French Toast Bread Pudding

I try to make something special for breakfast every year on the first day of school. This year it was sausage cheese balls and French Toast Bread Pudding. Both recipes are easy to put together the night before.  It's nice to have everything ready to go for the first day of school so I can spend my morning taking pictures. :)

Yes, I know this isn't exactly the healthiest breakfast out there, but it sure is delicious for a special occasion!

Famous French Bread Pudding
1 loaf white or wheat bread
1 quart half & half
6 large eggs
2 large egg whites
2 1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 stick butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cups chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Grease a glass pan.  Break bread into small bite-sized pieces and place into pan.  Beat eggs and egg whites in a large bowl.  Add half & half, sugar and cinnamon; mix well.  Pour over bread.  Top with powdered sugar and additional cinnamon.  Slice butter and place on top.  Sprinkle chopped pecans over all.  Cover pan with foil and bake for 40 minutes; uncover and bake for an additional 15 minutes.  If you want to make it even more decadent, serve with whipped cream and caramel sauce on top!

You can also put everything together the night before, cover with foil and keep it refrigerated over night.  Then bake as directed.

Do you make a special breakfast for the first day of school?

Perfect for Summertime: Iced Coffee

Is it wrong to drink iced coffee out of a Coca-Cola glass?

I made PW's Perfect Iced Coffee and it is delicious!  I love iced coffee year round, but it's especially good when it's so hot the farmers are feeding the chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying hard boiled eggs. (sorry about that - I have a lame sense of humor, or so my kids tell me)  It really is hot though, even in the morning.  I like to open my windows every morning to let in a little fresh air, but by 7:30 it's already hotter outside than it is in the house.

I'm not a fan of drinking something hot when I'm already having to keep the ceiling fans on high, so iced coffee it is.  I've made it before with hot coffee that I later chilled, but this is better.  Plus the convenience of having it already cold in the fridge can't be beat.  While I'm sure it's best with half &half and sugar, I used 1% milk and Splenda in mine.  Still pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

Do you like iced coffee?

Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

We had spinach and mushroom quiche this weekend. I had to make a "mom's taxi" run before it was ready and left my girls to watch the timer and pull it out of the oven for me. I thought it was so cute that they decided to take a picture of it before it was all gone because they thought you all might want to see it.  Maybe I should just turn the blog over to them!

I made this recipe (sort of).  I used sliced  mushrooms instead of bacon and added some garlic and thyme.  I also used half & half instead of heavy cream because that's what I had on hand.  It was delicious and the leftovers were even better, not that there was much left over.  Even my meat and potatoes husband liked it.  We had it for brunch, but it would be great any time of day.

School Morning Breakfast

 Make ahead breakfasts are perfect for school mornings. You can do all the work the night before and send the kids off with plenty of fuel for a busy morning of learning.

Baked oatmeal is so easy to mix up, cover and refrigerate on a school night and then all you have to do is pop it in the oven the next morning.

I make several variations on this recipe.
Here's the original:

Ingredients

• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup dried cranberries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, mix together oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Beat in milk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla extract. Stir in dried cranberries. Spread into a 9x13 inch baking dish.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 30 - 40 minutes. 

Instead of cranberries this time I chopped up a couple of apples. I thought that was perfect for back-to-school.  I usually bake it in a 9"x9" pan and I cut the sugar back to 1/2 cup.  It makes 6 servings and is a great way to fill up hungry teenagers.

Cake for Breakfast!

Every time I make coffee cake I am reminded of the time I made it when Marcia was a little tiny thing.  She had reached that stage of questioning everything (OK she still does that).  She wanted to know what we were having for breakfast.  When I told her we were having coffee cake she was at first unbelieving that I was really going to let her eat cake for breakfast (even if it didn't have any frosting), and then decided she wasn't going to eat it because it must have coffee in it.  I explained to her that it was named coffee cake because it went well with coffee, not because it had coffee in it.  I have no idea if that's actually how coffee cake got its name, but it sounded right so I went with it.  She finally decided that it smelled good enough to taste and proceeded to eat every last crumb on her plate.  I can't believe I had to convince my child to try cake!

This cinnamon coffee cake is a quick and easy weekday breakfast or afternoon treat. I made it this morning and it was gone before I knew it. It's an easily customized recipe too. You can add nuts, fruit, even chocolate chips.

Happy baking!

