Virtual Running Date No. 56: Pancakes for now and later

Hello Crushers!

This past weekend was an easy one for running. I just did two miles, but it felt great! Steve did 7 and rocked it. It's nice that the weather is warming up, but it is not nice that those little swarms of midges are back. So. Gross.

Don't worry, I didn't take a picture. Eeeeeew.

If this were a running date, I'd tell you how I may have gone a little overboard with planting this year...

This shot did not include my rosemary, basil, tomato, rhubarb, raspberry and pepper plants.
Or the plants that Steve is growing from seed. 

So, yeah. There's that. Fortunately, Ellie had a great time sitting outside in her little sun shade playing while Mama and Dada got a little dirty.

If this were a running date, I'd tell you that I'm sorry for the frost warning we had on Tuesday. I just have trouble waiting to plant after Memorial Day. Ugh!

If this were a running date, I'd tell you that I've had a craving for pancakes for several weeks now, but Pancake King Steve hasn't made them yet. Oh, until Sunday night...

If this were a running date, I'd confess that I gave up waiting and made myself (and Ellie and my sister) some tropical pancakes on Friday morning. Steve, honey, if you're reading this, I'm really sorry!

If this were a running date, I'd also tell you that you can freeze pancakes for later. That means Ellie and I have pancakes for any day we want without having to make a mess as often! Yippee!

Hungry?

Tropical Pancakes
Ingredients:
1 cup flour
2 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 tsp coconut extract
1 Tbsp vegetable oil for coating the pan

Toppings: we used bananas, strawberries and pineapple chunks

Directions:
In a bowl, whisk all ingredients together except the oil for the pan and the toppings. Yes, yes, you can do the dry and wet ingredients separately, but why make another dish dirty? Make sure all the large lumps are gone, but a few small ones are OK. I suggest using a bowl with a spout to make pouring easier.

Heat a large skillet or griddle to medium and dampen a folded paper towel with some oil. Using a pair of tongs or VERY CAREFULLY using your fingers, carefully rub the skillet with oil. I did not use grapeseed oil from Wildtree for this because it's green and I didn't want to risk green pancakes.

Pour 2-3 tablespoons of batter out for each pancake. No need to measure unless you really want to, but it's pretty easy to eye-ball. Cook until the wet surface of the pancakes have some bubbles that have burst. Flip carefully (trust me) and cook until the underside is lightly browned. This takes about a minute or a bit more. Repeat until you have a stack of pancakes.

Serve with toppings and enjoy!

Camp cooking: Breakfast "cookies" and food prep

Hello Crushers,

Note: Yes, this is Friday, so technically there should be a Faith-filled Friday blog post, but I switched it up and did that yesterday. Here is a recipe instead.

As you know, Steve and I love being outdoors. This includes camping. This means we're taking our 3-month-old daughter camping this weekend. This probably means we're half nuts.

I'm really OK with that.

We're camping with some friends who have 3 girls under the age of 6, so we'll all just be kid wranglers. They've done this tons of times, so if we start letting our novice show, they can help guide us to where we need to go. I'm very thankful that they are also experienced camping cooks and are making tacos for us on Saturday night! WIN!

Since we're dividing up the cooking duties, we have breakfast to make. We're going to do omelets on our little propane stove top. In order to make this as headache free as possible, I chopped up a bunch of veggies ahead of time and put them in little plastic food containers. Although, I've been moving toward more glass containers at home, I'm sticking with plastic for camping because a) it's lighter and b) I don't care as much if I drop or break it.

We are packing eggs, cheese, butter, milk, cooking spray, diced peppers, diced onions, other veggies for snacking, PBJ fixings, and these breakfast "cookies" that I found on the Internet thanks to Pinterest. Unfortunately, the link doesn't go to the same recipe. It goes to some paleo breakfast bars with almond flour, so I have no idea who to attribute this recipe to. Since I didn't follow the recipe exactly anyway, here is my version of breakfast cookies.

Breakfast "cookies"
2-3 Very ripe bananas
1.5 cups oats (I used old fashioned oats)
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 tsp-ish cinnamon

Directions:
Peel and mash the bananas in a bowl. I found it easier to break the banana in pieces first. Stir in the oats, applesauce and cinnamon. Then you can either add the raisins or save them to sprinkle on top. Since I was making these at 10:30 p.m. last night, I ended up baking these in a greased 13 x 9 pan so they're more like bars than cookies. I sprinkled the raisins on top instead of mixing them in because I thought it looked nice.

