloths in place of paper towels (but I haven't totally eliminated paper towel use, yet). I don't really know what the magic of these cloths are, but they are great! You can wash a window with just a damp cloth...no Windex...and there are no streaks. That's another savings right there. They are very absorbent, and do a better job at wiping things down than a paper towel. They do a fantastic job in the bathroom with all the toothpaste globs (kids!) and water spots.

I got mine at Dollar Tree a little while ago, and I'd love to get more but lately they haven't had them. I know you can spend a lot more on them ($10-20), but honestly I'm not sure how they could be that much better.

That's my two baby steps for this week. In my usual verbose manner, I have managed to write paragraphs about what could have been said in a few words...I replaced paper napkins and paper towels with cloth!

Check out Biblical Womanhood for more frugal ideas!

WFMW--Toys That Take Imagination

Today's WFMW is a themed edition in preparation for Christmas...Toys Worth Buying. I must admit that I'm not sure I'm all that qualified to participate. I can think of very few toy purchases that have had staying power with my kids. There are, however, a handful that over the years they have returned to again and again.

1. Legos (all ages, as long as you get the big Duplo ones for little kids)
This has to be the all-time winner in this household. For the last ten years, there has been some form of Legos in use. More often than not, these are the go-to toy.


2. Building blocks (all ages)
When Firstborn arrived, his great-grandfather gave him a handmade set of blocks. They aren't particularly pretty, and I don't even think they're solid wood (some kind of pressed or particle board). But they have been workhorses of the toy collection. They've made towers, they've made roads, they've made buildings, and they've worked in combination with, at various times, Hotwheels, Thomas the Train, Legos, marbles and pretty much anything else.

Firstborn & Skippy 2002

3. Portable art desk (about 2 and up)
I don't know that this actually ranks #3, but it was very useful. We bought the boys each one of these several years ago. It was chalkboard on one side, dry erase on the other, and the lid slid off to store paper, crayons etc. inside. We kept these in the van, and they kept the boys occupied while we drove.

I have heard of making something similar out of a 9x13 cake pan with lid. Supplies are kept inside and the lid serves as a work surface. Perhaps you could even paint one surface with chalkboard paint.

Really, art supplies of any kind have always been big hits with my three. We've had some fun with novelty items like Crayola Color Wonder, but the best is plain paper and pencils, crayons, or paint.

Skippy 2002

And now I will hop over to Rocks in My Dryer to see everybody else's ideas, as I'm fresh out of originality in the gift department. See you there!

Election '08

I voted! I was prepared for long lines and long waits, but even though the polling place was very busy, I was only there about 10 minutes. So, the deed is done, and now we wait.

A few months ago Handsome, Firstborn, and some friends went to a McCain rally. The above photo was taken by a friend. Note in the top left corner the guy with the press pass and big camera. Below is the photo he took. It was in the paper. Boy, did Firstborn get some mileage out of that! His 15 minutes of fame.

(Look at Cindy McCain's hair (bottom right)...I guess she must have a hair dresser to do that for her.)

Well, clearly you can see which way I voted. I've been watching and listening to a lot of news and talk radio the last several months, and it's been easy to get worried about what might happen. I just have to remember that, no matter what, God is in charge.

Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. Romans 13:1 NLT