Easy Breakfast Lettuce Wraps

It's been awhile, and while I've made some delicious recipes, I haven't found the time to blog about them. This morning, I made something so yummy for breakfast, that I simply had to share it will all of you!

Easy Breakfast Lettuce Wraps

Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 5 minutes
Total time: 10 minutes

Yield: 1 serving

Ingredients

• 2 leaves butter lettuce (or any other leaf lettuce)
• 2 slices tomates
• 2 eggs
• salt and pepper, to taste
• shredded cheese
• Frank's Red Hot (optional)

Directions

1. Rinse and dry lettuce leaves. Chop tomato slices.
2. Scramble eggs over medium heat, season with salt and pepper.
3. Divide scrambled eggs evenly over lettuce leaves. Top with shredded cheese and chopped tomatoes. Shake on Frank's Red Hot, if desired.

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Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls (vegan)

Christmas morning seemed like the perfect time to experiment a bit with making cinnamon rolls. I've made them before, but I wanted to create a vegan version. These turned out exquisitely well - some of the best whole wheat cinnamon rolls I've ever had! Some of the filling bubbled out making almost a caramel like substance on the bottom of these. I was skeptical at first, but I really think that is what made these so delectable.

 I didn't have any powdered sugar, so I enjoyed these without any icing. Jeff, however, said they were good, but that icing would make them even better!!

Cinnamon Rolls (vegan)

Yield: 12 rolls

Banana Bread

I made this banana bread over a month ago. I'm not sure where I found the original recipe, but I modified it to make it vegan. I pretty much ate the entire loaf. Oops!

Banana Bread

Yield: 1 9-inch loaf

Fluffy French Toast

I wanted something different for breakfast this morning. Actually, I was out of cereal and didn't feel like eggs. How about french toast? Yeah. That sounds good! Besides, I had some hamburger buns in the cupboard that were nearing the end of their lives, so this would be perfect. I hit to the Internet and found a recipe to try. I modified it ever-so-slightly and was very pleased with the result. 

Fluffy French Toast

Yield: 2 servings (2 slices per serving)

Ingredients

• 1 T + 1 tsp flour
• 1/3 cup coconut milk
• 3/8 pinch salt
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp sugar
• cinnamon
• 4 thick slices bread (I used hamburger buns.)

Directions

1. Measure flour into a bowl. Slowly whisk in the milk. Whisk in the salt, eggs, vanilla extract, and sugar until smooth.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium heat.
3. Soak bread slices in mixture until saturated. Sprinkle with cinnamon, to taste. Place bread on hot pan, cinnamon side down. While cooking first side, sprinkle top with more cinnamon. Flip once bottom is golden brown, and cook second side until golden brown. Repeat for all 4 slices of bread.
4. Serve hot with syrup or toppings of your choice. 

Original recipe can be found on Allrecipes.com. Fluffy French Toast by Bonnie.

Whole Wheat Cinnamon Rolls

Yesterday I really had a hankering for cinnamon rolls. Also, I have a LOT of whole wheat flour that I need to be using, so I searched online for a whole wheat cinnamon roll recipe. I found this one at Myrecipes.com. My goodness do cinnamon rolls ever take a long time to make! But these are very tasty, and I going with slightly healthier since they are made with whole wheat and honey. Jeff is not much of a cinnamon roll fan, so these didn't really top his list - especially because of the whole wheat. Oh well, more for me!

Ingredients

Dough:

• 1 1/2 packages dry yeast (about 3 1/4 teaspoons)
• 3/4 cup warm fat-free milk (100° to 110°)
• 1/4 cup warm water (100° to 110°)
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg white
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided (about 11 1/4 ounces)
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (about 7 ounces)
• Cooking spray

Filling:

• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/3 cup raisins (optional)

Glaze:

• 3/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 teaspoons fat-free milk

Directions:
1. To prepare dough, dissolve yeast in warm milk and 1/4 cup warm water in a large bowl; let stand 5 minutes or until foamy.

2. Add butter and next 5 ingredients (through egg white); stir well. Lightly spoon flours into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Add 2 cups all-purpose flour and all of the whole wheat flour, stirring until a soft dough forms. Knead for 2 minutes on Speed 2 of a heavy duty mixer (alternately, you can turn dough out onto a floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic (about 8 minutes)). Dough should still feel sticky, but go ahead and add enough of the remaining 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, to prevent dough from becoming too sticky.

3. Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning to coat top. Cover and let rise in a warm place (85°F), free from drafts, 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Tip 1: I usually turn my oven on for about one minute and then turn it off and place the covered bowl of dough into the oven. This will keep it ever-so-slighty warm and relatively draft-free.