See?

YUM!

Mini Frittatas: Why haven't I made these before?!

Good morning Crushers!

As you know, I'm embarking on a low carb, low sugar diet for the next few months to keep this baby healthy. I'm swapping out my usual breakfast of oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins or cereal for a high protein, low carb option: eggs. However, you can only eat eggs so many ways. Plus, I like to stay in bed as long as possible in the morning before having to get up and get going.

Unless it's summer and I've got a race to train for, of course.

Anyway, I was watching the Biggest Loser, and I remembered that they made some Turkey Bacon veggie frittatas that looked amazing! I know that there have been lots of recipes for this floating around the Internet and Pinterest. I've even bookmarked/pinned a few of them. However, I never actually tried them.

Thanks to Steve having the day off yesterday due to another day of weather being in the high negative numbers (seriously, we had colder temperatures than most of Alaska), he braved the cold and went out to buy a bunch of veggies and eggs for me! Love that guy!

We didn't have all the ingredients from the original recipe from Jennie-O, so here is what I used and how I did it:

Breakfast Frittatas
Ingredients:
8 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 dash parsley
1-ish tablespoon grapeseed oil
1 cup spinach, chopped up
1/2 green pepper, diced
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, diced
2 slices of cheese, crumbled up
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

Gear you'll need: A large bowl, a skillet, fork or whisk, a muffin tin, knife, cutting board, measuring cup and cooking spray.

Directions: Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a skillet on the stove top, heat the oil. I did not measure the oil exactly, but I know it was not a full tablespoon. No need to add more oil! Anyway, throw all your diced/chopped veggies in the pan and cook until they are soft (about 5 minutes).

Lovely veggies! No idea why I can't rotate this darn picture...

While those are cooking away, mix the eggs, milk, cheese, and parsley in a bowl. I suggest a bowl that has a spout for easy pouring. Once the veggies are cooked, add them to the egg mixture and stir to combine.

Mixin' it up!

Then pour or spoon about 1/4 cup of the mix into each muffin tin cup. This will fill it up about 3/4 of the way. Bake for 20 minutes or until it's set.

Pre-oven

Then enjoy! (Or put them in a sealed container and pull out two for breakfast the next morning - only needs about one minute in the microwave!)

Breakfast with limits

Good morning Crushers!

Steve and I are going up north (near Lake Superior) for skiing this weekend with a group of friends. We offered to bring things for breakfast since it's unclear if the lodge has anything and we don't really want to pay for every meal while we're up there.

When you are limited to what you can fit in a cooler, I feel like this trip will be a lot like packing food for a camping trip. When we camp, we put all our non-cooler items in a tote and keep it in the back of the truck so no animals get to our cereal and things, and the cooler is packed tight! When summer rolls around, I'll be sure to share some favorite camping meals with you.

What to do about breakfast, though? I would feel kind of silly packing a crock pot and making the ever-popular breakfast egg bake in our hotel room. I guess it could be done, but I just feel weird about that. What do you think?

Anyway, here is what we are bringing for breakfast and snacks:

• Bagels and cream cheese
• Oatmeal (with our camping utensils and bowls)
• Fruit
• Milk
• Juice
• Pancake Mix (we do have one morning at our friends' cabin)
• An avocado, some onion and tomato = guaca-almost
• Chips
• Crackers
• Cheese

What do you think? Are we missing anything?

When we were on our honeymoon, we did a road trip through California and did a LOT of hiking. We ate a lot of PBJ sandwiches, fruit, veggies and things like that for lunches that we could carry in our packs for when we were out on the trails. I think one weekend of being snowbuddies will be much easier!

I think we'll be fine, but I just have to make it through the weekend without breaking my arm or leg and we're good to go!

Stuffed French Toast

Hi Crushers,


As you may have read here and here, I've started baking bread, but sometimes you just want to do something with the bread that doesn't involve making a sandwich. Since the bread you make at home doesn't have preservatives in it, you either have to freeze what you're not using or use it up before it gets moldy. We had bought some regular wheat bread at the store in case my adventures in bread making didn't work out, but since they did, we found that we had more bread than we knew what to do with.

Time to hit the recipe books! I had two problems to solve:

1. What to feed a hungry guy?
2. How to use up the bread?

The answer is Stuffed French Toast.

I recently had some friends *waves hi to Susan and Erie* ask me to do some posts on what to do with leftovers and offer some meatless meal options. While this might not totally satisfy Susan's question on leftovers, this fun breakfast-for-dinner option answers the above problems and is meatless.