Breakfast

"'When you wake up in the morning, Pooh'

said Piglet, 'what's the first thing you say

to yourself?'

'What's for breakfast?' said Pooh"

-A.A. Milne The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh

Maybe it's because I have more energy in the mornings or maybe it's because a delicious breakfast is relatively quick and easy to prepare, but it's one of my favorite meals to cook for my family. A leisurely Saturday breakfast or brunch is such a treat after a busy week and is a great opportunity for us to be together. If the weather cooperates it's fun to take breakfast outside and make a special occasion out of it.  Sometimes I even make breakfast for supper ("brupper").

Here are some favorite breakfast recipes that I have featured in the past on 50s Housewife:

Blueberry Oat Muffins
Fruit Swirl Coffee Cake
Easy Homemade Pancakes
Chocolate Gravy
Banana French Toast
Cinnamon Rolls
Cinnamon Spice Muffins
Apple Muffins
Homestead Biscuits
Coffee House Scones

Happy Monday!

Blueberry Oat Muffins

These muffins are lower in fat and calories than most blueberry muffins, but still delicious.



Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup flour
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2 egg whites
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

For Topping:
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

In a bowl, combine the first 6 ingredients. In another bowl, beat egg whites, water and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in blueberries. Fill greased muffin cups three-fourths full. Combine sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over muffins. Bake at 400 degrees for 18 to 22 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan. Yield: 1 dozen

Fruit Swirl Coffee Cake

I love to make this recipe for an easy weekend breakfast. It comes from this cookbook that Mike bought for me about 9 or 10 years ago. It's spiral bound so it will lay flat on the counter which is really nice.

The year that he gave it to me for Christmas we had ice and snow for the whole 2 week Christmas break and I made many of the recipes in it since I happened to have a big box of Bisquick on hand and we couldn't go anywhere. The boys got scooters for Christmas that year too and couldn't try them out until after they had to go back to school. I seem to remember that we even completed an entire game of Monopoly while we were "iced in". :) Maybe it's just us, but our Monopoly games tend to drag on for hours and hours and hours...



4 c. Bisquick baking mix (you could also use homemade biscuit mix)
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. butter, melted
1/2 c. milk
2 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs
1 (21 oz.) can pie filling (I used apple, but you can use cherry, blueberry, apricot...whatever you like)
Glaze (see below)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease jelly roll pan 15 1/2x10 1/2x1, or 2 square 9x9x2 pans. Mix all ingredients except pie filling and glaze. Beat vigorously for 30 seconds. Spread 2/3 of the batter (about 2 1/2 cups) in jelly roll pan or 1/3 of the batter (about 1 1/4 cups) in each square pan. Spread pie filling over batter (filling may not cover batter completely). Drop remaining batter by tablespoons onto pie filling. Bake until light brown, about 20 to 25 minutes. Drizzle with glaze while warm.

GLAZE:
Beat 1 cup powdered sugar and 1 to 2 tbsp. milk until smooth and of desired consistency.

Easy Homemade Pancakes

I make pancakes a lot and love to try different recipes. Some are great and some not so great. This recipe is super easy (just as easy as a mix) and it's my "usual". Everybody loves it.

We often have lots of "extra" teenage boys around the house for Saturday morning breakfast and this is a quick (and cheap) way to feed a crowd. I usually double this recipe.

1 cup sifted self-rising flour (must be self-rising flour or the recipe will not work) I'll also tell you a secret...I rarely sift and the pancakes turn out fine. No guarantees though! :)
1 cup milk
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat egg, oil and milk together; add to flour. Stir just until combined. Pour 1/4 cup batter on a hot buttered griddle. Turn with a spatula when bubbles begin to form on top. Cook second side until golden brown.

I also use self-rising flour in my biscuit recipe.

Chocolate Gravy

I'm finally posting the long awaited chocolate gravy recipe! :)

I usually start my gravy before I start the biscuits. This gravy will have to simmer 10 minutes or so and the biscuits bake up so quickly.

Combine in a saucepan (This pan is as old as I am. Seriously.):
2 tablespoons cocoa


2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 1/2 cup sugar


3 cups water


1 teaspoon vanilla extract


Whisk it all together.


Bring to a boil over medium heat and simmer for 10 minutes or so. It will SLOWLY start to thicken.


Pull your biscuits out of the oven. This one pan of biscuits would not have been nearly enough if all the kids were at home.