Tip 2: To determine if the dough has doubled in size, gently press two fingers into dough. If indentation remains, dough has risen enough.

4. Punch dough down; roll into a 16 x 12-inch rectangle on a floured surface. Coat surface of dough with cooking spray.

5. To prepare filling, combine brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg; sprinkle over dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Sprinkle raisins (if using) over dough, pressing gently into dough.

6. Roll up rectangle tightly, starting with a long edge, pressing firmly to eliminate air pockets; pinch seam to seal. Cut the dough into 16 rolls. Place the rolls, cut sides up, in a 13 x 9-inch baking pan coated with cooking spray.

Tip 3: I marked the dough at 1" increments and then used dental floss to easily cut the rolls without smooshing them too much. Worked like a charm.

7. Cover and let rise 45 minutes or until doubled in size.

8. Preheat oven to 375°F. Uncover rolls. Bake for 22 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool in pan on a wire rack.

9. To prepare glaze, place powdered sugar and vanilla in a small bowl. Add 5 teaspoons milk, 1 teaspoon at a time, stirring to form a thick glaze. Drizzle glaze evenly over rolls.

Jeff Gremillion, Cooking Light
JUNE 2007

Golden Nugget Muffins

It's a beautiful fall morning this morning. Only in the 40s when I took Sallie out for her morning walk. Brr... (although I still wore flip flops). I thought, "This would be a perfect morning for cocoa and muffins for breakfast." As you might remember, I have an abundance of squash, so I set about finding a muffin recipe using squash.

I found something that would work on allrecipes.com. I made a few changes, and these turned out so tasty!

Ingredients:

• 1 small golden nugget squash
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ cup white sugar
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• ¼ tsp allspice
• ¼ tsp cardamom
• (Cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cardamom could be replaced with 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice)
• ¾ cup milk
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 T butter, melted

Directions:

1. Wash squash. Prick with a fork and microwave for 60 secs. Remove from microwave, cut in half crosswise, and remove seeds. Place both halves in a microwave safe dish, cover with plastic wrap, and microwave for 6 minutes or until fork tender. Puree squash in a food processor. This should yield probably around 1 cup of squash puree, though I didn't actually measure it.

2. Preheat oven to 400°F. Line muffin tin with cupcake liner or spray with cooking spray.

3. While squash is cooking, whisk together dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, sugar, salt, spices).

4. In a heavy duty mixer (KitchenAid®), stir the milk, egg, and butter. Stir in the pureed squash. Gradually stir in the flour mixture until just moistened.

5. Spoon into prepared muffin tin, filling cups about ½ full. Bake 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove from muffin tin and cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy with a cup of hot cocoa for a pleasant start to a cool fall day.

Chocolate Chip Banana Nut Muffins

It's a snowy morning here in Minnesota. I'm talking suh-noooo-eee! I can barely see the tops of the tires of the car parked out on the street.

And it's still SNOWING out there!!

Nothing better than baking on a snowy morning. :)

I found a recipe for some Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins in my Taste of Home cookbook. I had to make a few modifications because I kept running out of ingredients, so I had to make some substitutions.

These muffins turned out so delicious...and picture perfect. Seriously, I'm having difficulty choosing the best pictures to post of the final product!

Of course my kitchen was a bit too messy for in-process pictures. Sorry!

Click here for Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup oat bran
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• scant 1/4 cup canned, evaporated milk
• 2 medium ripe bananas, mashed
• scant 1/3 cup plain yogurt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°F.

In a large bowl, combine the first seven ingredients.

In another bowl, combine the eggs and evaporated milk (adding enough water to bring the milk up to 1/4c); stir in the bananas, yogurt, and vanilla.

Make a well in the dry ingredients. Pour the liquid mixture into the well and whisk just until moistened. Stir in chocolate chips and pecans.

Coat muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray or use paper liners; fill three-fourths full with batter. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to wire rack.

Enjoy with yummy hot chocolate. I did!

Eggless Pancakes

This is a really simple post without a recipe per se, but the other morning, I wanted some pancakes. The pancake mix I had on hand (I know, what a bum, not even making pancakes from scratch) called for eggs. I had no eggs in my fridge! Based on the success of my Eggless Sugar Cookies, I decided to replace the eggs with yogurt. Again, I replaced each egg with 1/4 cup plain yogurt. I also added a bit of vanilla to add some flavor, (and so the pancakes wouldn't take too yogurt-y).

These were probably some of the tastiest pancakes!

