Green Chile Egg Puff

I had to take an egg casserole to MOPS last week. I needed something different.

So I consulted my friend Pinterest.  And this is what I found.

I made it. I took it to my friends. I liked it. They liked it.

I'll make it again.

You already know my philosophy regarding any recipe containing a pound of cheese.

I'm too tired to say anything else right now.

Green Chile Egg Puff
Adapted from Smell Good Kitchen

12 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
16 oz. small curd cottage cheese
1/2 stick (4 T) butter, melted & cooled
1 lb Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (this is 4 cups shredded; I have also used a combo of Pepper Jack/regular Monterey Jack)
8 oz. can chopped green chiles

Crack the eggs in a large bowl.  Whisk in the remaining ingredients and stir until combined.  Pour into a greased 9x13 casserole dish and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 35 minutes until set when you jiggle the dish.

Bakery Blueberry Muffins

Hands down, these are some of the best blueberry muffins I've ever eaten.  Moist does not even begin to describe these babies.  They're dense and moist and really more like cake.

Cake for breakfast!  I'm all about it.

Frozen blueberries work fabulously in these muffins.  The only thing you should NOT do is overmix the batter.  And don't overbake them.

You know. The usual.

They're just really good.  I think it's the sour cream.  It makes the batter super-thick and just amazing.  You'll think you went to a bakery for these.

Bakery Blueberry Muffins
Adapted from Kelsey Nixon

1/4 cup oil
3/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
Juice & zest of one lemon
1 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Whisk together the oil, sour cream, sugar, egg, lemon zest & juice, lemon extract & vanilla extract.  Use a spatula and fold in the remaining ingredients.  Don't overmix the batter.

Spray a 6-count muffin tin with nonstick baking spray.  Use a large ice cream scoop to scoop the batter into the muffin tin.  The muffins will be very full.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes, until just set (the tops should spring back when you press lightly).

Spinach & Artichoke Breakfast Casserole

I've made this casserole twice recently and people have asked me for the recipe both times!

I absolutely love egg dishes with cheese and veggies.  Not all breakfast casseroles have to have meat in them, you know.  So I put spinach & artichokes in this one!  It's like spinach-artichoke dip baked into a breakfast casserole.

Even men love this one.

Spinach & Artichoke Breakfast Casserole

2 T butter
1 onion, chopped very small
12 eggs
1/4 cup flour
16 oz. container small-curd cottage cheese
15 oz. can artichokes hearts packed in water, drained and chopped
10-12 oz. frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 lb. shredded Swiss Cheese
1/2 tsp garlic powder

Saute the onion and butter in a skillet for about 10 minutes, until pretty soft.  Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Beat the eggs together with the flour and cottage cheese in a large bowl.  Stir in the remaining ingredients and the cooled onions.  Pour into a greased 9x13 baking dish and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes, until just set.  Serve immediately or at room temperature.

Sunrise Muffins

I watched Pioneer Woman make these muffins a few weeks ago (I told you I was on a PW kick!).  I thought they looked great, but she used a combo of butter/shortening and cut it into the dry ingredients with a pastry cutter.

I hate cutting fat into flour.  It's just an annoying step I'd rather avoid.  And I think that oil makes things moister than butter, so I try to use oil in my muffins.

By all means, learn from my mistake and use a bigger bowl.  I made a huge mess.

But then I run into another problem...if I only use oil, I miss that buttery flavor.

Life is so complicated sometimes.

And then I read the reviews of these muffins on foodnetwork.com and they didn't get great reviews.  Everyone said they were not sweet enough.

Well, I solved that problem.  And I mixed oil with butter-flavored shortening to solve the moisture/butter-flavor problem.  And lastly, to solve the "cut the fat into the flour" problem, I melted the shortening.  No cutting necessary.

Just stir it together!

My family loved these muffins.  They were orange-y without being bitter, very moist and had a great crumb topping.

Needless to say, I'll be making these again.  For sure.

They were great with cheesy eggs and fruit!

