Breakfast Burritos!....and an epic fail

Once in a blue moon, we decide to do breakfast-for-dinner week around the house.  We only go grocery shopping once a week, so when inspiration REFUSES to strike (or money is uber tight and we're sick of ground beef), I just take the easy way out and we have breakfast week.

This time, I decided to have some fun with it and consulted a bunch of friends/readers on a forum to see what they'd like to see posted with the ingredients I had and I got some great suggestions, including crepes, which I plan to try my hand at for the first time in a few days.

This go, I settled on breakfast burritos, which had been requested.  The Wookie asked for a sandwich instead and wanted his eggs over-easy.  Well, I've never done that before.  I don't care for runny eggs, but for him, I gave it a shot.  It ended in me screaming obscenities, but we'll get to that later.

For starters, I put two eggs in a bowl and stirred them up with milk and seasoned salt for the burritos.  Yes, I do make a massive mess every time I cook.  It is part of the fun.  :)

Then, get the bacon frying.  Also, the sausage if your significant other has requested something different.

Scramble up the eggs....

Now, for breakfast burritos, I like the cheese to be all melty, so I toss it in with the eggs as soon as they are done cooking and give it a good stir.

Add the bacon to some warm tortillas...

...then add the eggs, and roll 'em up.  You can add salsa at this point if you'd like, but I prefer my salsa to stay cold, so I like it on the side.  You can tuck the ends if you prefer, but it isn't necessary.

Nom.  Now, these are super easy to store in the fridge for a few days to reheat for a quick microwave-friendly breakfast.  The trick is to let them cool on the counter for about 30 minutes or until they are room temperature.  Once that is done, you wrap them in wax paper, then tightly in saran wrap.  When you need a quick breakfast, just pop one in the microwave for 30-45 seconds and you're good to go!  I'd love to tell you how long these keep for, but they've never lasted more than 2 days here...

Now, on to the fail!

Me, being the genius I am, thought "well, I can make eggs over hard with about a 90% success rate, so I don't need to look up no stinkin' instructions!"

I was wrong.  So, so wrong.

For starters, eggs are the one thing I just can NOT seem to be able to cook in cast iron.  Seeing as how the only other skillet-like object I own was the crepe pan full of bacon and sausage, I figured a nonstick saucepan would do the trick.  First mistake.

I cracked the egg in over medium heat, and the butter was all caramelize-y and it looked like things were going well!  It was time to - if I may borrow from Julia Child - gather the courage of my convictions and flip it over.  Turns out, I'd have had more success flipping it off.

Well, shit.

He wanted two eggs on his sandwich and the second one ended up just as bad.

Now, let me just clear something up here...When I fail at cooking something, particularly something simple, I get extremely frustrated and disappointed in myself and begin doing things like grumbling and shouting "fuck" a lot.  This was only exacerbated by the fact that, by not looking it up, I completely did this to myself.  The stream of profanity pouring out of my kitchen was enough to make even the most hardened of sailors blush.  I'm not exactly sure where I went wrong, or in how many different ways, but I plan to try again one day...When I have a proper egg skillet or griddle.

<3
WW

Crustless Mini-Quiche

These are one of my favorite breakfasts/brunches to make on a really lazy day.  They almost always come out great and go wonderfully with coffee or tea.  Most people swear by a crusted quiche, but the first one I ever had was crustless and it has just always been what I've preferred.

Start off with a muffin tin or whatever you want to cook it in.  I use a muffin tin because they come out all cute and finger-food friendly.  Lightly coat your tin in butter, olive oil, or cooking spray.  I usually use olive oil.

Crack some eggs into a bowl.  I use 3 for this tin.  Add about 3 tbsp of milk, some salt and some pepper and stir them up like you're making scrambled eggs.  Chop up whatever else you are adding - I'm using frozen cooked sausage, cheese, and mushrooms in the Wookie's and green onion in mine.  Fold them all into the egg mixture.

Pour into the tins!  I added the cheese as an afterthought, so I just sort of poked it down in there with chopsticks.

Pop them into an oven at 350 for about 20-30 minutes or until they are cooked through, then let them cook a bit before removing and that's it.  These can be made more or less healthy depending on what you have laying around and are great to get rid of leftovers - the spinach and green onion was left over from a previous recipe and I was going to add some spinach as well, but I'd already used all of it.

Are you a quiche fan?  Crustless or regular?