Some of the rhubarb jam I made over the summer didn't quite set up as much as it should, but the runny jam worked divinely as a topping for my pancakes.

So, so good!

Brown Sugar Oat Muffins with Strawberries

I found this recipe in my Taste of Home cookbook. The original recipe did not call for any strawberries, but I had some in my freezer. I thought it sounded like it might be a good combination.

Yield: 1 dozen

Click here for Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup old-fashioned oats
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup milk (I reconstituted some dry milk)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 12 frozen strawberries

Directions:
In a small bowl, combine oats, flours, baking powder and salt.

In another small bowl, beat the eggs, brown sugar, milk, oil, and vanilla.

Stir into the dry ingredients until moistened.

Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. If desired, place one frozen strawberry in middle of muffin tin.

Bake at 400°F for 15-17 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack.

Ok. I'll admit it. These did not turn out as tasty as I'd envisioned in my head. The ones without the strawberries were a little bland. The ones with strawberries were done, but still wet inside near the strawberry.

If you have any suggestions on how to make these better, I'd love to hear them!

Cinnamon-Blueberry Muffins

I love muffins for breakfast! Or lunch or a snack... I was really in a mood for some yesterday, so I found a recipe for some blueberry muffins in my KitchenAid cookbook. I didn't have the specific ingredients, so here is my slightly altered recipe. I thought these muffins were super tasty, but Jeff didn't much care for them. I think it was the cinnamon-sugar sprinkled on top. Too messy. I think next time I try these, I'll just add cinnamon to the batter and bake it in rather than sprinkle it on top.

Click here for Printable Recipe

I made a half batch of muffins, so only one egg is shown in picture

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) plus 1 T butter, melted, divided
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup plus 2 T sugar, divided
• 2 T baking powder
• 1 teaspoon grated orange peel
• 2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen), rinsed, drained
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F. Generously grease 24 muffin tins.

Combine eggs, milk, and 1/2 cup melted butter in mixer bowl. Using flat beater, mix until well combined, about 30 seconds.

Combine flour, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, and orange peel.

Add flour mixture to egg mixture. Mix just until combined, about 15 seconds.

Add blueberries and stir just until blueberries are incorporated, about 15 seconds.

Spoon batter into muffin tins. Bake at 400°F for 24 to 26 minutes or until wooden pick inserted near centers comes out clean.

Combine remaining 2 T sugar with cinnamon in small bowl; blend well. Brush tops of warm muffins with remaining 1 T melted butter, then sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar mixture. Serve warm.

Yield: 24 muffins.

Banana Blueberry Muffins

I made these muffins last night to enjoy for breakfast this morning. I was looking for a healthy banana muffin to use up some frozen bananas that have been in my freezer for quite a long time. I was a little hesitant to make these, as there were quite a few negative reviews. Overall it was still rated with 4 stars, so I decided to give it a try.

They turned out to be delicious and filling! I even brought a couple into a co-worker, and she agreed that they were yummy. This is definitely a recipe I will make again and again.

My frozen bananas were about 2 cups, so I decreased the egg whites to 3 instead of 4, but that was the only change I made to the recipe.

Another smoothie...

I used milk as my liquid base for today's smoothie. I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but it is delicious! It is much creamier than when I use OJ.

Today's smoothie:

• Milk
• 1 peach
• 1 kiwi
• small handful of frozen strawberries
• 2 packets of Splenda

Mmmm...yummy...

Mmmm...Yummy Smoothies...

The kitchen at my temp position at SC Johnson is a full kitchen. One of the many appliances it has is a blender. I've taken to blending up a yummy smoothie for breakfast each morning.

Today's is particularly hitting the spot.

Ingredients:

• Orange Juice
• 1 Banana
• Frozen mixed berries
• 2 packets of Splenda

Delicious!!

Egg-less pancakes...Oops!

Yesterday morning, I thought it would be nice to make some pancakes for breakfast for our little visitor. Nathan was visiting us for the weekend. Nathan is my stepson; he is 7 years old.

Unfortunately, I kept getting distracted by him and by Jeff that I accidentally forgot to crack those eggs into the batter before having Nathan mix it all together. When I was putting them on the griddle, the batter seemed a little thick. I just added some water to help the consistency.

I didn't really think too much about it until an hour or two later. I don't know why I was thinking about the pancakes again, but I just couldn't visualize cracking the eggs. That's when it occurred to me that I had forgotten them. Oops!!

Turns out...maybe the pancakes didn't really NEED the eggs! They tasted just normal to me. In fact...they were delicious.

Still, next time I'll try to remember to add 'em.