Sunrise Muffins
Inspired by Pioneer Woman

1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup butter-flavored shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup (about a 10-12 oz. jar) orange marmalade
1/2 cup orange juice
1 egg
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups flour

Topping:
1 T butter, melted
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg

Melt the shortening in a bowl in the microwave just until melted.  Stir in the oil, sugar, vanilla, marmalade and orange juice.  Add the egg and combine.  Add the remaining dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Scoop into muffin tins that have been well greased with cooking spray.  This recipe makes 12 muffins.

For the topping, whisk together the melted butter with the remaining ingredients.  Sprinkle about a teaspoon over each muffin.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 13-16 minutes, until just set in the middle.

Sausage Brownies

These sausage brownies are such a great breakfast!  Hot, creamy, cheesy...and who doesn't love crescent rolls???

I used turkey sausage, and the flavor was delicious.  Great taste and the turkey sausage is very lean.  I will definitely use the turkey sausage again!

These are easy to assemble.  Layer crescent rolls in a dish.  Next is the turkey sausage and cream cheese mixture.  I used plain cream cheese but I think the jalapeno cream cheese would be awesome!

Sprinkle cheese on top.  I used cheddar...but pepper jack would be delicious.

Lay another package of crescent rolls on top, and bake it!

Cut and serve.  So good.  I took this to MOPS and it was a hit with my friends.  Will be making this again soon!

Sausage Brownies
Adapted from several recipes on Pinterest

2 8oz. tubes Crescent roll sheets
1 lb. roll turkey sausage
8 oz. cream cheese (jalapeno cream cheese would be good too!)
2 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Unroll one package of Crescent rolls and lay it in the bottom of a greased 9x13 baking dish.

In a skillet, brown the turkey sausage until cooked through, breaking it up with a wooden spoon as it cooks to make small crumbles.  Turn off the heat and add the cream cheese. Stir until combined.  Spread mixture over crescent rolls in dish.

Sprinkle cheese on top.  Cover with second package of crescent rolls.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown on top.  Let cool for a few minutes then cut and serve!

Strawberry Freezer Jam

Strawberries were $1 at the grocery!  Am I the only one that gets excited when this happens?

Anyway.  I bought (a whole) lot.  And then I had to figure out what to do with them.  We eat a lot of sliced fresh strawberries, but I bought more than five people can eat in a reasonable amount of time.

We smashed them up and made jam with them!  What else?

While the girls and I made jam, Baby Bear organized the tupperware for me.

I've never made freezer jam, but it's crazy easy.  There's no canning involved, which was good news for me.

The only annoying thing is that you need to boil the containers in which you will store the jam.  I used two tupperware containers and simply poured boiling water over the containers and lids.

To mash my strawberries, I used this great tool from Pampered Chef.  Normally I use it to break up ground beef as I brown it, but it worked as the perfect strawberry chopper.  If you don't have this cool tool, then you could use a potato masher.

And so now you need to stir in four cups of sugar.  Yes.  Four entire cups of sugar.  Let the strawberries sit for about 10 minutes.  Stir them occasionally.

While that sits, put a pot on the stove.  Add some water and a packet of fruit pectin.  Boil it for one minute.

Pour it into the strawberry and sugar mixture.  Stir it around for about three minutes, until most of the sugar is dissolved.

Now you're ready to pour the jam into the containers!  And then let it sit on the container for 24 hours.  An entire day.

And then freeze one container.  And make lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the other container.  Or you could make these bars.  I haven't done that yet, but I'm going to.

The jam is really delicious.  It tastes like straight-up fresh strawberries.  So good and so easy.  My kids loved doing it, and they love eating something that they made.  (Not that it's hard to get your kids to eat jelly, but you know what I mean.)

Strawberry Freezer Jam
Adapted from Kraft

1 lb. strawberries, hulled, sliced and mashed to make 2 cups of mashed strawberries
4 cups sugar
1 package fruit pectin (I used Sure-Jell)
3/4 cup water

Pour boiling water over three 2-cup containers and their lids to sterilize the jam containers.  Set aside to use in a minute.

