Creme Brûlée french toast

Since Easter, we've had a few house guests.  I love having house guests, and I especially love having easy, yet fancy-seeming breakfasts.  This one fits the bill, for sure.  It's easy to prep the night before, and bakes up quickly in the morning.  It is rather decadent, but is worth it in my opinion.

First, melt a half cup of butter (margarine works too, but isn't as smooth) with a cup of brown sugar and two tablespoons of corn syrup.  I use a dark brown sugar, and dark corn syrup, but I bet a commercial maple style syrup would be good too.  When this is all melted and yummy looking, pour it into a greased pan.  The original recipe called for a 9x13, but I found that a pair of round cake pans fits the bread better.

Then, add sliced french bread to the pans, pushing it down somewhat to get the syrupy goodness all pushed into the bread.

Then, beat 5 eggs, 1/2 cup of milk, a sprinkle of cinnamon and a tsp or so of vanilla together, and pour overtop of the bread, making sure it all gets soaked.  Cover with plastic wrap and throw in the fridge overnight.  In the morning, bake it for about 20-30 minutes at 350 (the longer time is if you toss it in the oven as you turn it on, like I do).  Flip the bread over as soon as you pull it out of the oven.  Serve with whip cream, and fresh berries.

Honestly, it's so good, and so easy.  I use a whole loaf of french bread from my local grocery store, and it's usually only $1, so it's not a pricey meal either, even with real whipped cream.  I can toss it in the oven first thing when I wake up, put on the coffee, and have a quick shower all before everything is ready to eat, giving me time to set the table too.  That's a win/win in my books!

Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal

Fall is here, time to break out the pumpkin recipes!  I love this one.

1.25 cups old fashioned oats
1-2 tbsp flax seed
2.5-3 tbsp brown sugar
1/2-1 tsp cinnamon
(you can also put in some nutmeg and allspice, but I don't, ginger would be nice too)

mix together.

In another bowl, mix
3/4-1 cup pumpkin puree
3/4-1 cup milk
1/2 to 1 tsp vanilla
2-3 tsp softened butter

Pour over oats, then pour it all into a greased pan.  Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes.  If you like, you can mix up a strusel/pecan topping and add part way through baking.  I prefer to add some nuts before serving, with a drizzle of real maple syrup and whip cream (whipped or not).  Delicious!

Hot Breakfasts!

It's that stupid cold part of year in this neck of the woods.  Makes for great lazy days at home, but it's always nice to send the littles off to school with something warm in their bellies.

Lately, I've been making oatmeal in the crockpot, with great success.  I'll often serve it with grated apple or pear, or sometimes applesauce.  In mine, I particularly like an organic breakfast mix of nuts/seeds/berries that I bought through a fundraiser that one of my fave non-profit groups ran, with a drizzle of real maple syrup.  Yum! You could toss in dried fruit when making this, but my family doesn't go for it.  Putting out topping options like a "breakfast bar" is a big hit here, and I find my kids use way less sugar if I let them add their own, go figure.

I use steel cut oats in this.  I've discovered that they are the only oats that stand up to the "overnight in the crockpot test" without going mushy or burning.  They can be pricey at the store, but they are super well priced at Costco. I do a double batch of this, it fills my medium sized crockpot, and makes enough for a couple of days of breakfasts.

4 cups water
3/4 cup milk (or use powdered milk, mixed with water)
1 cup steel cut oats
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 (give or take) brown sugar
1/2-1 tsp vanilla

Mix and cook on low for 8 hours.  I turn it on as I'm going to bed, and we wake up to hot oatmeal.  Just don't forget to turn it on....trust me, it's disappointing.

What are your favorite quick hot breakfasts for cold mornings?

banana porridge

In my never ending quest to find low cost, easy breakfast ideas that my children will actually eat, I stumbled upon this recipe. I did vary it a bit, so I'll post what I did.

I really love oatmeal, and my children do too - at least the oversweet, instant kind. I like mine less sweet, more "real" than they do. This had us all happy.

1.5 cup rolled oats (I used old fashioned 10 minute oats - with a quicker cooking variety, adjust time accordingly)
2 cups boiling water
1 cup milk
pinch salt
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 large banana, finely sliced

Pour the water over the oats in a saucepan, turn burner up to high. While the water and oats are heating, add in the rest of the ingredients. When it comes to a boil, lower heat and simmer about 10 minutes. Let it sit a couple of minutes, and serve. My kids had an extra sprinkle of brown sugar and milk on top, mine was plain. This made enough for the kids and I to have breakfast.

breakfast for supper!

While Joy finds bliss on the allrecipes.com website, I've been tinkering on my own.

Some days, supper just doesn't seem exciting. Breakfast sounds more exciting - that doesn't explain why breakfast sounds as dull as dishwater some days, but you can't win em' all.

Last night, I decided to make pancakes for the family. I took a basic pancake recipe (Betty Crocker cookbook if you must know), and jazzed it up. I doubled the recipe and tossed in 2 cups of old fashioned oats and a half cup of ground flax seed. Let sit for 15 minutes before proceeding to allow the grains to soak into the batter. After 15 or so minutes, I realized I would need to increase the milk. So I added more until it felt right. Not too sure how much, I'm just like that some days in the kitchen.

While making the pancakes, I pureed up some strawberries I had pulled out of the freezer earlier in the day to make a nice berry sauce. Then I mixed up about 3/4 of a cup of low fat ricotta cheese with some local honey (about 1 1/2 tbsp or so). Serve the pancakes with berry sauce and sweetened ricotta cheese, with syrup for those who like that too. They went over very, very well here indeed.