10 Great Ways to Start your Day
Breakfast can be the most challenging meal of the day, it seems. Everyone is in a rush to get out the door or get started with their agenda for the day. We are told again and again that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but we just don’t know how to make time for it. Below are some of my favorite and easy breakfasts to make. This post is inspired by a new favorite of ours, which I am putting at the top of the list:
2. Taco Egg– This is simply a scrambled egg with chopped jalapeños and some cumin added. Serve on a soft tortilla and even with some salsa if you like it.
3. Banana Bread — Click here for the recipe. Make banana bread the day before or even in large batches and freeze.
4. Yogurt and Fruit Smoothie — Any flavor of yogurt (even plain) with some soft fruit added and blended makes a great breakfast. I recommend frozen mangoes, bananas, strawberries, cream of coconut, blueberries, peaches, etc.
5. Cottage Cheese with fruit — A quick favorite of mine; some low fat cottage cheese, pineapple tidbits and chopped cashews. Surprisingly filling when you add the nuts.
6. Homemade Bagel, with cream cheese of course — another one to make ahead of time, obviously. But oh-so-delicious. Click here to view my post on making bagels.
7. Almond Granola — buy it or make it yourself, granola is the healthiest cold cereal you can lay your hands on.
8. Pumpkin Nut Muffins — oops, I haven’t posted this one yet, I will put the recipe up tomorrow. A basic muffin with Pumpkin, peanut butter, and chopped nuts. Make the night before and surprise everyone in the morning.
9. Egg in the Toast — For people who love “dippy” eggs. Heat a bit of oil in a skillet, cut a hole in a slice of bread. Place the bread in the skillet and drop an egg into the middle. After a couple of minutes, flip gently and cook until the white is set. Don’t forget to toast the “hole” in the skillet, too!
10. Easy French Toast — A little more time and labor are involved, but the kids always love French toast. Click here for instructions.
Obviously, these all vary in the amount of preparation required and their nutrition levels. I hope you see something new on the list or something you haven’t had for a while. It’s always nice to change the routine a little bit.
Corned Beef Hash
Corned Beef Hash is one of those old-time favorites of my husbands. Strangely, this is one that my own mother never made and it took me a few years to understand why DH raved about it. I imagine lots of folks picture corned beef hash as one of those greasy-spoon-diner breakfasts that is never made or served anywhere else. I’ve no idea how many people are keen on trying this out for themselves, but it’s not that tricky and is really delicious, so let’s give it a shot…
First off, you need some corned beef. Now, this is pretty easy to obtain from the deli counter of any grocery and you can just ask the worker behind the counter to cut off a chunk for you instead of slicing it real thin-like. Personally, I quit buying corned beef at the deli because of the extremely high prices. I buy a do-it-yourself hunk of corned beef at everyone’s favorite warehouse — Sam’s Club. It comes in a moderate size (about 3 pounds, untrimmed) that my family easily polishes off in one meal. I usually buy two. If you decide to buy it this way, click here to read my method of cooking it. Corned beef that you do yourself will be more tender and will fall apart the way you want it to for hash. Deli beef will have to be cut into bite-sized chunks.
As I mentioned, I like to cook two packages of corned beef. One gets consumed right away, usually in Reuben sandwiches or just plain with sauerkraut. The second I hide away from the seemingly always hungry people in my house for a day or two and then surprise them by pulling it back out and making cold meat sandwiches or corned beef hash.
Corned Beef Hash
serves 6
1-2 c. shredded or chunked corned beef
3-6 redskin potatoes, diced
1 sweet onion, preferably a Mayan sweet or Vidalia
1/4 c. olive oil
3 T. flour
1 c. skim milk, chicken broth, or a combination of the two
salt and pepper
First off, dice the potatoes, rinse in cold water, and drain. Pat dry with paper towels. If you’re not crazy about putting that much work into it, buy some Ore Ida hash browns, they will be just as good.
