Tag: easy breakfast

Categories
Breakfast Dessert

Say ‘oui’ to this yummy overnight breakfast casserole

Overnight French toast casserole is a much easier way to feature French toast for breakfast. Add in a little fresh fruit, and you have quite the wow factor for your morning meal or even a dessert table.
Overnight French toast casserole is a much easier way to feature French toast for breakfast. Add in a little fresh fruit, and you have quite the wow factor for your morning meal or even a dessert table.

When I began writing this column over 10 years ago, I had grand illusions of people sending me their favorite recipes and me trying them.

What I found was that people are normally pretty guarded with their best dishes, and even more so, everyone wanted me to tell them something new to try instead of the other way around.

Since then, I have amassed quite the Pinterest page of recipes, a notebook of magazine cutouts and a large collection of saved tutorial videos that I source each week for my inspiration.

But for this week’s recipe, I didn’t have to go out looking. It found me.

Every summer, I get the opportunity to direct a short kids camp at Camp Mennoscah, and for the past I-don’t-know-how-many years, a wonderful group of ladies has volunteered to man the kitchen during our little camp.

This summer, on the last morning, they served us a fabulous blueberry French toast casserole for breakfast, and as I came through the chow line, they teased me a bit.

“Are we going to see this one in the paper?”

“If you send it to me, you will,” I told them.

So Marla emailed it to me right after camp, letting me know that her way of spicing up the recipe was to add the blueberries.

Well, over a month later, I finally had time to give this a try, only I used fresh cherries, since that’s what I had on hand. It was still delicious.

This original recipe comes from the blog “Fresh April Flours,” was tweaked by Marla Gillmore and the rest of the amazing kitchen crew, and received some more cinnamon in my version below.

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Overnight Baked French Toast Casserole

Overnight French toast casserole is a much easier way to feature French toast for breakfast. Add in a little fresh fruit, and you have quite the wow factor for your morning meal or even a dessert table.
Course Breakfast, Dessert
Keyword breakfast casserole, breakfast for a crowd, brown sugar, canned cinnamon rolls, easy breakfast, French toast, fresh fruit, vanilla

Ingredients

  • 8 to 9 cups stale bread cut into one-inch cubes
  • 2 cups fresh fruit cut in bite-sized pieces (I used cherries)
  • 1/4 cup butter melted
  • 2/3 cup brown sugar
  • 8 eggs
  • 2 cups milk I used 2 percent
  • 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
  • 3 rounded teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions

  • Prepare a nine-by-13-inch casserole dish by spraying it with cooking spray.
  • Spread all the bread cubes and fresh fruit evenly into the dish and set it aside.
  • In a mixing bowl, combine the butter, brown sugar, eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon and salt and whisk well until everything is well incorporated. (My brown sugar got a bit lumpy. If that happens even after lots of mixing, don’t sweat it. Just evenly distribute the lumps on the next step, and it’ll be fine.)
  • Evenly pour the egg mixture over the bread cubes in the dish and cover it with aluminum foil, plastic wrap or a lid. Refrigerate overnight or for at least three hours.
  • To bake the casserole, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake, uncovered, for one hour or until the top is nicely browned and the custard is set.
  • Serve warm by itself, with some syrup, or even with a little powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

I ended up making a half batch of this in an eight-inch casserole dish, and it turned out great. It was more sugar than I’d want to have all the time for breakfast, but the warm, fresh cherries combined with the cinnamon and custard-y bread was excellent.

I don’t think mine turned out quite as well as the one I had at camp, but I think it’s because I made mine on my own. I suspect when you add the love of half a dozen wonderful volunteers, everything is bound to taste better.

This piece first appeared in print on July 27, 2023.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Breakfast Crockpot

You’ll be ‘bacon’ plenty of friends with this hearty breakfast

Making breakfast for a crowd is easy with this crockpot breakfast casserole. It’s a great way to start the day.
Making breakfast for a crowd is easy with this crockpot breakfast casserole. It’s a great way to start the day.

With the Chiefs heading into the playoffs, Joey and I have been planning for our annual get together with our fantasy football league to watch their first game.

In discussing menus for that game, it reminded me that I haven’t shared a fantastic recipe I tried earlier this football season with all of you.

We invited several friends over for a “breakfast for lunch” football day, and in addition to some baked goods, I decided to try what ended up being an easy and fantastic breakfast casserole.

This comes from the blog “40 Aprons” by Cheryl Malik. You can find the original post at https://40aprons.com/crockpot-breakfast-casserole/. I added garlic, green chiles and extra seasoning in my version.