Butter your biscuit (that part is critical) and pour the gravy over. Mike likes to split his biscuits, butter each half and then pour the gravy over.

So yummy! Don't think about the calories. :)

Banana French Toast

This is what I made for breakfast this morning and it was SO good. I used homemade bread and bananas are cheap so even though I haven't worked out the exact cost I'm thinking it was pretty minimal.

Ingredients:
4 eggs (I only have 2 showing in the picture)
1/2 cup milk
2 bananas, cut into chunks
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 Tablespoon oil
Sliced bread


In a blender, combine all ingredients except bread. Blend until smooth and pour into a pie pan.

Heat a large skillet or griddle over medium heat until hot. I recommend non-stick for this recipe. Soak bread in the banana mixture, turning to coat both sides.

Place bread in the skillet. Cook 5 to 7 minutes until golden brown, turning once.

Serve with additional sliced bananas, powdered sugar and maple syrup.

Breakfast for Supper

We had breakfast for supper tonight. It's fun to switch things around every now and then, plus breakfast foods are often cheaper than an ordinary supper. Breakfast casseroles are usually easily refrigerated until ready to bake, so I put this one together this afternoon and it was so easy to just pop in the oven after I picked up Bobby from football practice. Then all I had to do was open a can of fruit and make some toast to go with it.

This is the recipe I used (except I doubled it which means I had to cook it longer and I toasted the bread first). You can find lots more breakfast casserole recipes here.

Cinnamon Rolls

I made Tracy's cinnamon rolls this morning and they were SO good! Thank you Tracy!
Cinnamon Rolls

Dough:
1 cup warm water (about 115 degrees)
2 Tbs. margarine or butter, softened
1 egg
3 1/3 c. flour
1/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbs. regular active dry yeast

Filling:
1/3 c. sugar
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 Tbs. margarine or butter, softened

Glaze:
Mix 1 c. powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp. vanilla, and 1 to 2 Tbs. milk until smooth and thin enough to drizzle.


Directions:
Place yeast in the warm water. Let bud. Cream egg, butter, and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add water/yeast mixture. Stir well. Sift together dry ingredients. Slowly add to wet mixture. Mix well. Knead dough for about 8 minutes. Spray bowl with non-stick spray. Place dough in bowl, cover and let rise about 30 minutes. Roll dough into 18 x 12 inch rectangle on lightly floured surface. Spread with softened butter. Sprinkle with sugar-cinnamon mixture. Roll up tightly, beginning at 12 inch end. Cut roll into 1 inch slices. Place in greased 9 x 13 baking pan. Cover; let rise in warm place until double in size. Heat oven to 375. Bake 25- 30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan; drizzle Glaze over warm rolls. Makes one dozen.

Cinnamon Spice Muffins

I found this recipe at the Get Rich Slowly Blog. It's not usually a blog that posts recipes, but this one sounded SO good. Mike took the day off today, so I thought it was a good morning to try something new.


Muffins

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2/3 cup butter at room temperature
2 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup milk

Sugar & spice coating

1/3 cup butter, melted
1 cup granulated sugar mixed with
2 tsp cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and lightly flour a 12-cup muffin tin (or coat with non-stick spray).

Sift together flour, salt, nutmeg & baking powder. Set aside. Beat together 2/3 cup butter and 1 cup sugar, about 2 minutes on medium speed. Add eggs one at a time and beat in. Add dry ingredients in three portions, alternately with milk, combining just until well mixed. Divide batter among 12 muffin cups. Bake 25-30 minutes until lightly golden. Cool about 3 minutes, then remove from pan.

While still warm, use a pastry brush to brush muffins with melted butter and then roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture until the muffins are well coated on all sides.

Save any extra cinnamon-sugar for toast later in the week. These muffins are best served warm. You can make them a day ahead and reheat them in the oven, in a dish covered with foil.

Apple Muffins

Apple Gatherers
I love to make muffins for breakfast and these are really good. If you are going to be in a hurry in the morning, make the batter up the night before and store in the refrigerator.

1 3/4 C. Flour
1/4 C. sugar
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 egg
3/4 C. milk
1/3 C. vegetable oil
1 C. chopped apple

Stir just until moistened and pour into paper lined muffin pans. Sprinkle with a mixture of 2 Tbsp. sugar and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.