Next, chop the onion and get it sizzling with the oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add the potatoes and leave them alone for a few minutes while one side browns. (I used to fuss over hash browns and always ruined them by stirring too much. Leaving them to sizzle on their own is much better.)
Meanwhile, mix the flour and milk or broth in a shaker container or whip them together with a wire whisk. When the potatoes have begun to brown, slide a spatula underneath them and flip. They don’t need to remain in one large piece, but stirring them up too much causes your corned beef hash to turn to a pile of gooey, mushy potatoes. Once flipped, add the corned beef and wait for the other side of the potatoes to brown.
The last step is to pour the milk/flour mixture over all and let the heat thicken it to a white gravy. Add salt and pepper as desired. If you’re really trying to please someone, serve with eggs.
ENJOY!
Almond Crunch Oatmeal Bread
They say necessity is the mother of invention and I sure believe it. This morning I realized I was out of bread. This brought on a mini baking frenzy which ended this afternoon. The result: 2 new bread flavors I’d never even considered before.
Some people, probably most people, would have just skipped off to the nearest grocery and picked up a loaf or two of bread. Not me. I try to stay away from the grocery mid-week. I mean, hey, a trip to the grocery for a gallon of milk can easily cost me $40 or more. I pick things up simply because they are on sale, I am hungry, I’ve got a winy kid with me, or they just look good. So, when I run out of bread, I bake bread. It may take more time, but it saves the dough (pun intended.)
Experimenting with the whole grains is another thing I like to do, and since I’ve got a bread machine, all of this is really pretty simple. Exchange a few ingredients and you have an entirely different-tasting fresh homemade bread. The trouble is that when it’s homemade, the family eats more of it and faster so I have to make 4 or even 6 loaves to replace 1 or 2 store-bought loaves of bread.
The first of today’s batches included Old-Fashioned Oats and Almonds. YUM! I suspect this will be delicious tomorrow morning with butter and orange marmalade.
Almond Crunch Oatmeal Bread
makes 2 loaves
1 1/2 c. water
2 T. olive oil
2 T. sugar
1 1/2 t. salt
1 c. finely chopped whole oats with almonds
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
2 1/2 c. white flour
2 1/4 t. yeast
Into the bread machine goes: water, oil, sugar, salt.
Next, into the chopper: Old Fashioned oats and slivered almonds. Sorry, folks, I didn’t measure before chopping, only afterward. It looked like maybe 1 1/2 cups before chopping. Maybe 1/3 c. of this was the almonds. Obviously, these amounts are very forgiving. Basically, you need 4 cups of dry ingredients.
Add the oats, nuts, and both flours to the wet ingredients that are in the bread machine already. Make a little well and add the yeast. I’ve always added my yeast this way and never have a problem with it.
Set the bread machine cycle to “dough.” I never use my machine for baking. The crust is always too thick and tough. When it is done with the dough cycle, I turn it onto a floured cutting board, knead it a few times, and then divide it in half. Form each into a small loaf shape. Next I spray my trusty old glass loaf pans and place the dough into them.
After about an hour, the dough should be roughly doubled in size. This could be more or less than an hour, depending on the room temperature. At that time, heat the oven to 375 and bake for 20 minutes or until nicely golden brown on top.
Remove from the oven. About 10 minutes later, remove from the pans. Do not attempt to cut it yet. (This is where my kids always fail me. They cut, the loaf smashes and is a flattened, non-loaf shape ever after. But, hey, the important part is that they got a piece of it while it was warm!) It will slice much better after cooling. If you absolutely HAVE to have a warm slice, wait at least 5 more minutes - the longer you wait the better it will hold its shape.
And THAT, my friends, is how you make Almond Crunch Oatmeal Bread. A sure way to please any bread-lover. If you’re trying to get out of the doghouse with the husband (or wife) for some reason, try this one out. Serve with butter and jam.