Week 48 – Reinvented Classics

We’ve covered a fair amount of classic food on the blog so far: pizza, lasagna, thanksgiving, etc.

There were all kinds of options that I thought of, macaroni & cheese, meat & potatoes, chicken, etc.  But there is probably little more quintessential; nothing that hearkens back to the classic time of childhood lunches in brown paper bags, sticky fingers, and cut-off crusts, more than peanut butter and jelly.

(Or PB&J if you’re cool like that).

So how do you re-invent PB&J?  You don’t. Cause it’s perfect.

I’m always partial to Skippy Peanut Butter, strawberry jam (not jelly), smooshed between two pieces of Wonderbread. Others, I found, would toast the bread, artfully spread the peanut butter to prevent jelly from spilling out, toss the combo on a waffle iron, add fruit, add butter . . . It goes on.

(Actually, the butter thing reminds me of this neighbor kid who would always ask for a “peanut butter and jelly sandwich with no butter, please”.)

Instead of variations-on-a-sandwich, I decided to look for another vehicle for my PB&J. Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins

Whisking my dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt).

Beating the fat (egg, sugar, vanilla, peanut butter, melted butter, milk, Greek yogurt).

Dry ingredients + everything else. That is some super dense, and thick batter.

Crumble crust (melted butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, salt, flour).

A little bit of jam, topped with the crust, and into the oven. I went with raspberry preserves.

The finished product.

They were pretty yummy, but nothing amazing.  I think if I’d tried one when they were a bit warmer, I would’ve liked them more.

Things I’d do differently:

• Honestly, not much. These were super easy, and not bad tasting.
• Though, maybe more peanut butter?
• also, i might try to do more of a jam filling, and make a bigger indentation in the batter, to get the jam into the center of the muffin.
• (Oh and halve the crumble/crust mixture).

Lisa will be back next week (for week 49 of 52) with Clean Eating!

Week 36 – Eggs

Sometimes the challenge topics for each week are really an opportunity to try something new and different. Sometimes it’s about making something you probably would’ve made anyway. This time it was a teensy bit of both.

Generally, I like eggs. I try not to think too hard about what an egg is, especially the texture of a raw egg. I usually need to have something like cheese or vegetables or ketchup on my eggs to make them more .  .  . palatable.

Eggs are a super good way to start the morning, but making eggs usually involves the creation of dishes that need to be washed . . . and I really don’t like doing the dishes. As a make-ahead meal, I’d tried to make some “baked eggs in a muffin tin” before, and they’d ended up kind of gross, or over cooked.

I thought I’d use this challenge to give the baked eggs another whirl. This time, I  read over a few recipes and threw something together with what I had on hand. This recipe looks a lot like some popular ones on Pinterest (spinach & sausage) but I tried to use what I had on hand: leftover Alfresco sausages in the freezer, spinach, white onions, and cheese. I also played around with the number of eggs, egg whites, etc.  some recipes said 10, some said 12, some said only egg whites, etc.  I decided for a combo.

Sausage & Spinach Baked Egg Muffin Things

• 6 eggs
• 6 egg whites
• 1/4 cup shredded cheese
• Salt & pepper
• 1/8 (ish) cup minced onion
• 1-2 cups chopped fresh baby spinach
• 6 oz sausage (I used 2 links of Alfresco sweet Italian sausage)

Pre-heat your oven to 350.

Spray your muffin tin with cooking spray (If you don’t, things get messy, trust me, I’ve tried this before.)

Whisk together eggs, egg whites, cheese, salt, & pepper in bowl.

Sauté the onions, wilt the spinach, heat up the sausage.

Divide evenly into muffin cups. Bake for 20 – 25 minutes.

Cool & enjoy!

I’m excited to have some go-to breakfast this week that are a decent way to start the day!

I had 2 for breakfast this morning and they were delicious and very filling!