So much bread!

Note: We don't usually have too many leftovers in our house, but when we do, we usually just have a leftover night and eat up what's in the fridge. If we have specific ingredients like ground beef, veggies, or something else, then those can easily be incorporated into another meal. More on that will come later this week.

Stuffed French Toast (loosely based on this Food Network recipe):
Batter Ingredients:
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp sugar
6-8 half inch slices of day old bread
1 tsp butter

Filling Ingredients:
1-8 oz package of cream cheese (the low fat stuff works fine)
1 medium or large banana
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:
Whisk all of the batter ingredients together except for the bread and the butter. In a shallow dish, soak the bread in the batter for 30 seconds on each side. In a large frying pan, melt half of the butter. When it is hot, fry four slices of bread on each side until it is golden brown. Set those slices aside and repeat with the rest of the bread until it is all cooked. It should take about 2-4 minutes for the slices to cook.

The mix is a little lumpy, but I think it was because the bananas were still a tiny bit green.

In a medium/large bowl (I used the KitchenAid mixer), beat the filling ingredients until they are smooth. Heat the filling in the microwave or in a sauce pan on the stove so it doesn't chill your French toast. Place a piece of French toast on a plate and spoon the filling over the toast. I found it helpful to press down on the middle of the bottom slice of toast to make a little dent or pocket for the filling. Cover with a second piece of toast. If you want (and we did), spoon some more filling over the top. No need for syrup!

I made a dent in the bottom slice on the yellow plate to hold in the filling.
I forgot to do that for one the green plate, so you can see how all of the filling escaped!

 

Variations:

1. If you read the recipe that this is loosely based on, you could put half of the toast slices in the bottom of a baking dish, spoon filling over them, and then cover with the rest of the slices and bake it for about 8 minutes at 350 F. We were too hungry to mess around with baking, so we didn't.
2. I think that the next time we make this, I'm going to use half of the cheese and more banana to cut some calories and fat.

I don't want to be right - Breakfast style

Hi Crushers,

Last night after using lots of coupons and thinking we were saving all this money by working ahead on Christmas gifts, my car got rear-ended with me in the driver's seat and my mom in the passenger's seat. Hello new bumper and deductible. Goodbye all the money I just saved.

Argh.

Obviously, I'm very glad that no one was hurt and that we weren't pushed into oncoming traffic. Being a little sore is the max of our injuries. There is a lot to be thankful for here.

However, the being annoyed part hasn't gone away yet. I got to work today after dropping my husband off (carpools are awesome!) at the school where he teaches, and sat down at my desk. I keep a big old canister of oatmeal at my desk for a nutritious breakfast since I usually fly out of the house before eating. Well, today that plain oatmeal didn't sound so appealing. It needed something. Think, think think... Time to dig around in my lunchbox for some inspiration.

My husband packed my lunch for me last night while I was dealing with the police and the (uninsured, license-less) young man that hit my car. He made me a very nice lunch including several dark chocolate Hersey Kisses (R). Yet, another reason why I love him!

*Click* goes the light bulb over my head.

Oatmeal + one Hersey Kiss + a spoonful of natural peanut butter that I keep in my desk for afternoon apples or celery snacks = GONE!

That was awesome, so I had to share it. Next time, if I lack the chocolate, I'm totally chopping up some apples.

Office breakfast deliciousness...

Tailgating: Grill vs. Slow Cooker

From Wikipedia:

In the United States, a tailgate party is a social event held on and around the open tailgate of a vehicle. Tailgating often involves consuming alcoholic beverages and grilling food. Tailgate parties usually occur in the parking lots at stadiums and arenas, before and occasionally after games and concerts. People attending such a party are said to be tailgating. Many people participate even if their vehicles do not have tailgates.

Everyone tailgates differently. I wish, oh how I wish I had taken pictures of the many types of tailgate parties I saw at the Packer game yesterday when The Pack beat the Arizona Cardinals. Some people just sat in chairs at the back of their cars eating sub sandwiches and some people had multiple grills for a buffet feast. I've seen catered groups with fancy cocktails and wine to tiny grills with 20-something men drinking crappy beer. It varies by sport, location, and local cuisine. However, the basics are all there: parking lot, sporting event, food and fun.