<3
WW

Tuna Boats

This is a fun, light, crisp, easy recipe that is just perfect for summer.  The success of this depends on how fresh and nice your cucumbers are, though.  While this was good, the cucumbers I'd bought were a tad on the bitter/tart side, so I'd imagine with a sweeter one this would be ten times better.  I got the idea for this recipe off of Pinterest, but as so often happens, it didn't link back to a source.

This starts out with the tuna recipe I use faithfully - my grandmother's recipe.  I've had a lot of tuna made by a lot of different people, but nowhere else have I ever seen anyone put apples into it and that is a shame because it is just stellar.

Starting off, you'll need 3 cans of tuna in water or oil, your choice.  Drain it well and put it in a large mixing bowl or container.  I knew there'd be leftovers so I mixed it straight into a Tupperware bowl with a lid to save on dishes.

You'll also need 1/2 of an apple - red is best, but green works in a pinch - and half an onion of any color.  The cucumbers are for the little boats.  I made 4 boats and had plenty of tuna left over and could have made about 4-6 more.  My eyes were bigger than my stomach, I couldn't even finish one boat, but the Wookie came to the rescue and ate all the rest!

Other stuff you'll need includes mayonnaise (not Miracle Whip), spicy or brown mustard, salt, pepper, dill pickles or dill relish, and garlic powder, the last two of which seem to have been camera shy on this day.  -.-

Hard boil 3 eggs or one egg per can of tuna and let them cool completely.

Finely dice up the 1/2 onion and 1/2 apple and add them to the tuna along with 1tbsp of the mustard, 1 tsp garlic, salt and pepper to taste, and 2 tbsp of dill relish or finely chopped pickle.  The mayonnaise is up to you.  Some people like their tuna drier than others.  I add mayonnaise until it is to the consistency I like it at, then squeeze in a little more since I'll be adding the eggs in later.

Peel your cucumbers and remove the seeds so they are hollow.  I like to use a melon baller, it gets all the seeds out with one fell swoop.

Next, once they are completely cool, dice the eggs up and fold them into the tuna mixture.  I like to do this after everything else is all stirred up so that some of the chunks of boiled yolks stay intact.  If you mix them in as you mix everything else, they tend to break up and just sort of become one with everything.

Once your eggs are in, pop the whole thing into the fridge, covered, until it is nice and cold, then spoon the mixture into the cucumbers and sprinkle with some parsley.

That's all there is to it!

A close-up shot of the goodness.

Do you have a special tuna salad recipe that's been handed down?

<3
WW

Breakfast Croissant Pouches

Damn, the things we make when we're REEALLLLY hungry, eh?

Simple one this time.  Lay out the dough and leave it in the 4 big rectangles instead of splitting it into the 8 small triangles.  I suppose you could make your own dough, but I don't have the space for something like that at this particular moment in time.  Soon, though...Soon...

Add turkey sausage (or whatever breakfast meat it is your family enjoys)...I left mine frozen because they were pre-cooked and warmed fine in the oven, but if you were using bacon or uncooked sausages, then cook it first.  Add some cheddar cheese and scrambled eggs (good way to use up leftovers).

Wrap them up.  Its early.  No one cares if they're pretty.  And you need more coffee.

Bake according to directions on croissant package.

Delicious.  Portable.

<3
WW

Egg Salad

Here's a super quick and easy egg salad recipe I use with TONS of bacon which makes it so very yummy.  We don't use eggs much around here, so its a good way to use the extras up before they go bad.

First off, fry up 5 pieces of bacon.  Whether you want it crispy or soft is totally up to you.

Then, after it has drained, chop it up, (or tear, I find tearing it is easier and quicker), toss it in a bowl with 6 hard-boiled eggs which have also been chopped up.  I suppose you could tear those, too, but that would be pretty messy.

Next, add a teaspoon of garlic powder and two teaspoons of onion powder to the mix.  I like to use these in egg salad because I want the flavor of both, but don't necessarily want to bite into an onion or piece of garlic while noshing down on an egg salad sandwich.  For some reason chunks of onion are perfectly, entirely acceptable in tuna salad, but not in egg salad.  I'm weird that way.

Next, chop up a pickle slice.  This was a kosher dill, the stacker kind that are sliced length-wise.  If you use regular slices, I'd say use about 4, more if you like a very pickle-y flavor to your salad.

Add about 3 tablespoons of mayonnaise (I use the kind made with olive oil), half a tablespoon of spicy mustard, and stir it all up then salt and pepper it to taste and there you have it!

Pile it on a sandwich or a salad - either way it is delicious and super simple!

<3
The Wookie Wifey