Things I learned:

• Umm. This was simple, but I’m kind of proud that I did it mostly on my own.
• Maybe use a more crumble sausage nextime so it’s in smaller bits in the egg cup – but the flavor of this sausage was great (Sweet Italian).

Come back next week, Lisa will be focusing on presentation (ooooh #fancy)!!

Week 29 – Potatoes

What’s ‘taters, Precious? 

Whenever I think about making or eating potatoes I always think of a silly scene in The Two Towers. 

We picked potatoes for this week mostly because of St Paddy’s Day and the common association between potatoes and Ireland. 

I love potatoes in all forms. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in that either. Potatoes can come at every meal – breakfast potatoes, hashbrowns, mashed potatoes, french fries, baked potatoes, hasselbeck potatoes, potato salad. I’m not sure why I’m listing potato dishes, let’s just say it’s a versatile food and leave it at that. 

It also explains why potatoes became a staple of many cultures diets, and why the 19th century potato famine famine caused Ireland’s population to drop by roughly 2 million. 1 million died from starvation and related diseases. The other 1 million emigrated, many to North America. 

I really wanted to try “potato boats” for this week. I found a recipe that involves baking a potato, scooping out the yummy potato inside, cracking an egg and baking for it. 

  
I baked some potatoes

  
Scooped out the inside, but left 1/3 inch to form the walls of my “potato boat”

  
I cracked an egg and added some cheese. 

  
You can add all kinds of veggies, bacon, sausage, I just went for eggs & cheese. 

I also wasn’t thinking about the eggs. I’m not a huge fan of eggs over easy, I should’ve scrambled them before pouring them into the potato. I took a few bites of this one, and it was still yummy. I scooped the insides out of a second potato (they keep for a few days) so I’ll try it again. 

Things I learned. 

• Scramble your eggs. 
• Make sure to let the potatoes get to room temperature before you add the eggs, or you’ll be baking for awhile. 

Next week – Lisa’s taking on family recipes!

Week 1 – Breakfast

You know what’s the best?  Breakfast.  Pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns, french toast, all the delicious things.

You know what’s even better?  Breakfast for dinner, or brinner if that’s your style.

Apparently, according to whoever decides these things, September is breakfast month.  Lisa and I thought breakfast was a great way to start our challenge.   And because I’m not a morning person, and my breakfasts tend to be on the boring side, I went for the brinner route.

Quiche is delicious.  The crust of a quiche is also delicious.  But trying to be health conscious means probably skipping the crust and loving the quiche without it.  So, now the Cheesy Sausage Crustless Quiche (which, according to my brother might also be a frittata, so, yeah).  The link for the recipe is at the bottom, along with some info about next week’s challenge.

First thing, the ingredients.  That’s pretty basic.  The lettuce was for a side salad that never happened.

Whisk up eggs, milk, cheese, salt, and pepper.

Frying up the sausage, green pepper, onion, and garlic.

I popped it into the oven for a bit and it came out like this.  It was pretty good, if I may say so myself, and I’ll probably make it again for breakfast or for dinner.  I changed up the cheese (marble jack), sausage (Applegate Chicken Sausage instead of Italian turkey sausage), and white onion (instead of yellow, just because).

A big part of this challenge, for me, is to learn, so I’m going to try and take a minute with each post and talk about what I did wrong or can do better.

• I should’ve taken the sausages out of the casing (the flavor was fine, but it would’ve made things easier);
• the garlic needed to be minced better and maybe a little more salt and pepper, too;
• a little more cheese or a more flavorful cheese (this is not a surprise, I love cheese).

We’d love to see what you decided to cook for this breakfast theme, pass on any ideas you have for how to make this recipe better, or let us know your breakfast “tried and trues.” This challenge lasts through Sunday September 6.

Next week’s challenge: Picnic in honor of Labor Day cookouts and the end of summer.

Original recipe: Sally’s Baking Addiction: 140 Calorie Cheesy Sausage Quiche