Ultimate Hashbrowns

I feed my kids breakfast and send them off to school. The babysitting kids arrive in the mean time and they have all been fed before they get here. I usually sit down around 9 after finishing up morning stuff and think what am I going to have for breakfast? This morning after looking in the cupboards and freezer several times I ran across some frozen hash brown patties. I preheated my oven to 375 and put the hash browns on a pizza pan with holes in the bottom for 17 min. After they were nice and crispy I put shredded cheddar cheese, chopped onion and real bacon bits and put them back into the oven for another 2-3 min just until cheese was melted. I sprinkled them with salt and pepper and sat down to watch my favorite morning show, The Family Feud. YUM!!

Guacamole just for me

This is one of my favorite lunches and I will buy the ingredients just to make it for myself.

Tortilla Chips with guacamole and if I have a Pepsi, even better.
If I don't have Pepsi on hand I drink ice water with lemon in it.

Here's how I make my guacamole.  I use one an avocado, fresh lemon or lime juice, fresh garlic (grated), cilantro, Coarse salt and pepper.  That's it.  Sometimes I will add chopped onion or tomato but this time I didn't want to mess with that.

 I usually would smash these ingredients together with a fork or potato masher but I recently bought my first hand mixer.  Boy does that make the job easier.  I didn't even have to grate up the garlic, I  just sliced it.

 Okay, there you go, my favorite lunch.  I don't often make it but when avocado is on sale for a dollar you can bet I'm getting a few.  This was last week.

This week I am once again scrounging for a decent lunch.  Yesterday I had a nice baby shower brunch in the morning so lunch was not necessary.  I love it when that happens.  Today I finally sat down to eat something at 11:00.  Here's what I had along with a clementine.

My second cup of coffee, eggs, bacon, and toast.

I don't like eggs so when I made them for supper earlier this week I made mine separate.  I can eat them if they have enough stuff in them.  I made mine with spinach, onion, tomato, cottage cheese, and mozzarella.  Today I ate my leftover scrambled eggs (the rest of the family wouldn't touch them).  Some leftover bacon, and the end of a loaf of homemade sourdough, toasted.  That's why the one piece is tiny.  Hopefully eating this later in the morning will get me through until dinner time with just a small snack along the way.  Tonight we are having tacos and I just might make brownies as well.
Kellly

An upside down day

Sometimes I just make myself a bowl of tomato soup and put popcorn in it.  That was last week.

This week I had leftover turkey in the fridge.  I couldn't wait for lunch so I could make a turkey sandwich and slice up an apple but in the mean time I could not come up with what to have for breakfast.  I decided to just make my sandwich for breakfast instead and worry about lunch later.  Maybe I would just have the same thing again.  I had a turkey sandwich, an apple, and almonds for breakfast with my coffee.  At lunch time I finished the coffee and not being able to come up with anything else ate a bowl of captain crunch.  I felt a little upside down in my eating that day.  I ate a turkey sandwich almost everyday this week.  I love them and it made my lunch planning a lot easier.

Kelly

A twist on Pizza

I made a layered pizza dip last night for our small group and had left overs, so I decided to warm it back up for lunch today. The dip was a huge success and is basically pizza without the crust. It would be a great thing to make if you have veggies that you need to use up. Take a 9x13 baking dish, or 9x9, whichever you prefer. You will need 1 block of cream cheese for the smaller dish and 2 blocks for the bigger one. Spread the cream cheese over the entire bottom of the pan. Next, spread pizza sauce on top. Mozzarella cheese comes next. Chop up pepperoni's and or sprinkle cooked, ground sausage. Sprinkle the meat on top of the cheese. The rest of the toppings can be any other pizza toppings/veggies you like. After the veggies, sprinkle the top with parmesan cheese. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 min. Eat with crackers or tortilla chips.

Kim

A new day

This week my Mother In Law is visiting.  It doesn't feel right doing the same old scrounge for lunch.  Today as I tried to whip up something that looked like lunch I decided to throw together sweet potato fries.  I sliced one sweet potato into thin slivers, smaller than I would with a regular potato when cooking it the same way.  I let them soak a few minutes in warm water to get the starch rinsed off.  I dried them and coated them with canola oil.  I also oiled a baking sheet and then sprinkled salt and pepper on it.  I laid out the slivers in a single layer on the pan and put them in a 400 degree oven.  I turned them several times baking them about 20 min.  They turned out great.  I must do this for the family for dinner, or maybe save it for a vitamin packed lunch item for myself...he he.

Kelly

Waffle sandwich

I am picky about breakfast.  I like it to include protein if possible.  I can't always do a lot of sweet although I do like to have a doughnut for breakfast if available.  Okay, I'm weird.  I like a "good" breakfast and don't do cereal.  One of my favorite things for Saturday morning is to eat cold pizza with my hot coffee.  I like to order pizza on Friday night for convenience but also so I have breakfast ready.

I will at times toast two waffles and sandwich ham and cheese between them.  I warm it slightly in the microwave so the ham is not cold and the cheese is soft.  It is a one hand, portable breakfast which works great for a stay-at-home mom with a 3 year old. It also goes well with my coffee and cream.

Kelly

A new recipe

I have been wanting to try a new recipe for awhile. Since I was down one babysitting kid today, I decided I had enough time to try it. I wanted to try it first before making it for my family to see if I needed to tweak it or nix it all together. So, I bet you are wondering what I made huh? I made fish tacos. All I can say is YUM! The recipe has three parts. The beer batter, the sauce and the taco. If you want the recipe it is below. I did tweak it a bit from the origional recipe. I took one thing out and swapped a couple things for others that were mostly the same I also added a few things all together. Here is the recipe.

Beer batter

1 c. flour

2 T. cornstarch

1 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

1 egg

1 c. beer

Sauce

1/2 c. mayonaise

1/2 c. sour cream

1 lime

zest from 1 lime

1 t. oregano

1 t. cilantro

1 t. cumin

1/2 t. red pepper flakes

1/2 t. pepper

1 t. curry powder

Other

Flour or corn tortillas

chopped cabbage

Cod or Tilapia

1. Mix all dry ingredients for batter. Mix egg and beer together and add to dry ingredients. Place fish in batter and coat both sides. Fry in oil until brown and crispy.

2. Grate lime zest into a bowl. Add mayo and sour cream and lime juice thoroughly. Add all other dry ingredients.

3. Assemble tacos. Warm up your tortillas in either the oven or microwave. Place fish on tortilla, add some sauce and cabbage. ENJOY!

The origional recipe called for capers (YUCK), cayenne pepper and plain yogurt. As you can see I don't like capers, and I didn't have cayenne pepper, so I used curry powder. I didn't have plain yogurt so I used sour cream. I also took the liberty of adding lime zest and cilantro.

Kim