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Crockpot Breakfast Casserole

Making breakfast for a crowd is easy with this crockpot breakfast casserole. It’s a great way to start the day.
Course Breakfast
Keyword breakfast for a crowd, crockpot, diced green chiles, eggs, frozen hashbrowns, garlic, garlic powder, half and half, sharp cheddar cheese, yellow onion

Ingredients

  • 1 pound bacon diced (or sub in ground sausage)
  • 1 small yellow onion diced
  • 4 to 6 cloves garlic minced
  • 8 ounces canned diced green chiles drained
  • 26 ounces frozen hashbrowns
  • 4 cups sharp cheddar cheese shredded
  • 12 eggs
  • 1 cup half and half
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder
  • salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  • Heat a large skillet over medium heat and saute the diced bacon until it’s crispy. Line a plate with paper towels and place the cooked bacon on it.
  • Remove all but about one tablespoon of the bacon fat from the pan and add the diced onion. Saute until it’s cooked through, and then add the garlic. Saute for a couple more minutes and then remove the pan from the heat.
  • Coat the inside of your crockpot with cooking spray and layer in half of the hashbrowns. Add half of the shredded cheese, half of the onions, half the chiles and half the bacon. Repeat. (I saved a bit of the cheese and did a final layer on the top of mine.)
  • In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, half and half, garlic powder, salt and pepper until it is well combined.
  • Pour the mixture evenly into the crockpot.
  • Cook the casserole on low for eight hours or high for four hours. When the eggs are cooked through, serve immediately or turn the crockpot to warm until you’re ready to eat.
  • (Side note: If you don’t have time for the crockpot, follow the same steps with a deep nine-by-13-inch casserole dish. Bake in a 350-degree oven for about one hour or until it’s cooked through.)

This was fabulous, and it reheated great, too. It was a hit with our football friends, and it was a great addition to the spread of breakfast items we had available. We ate too much, hollered at the TV together and had a great time.

I still don’t know what our playoffs lunch spread will look like, but no matter what, I’m so excited to see our friends again, hang out in the basement and cheer on the Chiefs.

This piece first appeared in print on Jan. 12, 2023.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Breakfast Dessert

With new recipes, you ‘cinna’ some, you lose some

Cinnamon roll cake is made very simply, with refrigerated cinnamon rolls and a few extra ingredients.
Cinnamon roll cake is made very simply, with refrigerated cinnamon rolls and a few extra ingredients.

I’d like to think I’m not easily swayed by pretty pictures, but I was totally taken in last week by a photo of these amazing-looking molten cinnamon rolls.

They promised a warm, inviting cinnamon roll with oozing, melty cream cheese in the center.

Of course, I immediately bought a couple tubes of cinnamon rolls to give it a try.

I followed the recipe very closely (which everyone who knows me realizes was a struggle for me), and after wrapping little scoops of a frozen cream cheese mixture with the pre-made dough, I couldn’t wait to see my delicious molten cinnamon rolls come out of the oven.

The timer dinged, and I couldn’t wait to let them cool even a few minutes before I scooped one out and cut it in half.

And…nothing.

The cream cheese mixture had simply melted into the dough. All I accomplished was making some cream-cheesier-tasting cinnamon rolls, and nothing else.

So then I had the problem of another tube of cinnamon rolls in my fridge to solve. I was so sure that my molten rolls were going to be a hit, I already bought a second tube in anticipation. Well, as always, the Internet provided, which is where this week’s very simple recipe comes into play.

This comes from the blog “Love Bakes Good Cakes.” You can find the original post at https://www.lovebakesgoodcakes.com/cinnamon-roll-crumb-cake/. I added extra cinnamon in my version.

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Cinnamon Roll Cake

Cinnamon roll cake is made very simply, with refrigerated cinnamon rolls and a few extra ingredients.
Course Breakfast, Dessert
Keyword brown sugar, canned cinnamon rolls, cinnamon, cinnamon roll, easy breakfast, easy dessert

Ingredients

  • 17.5- ounce tube refrigerated cinnamon rolls
  • 3 tablespoons butter melted
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 rounded teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare an eight-inch cake or pie pan by spraying it with cooking spray.
  • Pop open the tube of cinnamon rolls. Set aside the frosting, and start by placing one cinnamon roll in the center of your prepared pan. Unroll the next cinnamon roll and create one, giant cinnamon roll shape by wrapping it around the roll in the middle. Continue until all of the rolls are used.
  • In a bowl, mix the butter, flour, brown sugar and cinnamon until the mixture is well-combined and crumbly.
  • Sprinkle the crumbs evenly over the top of the cinnamon rolls, and bake for 25 minutes or until the topping is lightly browned.
  • Drizzle or pour the frosting over the top of the cake, and serve immediately. Store any leftovers in an airtight container.

This was very simple, but it had a wow factor, since it cuts into nice slices for serving. It looks a lot more complicated and impressive than it really is to make.

The addition of the extra crumble on top was really yummy, too, and this was great with a cup of coffee.

