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.

Copy cat recipe

Recently, Jack in the Box has had a yummy snack...wakey bakey hash browns. Hash browns topped with a bacony, garlicky, cheese sauce and a fried egg. I decided to try making it for dinner.

I found a super easy cheese sauce recipe that you can make in the microwave (or a double boiler, tho it's intended for the micro). Three simple ingredients: 8oz shredded cheese, 4t corn starch, and a cup of evaporated milk. Mix cheese and starch in a large bowl (I like a glass pie plate), pour milk over, and nuke in 2-3 minute intervals, whisking in between, until melted and thick. Done! The recipe calls for cheddar. The first time I made it for another recipe, I used swiss. This time I used Kraft smoky bacon cheddar shredded cheese. Here's the link for the recipe https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/3-ingredient-cheese-sauce#reviews

The hash brown patties have so much oil in them, I just dry fried them in a non stick skillet. Pushed them to the side when they were about done and fried a couple eggs over medium. Put the hash browns on a plate, top with eggs, then cheese sauce. Yummy!

The picture isn't very colorful, but shows the yumminess. Enjoy!

Peanut butter nutella cookies!

I made some "magical peanut butter cookies" I found on foodnetwork.com for my mom (don't tell her...I haven't mailed them yet!)...they are sugar free and super easy. A cup of peanut butter, a cup of sugar (as other similar recipes had) or splenda for baking, an egg, and a teaspoon of vanilla. When I tasted the finished cookies, they were a tad sweet for me. Some of the comments had mentioned that as well.

Today I was planning on making some with regular sugar to leave out for Santa. I measured out 2/3 cup peanut butter, and didn't have more! I looked in my cupboard and didn't have another jar, but found my jar of nutella...and inspiration hit! I measured out 1/3 cup nutella, and proceeded with the recipe, but only used 3/4 cup of sugar. I scooped them out with my scoop, and rather than smashing with a fork like regular peanut butter cookies, I flattened them with a glass. For the FN recipe, the cookies were sprinkled with sugar/splenda. A different recipe sprinkled with salt. I made the ones for mom half and half. Since the nutella is sweetened, I opted for salt with them.

They spread more than the regular peanut butter ones, I think because the nutella is softer than peanut butter. Next time I might try leaving them as little domes and see what happens. Also, I don't think I would use more nutella and less peanut butter. The nutella is too soft, and there is no flour in these to compensate.

When I took them out of the oven, I transferred the cookies, on the parchment paper, to a rack until the cookies firmed up a bit. Then I removed them from the parchment and left them to cool. They are really yummy...sweet, chocolatey, and a bit of salty. I am glad I ran out of peanut butter ;)

Panettone French toast

Last week I bought a loaf of panattone at the store. I opened it and cut the top off for breakfast on the way to church, and didn't wrap it back up. By the time we got home that afternoon, it had gotten quite dry. I decided to wrap it up and save it for French toast. Well, today was the day!

I cut it into rounds, and then cut the rounds in half. I mixed up some eggs and milk. Usually, I flavor my milk-dip liberally with cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and a spoon of sugar. But that is for using with plain bread. Since this bread was flavorful, I left my dip plain. I soaked the sliced briefly (too long and they fell apart!) and cooked them on my greased griddle. When they were brown on both sides, I put them in a 200* oven on a rack to finish cooking all the way thru. When they were all done, I served them with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt (I suppose to be truly Italian I could have used ricotta cheese if I had any).

It was quite yummy! I'll have to remember it for more mornings :)

Spaghetti carbonara

Being the end of the month, the food budget is running low. So, when looking to see what I had on hand, I decided to make spaghetti carbonara. All I needed to go to the store for was Parmesan cheese and cream (not used in this particular recipe, but I have used it in others and like the addition of several tablespoons to the egg mixture). I used a recipe from Tyler Florence on Food Network (link below). It was nice and creamy and bacony. And all I needed was spaghetti, bacon (I used double the amount called for, partly because we like bacon, and partly because that was what I had left), eggs and Parmesan cheese. Yum :)

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/spaghetti-alla-carbonara-recipe/index.html