Scrambled Eggs Florentine

This is a fridge clean out type of breakfast. I had spinach left from my chicken the other night (another post about that later), and always have cheese and bacon bits. I’m trying to be purposeful in using the leftover produce from other things I’ve cooked. Now to come up with something for the ⅔ full bag of shredded cabbage…

Scrambled Eggs Florentine

1 T butter

½ t minced garlic (from a jar)

4 handfuls baby spinach

2 T bacon bits (from a pouch)

2 eggs

Salt and pepper

⅓ c shredded mozzarella cheese

1 T grated Parmesan cheese

Melt butter over medium heat in a skillet with a lid. Add garlic and cook until it starts to sizzle. Add spinach and cook until wilted. Sprinkle bacon bits around and stir in, and spread spinach out in skillet.

Turn heat to low. Crack eggs on spinach and season with salt and pepper (go easy on the salt as the bacon and Parmesan are salty). Quickly scramble eggs into spinach. Turn heat up to medium and cook until eggs are almost done. Sprinkle mozzarella and parm on top, put lid on skillet, and turn heat to very low. Let sit 5 min for cheese to melt, turn off heat, remove lid, and mix cheese into scramble. Serve.

French toast casserole for two

My kid put a loaf of bread in the wrong cupboard, so I thought I should buy more last Thursday on my way home from my last day of work. Saturday I was looking somewhere else, and found a rogue loaf of bread. Now I had 2.5 loaves of bread. So I thought about what all I could make, trolled Pinterest, and found several French toast casserole recipes that used regular sandwich bread instead of Texas toast, French, challah, etc. but there are only two of us, so I wanted something smaller. So I tinkered with my favorite parts of what I found, cut everything in half, and came up with this. 

French Toast Casserole

6 slices sandwich bread
2T butter
3 eggs
1/2 c milk
2 T sugar
2 drops doTerra Wild orange oil
¾ t vanilla
½ t cinnamon
⅛ t salt
2 t cinnamon sugar, divided

Melt butter in 8.5 x 6.5 pan in 400° oven and remove. Keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn.

Mix eggs, milk, sugar, orange oil, vanilla, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl.

Cut 2 slices of bread in half. Place 2 whole slices and 2 half slices of bread in pan. Drizzle ½ cup of egg mixture slowly over bread, allowing it to soak in, paying attention to crusty edges. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon sugar. Place remaining bread on top, and drizzle remaining egg mixture over. Sprinkle with remaining cinnamon sugar. Tilt pan gently to allow any pooled egg to soak in. Let rest on counter 10 min. 

Bake in 400° oven until egg is set and casserole is puffed, about 20 min. Let cool 10 min before serving.

Bread pudding for brunch

After perusing a cookbook about crockpot spoon breads and desserts a couple weeks ago, I thought it might be yummy to have cinnamon bread pudding for breakfast on a day with no plans. That day was today, and the no plans thing turned out to be a good thing.

I originally found the recipe in a cookbook I got for free on my kindle. While searching Pinterest for other breakfast bread pudding possibilities, I found the exact same recipe on the mrfood.com sight, although it was called cinnamon raisin bread pudding. That was the only difference. All the ingredients were the same. I am a little disappointed in my free cookbook :( Plagiarism is not ok. I put a lot of recipes I find other places on here, but I do my best to somehow credit the source (my linky skills are lacking, but I do try).

So, to get back to Mr. Food. I remember watching Mr. Food on my local ABC news when I was growing up. I also have a favorite (tho not often remembered) soup recipe that I know I got from him. I searched for it on the site just to make sure. But back to bread pudding. Instead of a cinnamon raisin bread, I used a yummy cinnamon swirl bread from my local grocery store bakery. It has lots of thin layers bursting with sweet cinnamony goodness. I used about 3/4 of the loaf, as the recipe calls for a one pound loaf, and the one I bought was 1.3 pounds. Mostly, I cut it into thick slices which i weighed to find a pound, then into cubes (sort of...it tried falling apart). I then put as many into my crockpot as would fit, which ended up being just shy of a pound (14.5 ounces) as my crockpot was 2.5qt rather than the 4qt called for. I don't know if that contributed to my other problem or not.

The recipe said to cook on low for 2 hours, or until the center was set. Well, at the end of two hours, when I pulled the edges in, there was still a bunch of juicy custard liquid. So I put the lid back on and turned it up to high for 30 minutes. When I went back it was all nice and puffed up, and not juicy. Then it was to cool for 30 minutes out of the base. While serving, I found some nearly burnt parts around the bottom edge. Possibly from the 30 minutes on high.

But over all, it was very tasty, even if later than planned. It was almost too sweet for me, tho. Not sure if I may try leaving all or some of the brown sugar out if I make it again, as the bread was very sweet itself. And if I had done it the way I had intended, I would have had all the bread cut up the night before, so all I had to do was assemble it this morning. That also added to the lateness of breakfast.

Here is the recipe:

Cinnamon Bread Pudding in the Crock Pot

3 large eggs
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup milk
1 cup whipping cream (I used 2 cups whole milk instead of milk and cream)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 (1-pound) cinnamon-raisin bread loaf, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 cup butterscotch chips
1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted (I omitted these)
Sweetened whipped cream (optional)

Whisk together first 3 ingredients in a large bowl; stir in milk and next 3 ingredients. Add bread cubes, stirring until moistened. Stir in butterscotch chips and pecans. Pour into a lightly greased 4-quart round slow cooker.

Cover and cook on LOW setting 2 hours or until center is set. Carefully remove slow cooker insert from heat element. Let stand, covered, 30 minutes. Serve pudding warm with whipped cream, if desired.

Source: mrfood.com