And I was glad I was able to find a use for my tube of cinnamon rolls after all. I always hate it when a recipe doesn’t work out, but in this case, at least it wasn’t terrible to have to eat my mistakes.

This piece first appeared in print on March 31, 2022.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Breakfast

You don’t have to work hard for ‘egg’cellent pizza

Breakfast pizza is easy to make and gives you all the flavors of sausage gravy, eggs and fried potatoes in one, handheld meal.
Breakfast pizza is easy to make and gives you all the flavors of sausage gravy, eggs and fried potatoes in one, handheld meal.

In January, Joey happened upon a post for a local restaurant that was going to serve breakfast pizzas for their New Year’s Day brunch.

We weren’t able to make it, but he kept mentioning it over the next few weeks—noting that we could surely figure out how to make a fantastic breakfast pizza ourselves.

After all, we are pretty good at breakfast at our house. Of course, we mostly just eat it for dinner, opting for boring items like granola bars and cereal in the morning, but I think it still counts.

One of our favorites is making biscuits with sausage gravy, and that became the base for our breakfast pizza idea. After some brainstorming, we came to a consensus and created this week’s recipe.

As you will see, it’s simple to customize. You can easily make it spicy or substitute some frozen hashbrown potatoes in place of a fresh spud. You can even use a gravy mix, if you like. I won’t tell anyone.

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Breakfast Pizza

Breakfast pizza is easy to make and gives you all the flavors of sausage gravy, eggs and fried potatoes in one, handheld meal.
Course Breakfast
Keyword cheese, eggs, pizza, potatoes, premade crust, sausage gravy

Ingredients

  • 2 packages pre-made pizza dough I used 7.8-ounce crusts
  • 1 pound sausage I used sage
  • flour amount will vary, see directions
  • milk I used skim (amount will vary, see directions)
  • 1 medium potato thinly sliced
  • an egg for each person
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • about 2 cups shredded cheese

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to whatever temperature is listed on your pre-made crusts. Roll them out onto pizza or sheet pans (place them on parchment paper for easier cleanup).
  • Heat a large skillet over medium heat, saute the sausage, crumbling it as it browns.
  • Once the sausage is cooked through, do not drain the fat from the pan. Sprinkle flour into the pan, a little at a time, while stirring. Add just enough flour to soak up all of the fat in the pan. You’ll know you have enough when the sausage is no longer shiny.
  • Cook for a couple minutes, and then add about one cup of milk. Stir, scraping the bottom of the skillet as you do to get any cooked on bits.
  • Add more milk, a little at a time, stirring constantly, until you reach your desired gravy consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste. (I also normally add some more sage and some cayenne pepper to mine.) Remove it from heat.
  • Spread the gravy out on the crusts to within about an inch of the edge. Sprinkle cheese evenly over the gravy, and then top with potato slices.
  • Carefully crack one egg for each person you’re feeding toward the center of the pizzas and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Bake the pizzas for the amount of time on the crust packaging.
  • Cut into slices and serve.

We really enjoyed this for supper. It kind of combines all the great flavors of breakfast into one easy-to-eat meal. Plus, it reheated really well, too.

Variations we thought about were you could wait until halfway through the pizzas baking to crack the eggs on top to get a runny yolk, and we’re going to go out of our way to use spicy sausage next time, too.

It’s always nicer when somebody else cooks for you, and if we get a chance at some restaurant-made breakfast pizza sometime, I’m sure we’ll take it. But now that we know how to make this ourselves, staying home for dinner is pretty great option, too.

This piece first appeared in print on Feb. 10, 2022.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Breakfast

Muffin pancakes make sure breakfast won’t fall flat

Pancakes are easy to create in multiple flavors with just three ingredients: a muffin mix, an egg and milk.
Pancakes are easy to create in multiple flavors with just three ingredients: a muffin mix, an egg and milk.

When our family recently got together for Mother’s Day, my three-year-old niece and I got plenty of quality time, looking for bugs, hunting for seashells next to a creek and getting more than just a little muddy.

It was a great day. Once we were cleaned up and inside again, my sister mentioned that my niece was looking forward to a summer sleepover at each set of grandparents’ houses. Apparently, a three-year-old’s interpretation of a sleepover includes kicking Grandpa out of the big bed to have a slumber party with Grandma and something special for breakfast.

I offered up that I wouldn’t mind being on the sleepover schedule, too, and she was immediately interested in what I’d have for breakfast at my house.

I asked her what she thought we should have, and she settled on donuts. Oh, and pancakes. Oh, and bacon. Oh, and cookies. You know, all the normal breakfast stuff.

I figured I better get my pancake skills up to snuff, since I’m notoriously bad at making them, and mine normally turn out thick and dense instead of light and fluffy.