Here are some fun links about tailgating food, tips and accessories (the magnetic beer koozie cracks me up):

Home Tailgating

Tailgate Warriors

American Tailgaters

When I tailgate for baseball games, I usually have a grill with some brats and burgers with chips and salsa or taco dip, some sort of dessert, and some sort of salad like potato, pasta or coleslaw. Generally, the weather is nicer so you can hang out for hours before (or after) the game with your fellow-fans. Oh, and don't forget to have some tasty beverages handy, too!

Tailgate picture from October 2010 - not much changes year-to-year.

We're at Lambeau Field!
(You can't tell that we've got a ton of layers of clothes on to keep us warm!)

Everyone in the stands had a piece of colored paper
to hold up to make a "Thank You Veterans" card stunt
during the Star Spangled Banner. I took this picture from
behind my red card.

When I go to a Packer game, which if you are from Wisconsin, then you know it's a big deal even if you're not a fan, I want warm, tasty comfort food that will stick to my insides and keep me warm through the whole game at Lambeau Field. It's not called "the Frozen Tundra" for nothing, folks!

If we go to an afternoon game (3 p.m. kickoff), then you're more likely to have time to start the grill and cook some brats or burgers. However, we went to a noon game, which means that we were there around 10:30 a.m. I don't know about you, but that's a little early to be eating brats for me. What to do? Breakfast casserole, bloody mary's and spiked coffee!

Unfortunately, since I make this slow cooker breakfast casserole as the very last thing before I went to bed, I was not thinking about taking pictures. I also spent most of the day learning how to caulk our bathtub so I was tired of scrubbing and just wanted to get cooking. It's so easy, you can do half asleep!

Anyway, you can go over to this website where there are pictures. I took Ott, A's recipe and only changed it by using crumbled Italian sausage in the layers for a little kick. Also, I did not saute the garlic and onions. I just put them in fresh.

Funny story: I found this recipe through Pinterest.com, and I later found out that one of my co-workers is related to the blog author. Small world!

Ingredients:
6-8 strips of bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/2-1 pound of Italian sausage (as mild or hot as you like), browned
1-2 onions, peeled and chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 green pepper, seeds removed and chopped
1 - 2 lb bag of frozen hash browns, I like using the string kind instead of the cubes
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, pepper jack would probably be good too
12 eggs
1 cup of milk
salt and pepper to taste

You might want hot sauce or ketchup available in case you have people who like condiments.

Directions:
While you are browning the Italian sausage and/or cooking the bacon, take the time to chop up your veggies. It makes the assembly time much quicker! Depending on how fast you chop, you might also have time to crack the eggs in a big bowl and whisk in a cup of milk. Ott, A's recipe called for whole milk, but we just always use whatever we have in the fridge (skim, 1% or 2%).

Once you've got your bacon cooked and crumbled and the sausage is browned and all the fat is drained off of both, it is assembly time! Grease the inside of the slow cooker all the way TO THE TOP with butter or cooking spray. Layer 1/3 of the hash browns, cheese, onion, peppers, meat, salt and pepper in order and repeat. You will have three layers. This will fill up your slow cooker all the way to the top. Although, you think that you can't possibly fit in any more ingredients, you pour the egg mixture over the whole thing. It sinks right in!

Now turn the cooker to low and cook for 8-10 hours. Then go to bed since you're going to be up early to hit the road to see your beloved team (hopefully) squash the other team.

Serving suggestions: Enjoy with coffee (spiked or regular), a Bloody Mary (with all the fixings or not), some coffee cake and a heaping dose of friendly trash talk with tailgaters wearing the other team's colors.

Meal planning

Meal planning is a big deal. It can guide your shopping list, which coupons you use and which you save, and what you thaw from the freezer. We're usually pretty good about meal planning and since neither of us are real picky eaters, that helps.

There's a big difference in the "his list" and "her list" from before we were married, but we're making it work. For instance, I rarely ate frozen pizza, but he ate it at least two nights a week. I would make one big meal like lasagna, freeze half and still eat the other half for three days (lunch and dinner) straight. Now, a lasagna might last us for three dinners for two people. Needless to say, our grocery bills have gone up.

This week, you can plan on seeing the following recipes:

• Beef Stroganoff - based on, but not exactly this recipe from Gina at Skinnytaste.com
• Jalapeño Roll Up appetizers (card night for the guys) - based on this recipe from Sally's blog, My Homemade Life
• Slow cooker Breakfast Casserole (for tailgating!) - based on this recipe from a Latte with Ott, A

 Now I'm hungry...