That’s why I decided to try this week’s recipe, which I found posted on social media with no attribution as to who first discovered this technique. It’s a way to turn a simple muffin mix into great, delicious pancakes. It’s insanely easy, as you’ll see, and I didn’t change a thing, although you could add anything you wanted to these—from chocolate chips to fresh fruit to sprinkles.

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Muffin Mix Pancakes

Pancakes are easy to create in multiple flavors with just three ingredients: a muffin mix, an egg and milk.
Course Breakfast
Keyword easy, muffin mix, pancakes

Ingredients

  • 7 ounce muffin mix any flavor
  • 2/3 cup milk
  • 1 egg
  • cooking spray

Instructions

  • Heat a six-inch skillet over medium-low heat. Spray it with cooking spray.
  • Once the skillet is hot, pour enough batter into the pan to cover the bottom.
  • Let the batter cook for several minutes. Once the edges are slightly brown and bubbles are rising in the middle of the pancake, carefully flip it over.
  • Cook for another minute or so, and remove to a plate. Cover to keep warm while you finish the rest of the pancakes. For best results, spray the pan with cooking spray in between each pancake.
  • Serve with your favorite toppings.

I got four six-inch pancakes out of this batter. If I would have gone a little thinner with them or made silver dollar pancakes, as I probably will when my niece stays over, I could have gotten more. 

I opted for using a blueberry pancake mix, which was pretty darn good. There were several other options at my local grocery store for mixes—from banana to cinnamon sugar to chocolate chip.

You could quickly and easily make several flavors for everyone in the family.

I’m guessing my niece will have a whole new menu planned for us by the time she and I get to have our sleepover. Of course, after her first slumber party at Grandma and Grandpa’s, I’m going to have to up my game. Those people take spoiling to a whole new level, and pancakes and cookies for breakfast probably ain’t gonna cut it.

This piece first appeared in print on May 27, 2021.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Breakfast

Warm breakfast actually is all it’s cracked up to be

Cheesy egg toast is extremely easy way to make eggs and toast simultaneously.
Cheesy egg toast is extremely easy way to make eggs and toast simultaneously.

About the time Joey and I got married 10 years ago, I learned what “egg in the basket” was—a simple breakfast dish where an egg is cooked in a hole cut in the center of a piece of bread.

I’ve tried to make egg in the basket many times over the years, completely enamored with the idea, but while I have had a few successes, I have often struggled to actually accomplish a perfect result each time.

On a recent weekend, I woke up early and decided I wanted to pour myself a bowl of cereal, but of course, we were completely out of milk.

Having already convinced myself that I needed breakfast, I started scrolling online and was extremely excited to discover a recipe for a different way to make eggs and toast simultaneously—no poking holes in bread necessary.

The recipe I tried comes from the blog “Crazy Adventures in Parenting” by Lisa Douglas. You can find her post at http://crazyadventuresinparenting.com/2014/06/cheesy-baked-egg-toast.html. The only change I made was to butter the underside of the bread, too.

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Cheesy Egg Toast

Cheesy egg toast is extremely easy way to make eggs and toast simultaneously.
Course Breakfast
Keyword cheese, easy breakfast, eggs, toast

Ingredients

  • Eggs
  • Sliced bread
  • Butter or margarine
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • Shredded cheese I used colby-jack
  • Cooking spray

Instructions

  • Prepare a skillet with a lid by spraying it with cooking spray (unless it’s nonstick) and heating it over medium-low heat.
  • Using a spoon or a butter knife, press the entire inside portion of a slice of bread down to create a rectangular well, leaving about a half-inch lip around the edges. (Repeat these steps for as many servings as you need.)
  • Lightly butter the other side of the bread and place it, well side up into the preheated pan.
  • Sprinkle salt and pepper into the well and then carefully break an egg into the well you created. Spread a thin layer of butter around the edges of the bread, and sprinkle cheese on top.
  • Place the lid on the pan and cook for about three to four minutes; then check the toast every minute or so until the egg has reached your desired doneness.
  • Serve.

This was delicious and turned out perfectly. I didn’t have to flip the bread or try not to break the yolk while nudging the toast in the pan. I left my eggs with a runny yolk and ate my breakfast with a fork, but you could easily scramble the egg before adding it to the bread or just cook the eggs with a hard yolk to make it easier to just eat with your hands.

This certainly wasn’t anything fancy, but I loved my morning meal with a side of hot coffee. Plus, if you want a glowing recommendation, Joey politely requested his own plate full when he got up a few minutes later and saw what I made.

This will definitely be my new, go-to way to make an egg/toast combo in the mornings instead of the traditional egg in the basket.

Starting your day with a warm, easy meal is a lot nicer than beginning with the frustrating process of trying to corral an egg in the basket—and it sure beat my bowl of cereal, too.

This piece first appeared in print on Oct. 1, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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