Put the mashed strawberries in a large bowl and stir in the sugar.  Let it sit for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan.  Stir in the fruit pectin and boil it for one minute. Pour it over the strawberry/sugar mixture and stir it for about 3 minutes, until most of the sugar is dissolved.

Pour the jam into the containers and put the lid on.  Sit on the counter, at room temperature, for 24 hours. Freeze the jam for up to a year or refrigerate the jam for up to 3 weeks.

Overnight Cinnamon Rolls

My cousin gave me this recipe a few years ago and I've been making it ever since.

These cinnamon rolls are SO GOOD and SO EASY!

It's a great recipe to make when you're feeding company for breakfast...I've done that many times.

Here's the beauty of this recipe: you prepare it the night before and the rolls rise overnight...in the morning, all you have to do is bake it.

So here's how to do it.  Spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray and then evenly space 15 frozen dough balls in the dish.

Sprinkle on top a package of cook-n-serve vanilla pudding

then sprinkle on a cup of brown sugar

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

and then drizzle on a stick of melted butter.

Now just cover it with a piece of plastic wrap and let it sit on the counter overnight.

Sorry for the weird lighting.  It was night when I made these so my kitchen was dark!

In the morning, this is what you will have waiting for you!

Puffy dough balls in a buttery, sugary, cinnamon-y bed.

As the rolls bake, the pudding, butter and sugar blend together to form the most fabulous, gooey, stick sauce ever.

Not even kidding.

So you can serve them straight out of the pan like this, or you can invert them in another 9x13 dish.

If you invert them, the sauce drizzles all over the rolls and coats them.  Ugh.  Too good to even describe.  But it can be a messy job to invert the dish, so if you leave them in the baking dish, then just turn them over on the plate when you serve.

Like this.

Company or not, please make these soon.  Beyond good.

Overnight Cinnamon Rolls

15 frozen dough balls (like Rhodes' brand)
3 oz. package cook-n-serve vanilla pudding
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 stick butter, melted

Spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray.  Evenly space the frozen dough balls in the dish.  Sprinkle on top the pudding, brown sugar and cinnamon.  Drizzle the melted butter on top.

Cover the dish with plastic wrap and sit on the counter overnight. (at least 8-10 hours)

In the morning, remove the plastic wrap.  The rolls have risen!  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes.  Don't overbake.  Invert the rolls on a large platter or a clean 9x13 baking dish.  You want the sticky sauce to coat the rolls!  (Or you can scoop the rolls out and invert them individually on each plate.)

Cherry-Almond Oat Bars

My husband loves cherries.  Real ones, fake ones, cherry flavor, cherry syrup, cherry cobbler...

You know what I mean.

And I love almond extract.  I really mean love.

Did you know how well cherries and almonds go together?

Well, they do.  They should, like, get married or something.

So these bars are similar to my Strawberry Oat Bars.  I last made the strawberry ones when I was five days past due with Baby Bear.

I decided to make a cherry-almond bar for fun.  And because I found this jar of cherry preserves at the grocery.

This jar of yummy cherry preserves was right at home in these bars.

Yum.  Again, like the strawberry oat bars, these cherry-almond bars are perfect for breakfast, snack or dessert.  They're versatile.  Then again, you might want to take me with a grain of salt.

Because I think that brownies also make the perfect breakfast, snack or dessert.

There ya go.

Cherry-Almond Oat Bars

10 T butter, melted
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
13 oz. jar cherry preserves
1/2 cup slivered almonds

Mix together the butter, oats, flour, brown sugar, salt, baking powder and extracts.  Lightly press 2/3 of the crumbly oat mixture in the bottom of a greased 7x11 baking dish.  Evenly spread the cherry preserves on top.

Mix the slivered almonds with the remaining 1/3 oat mixture.  Crumble over the top of the preserves.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.  You want them to be nearly set (they will set up as they cool) but not brown and crunchy.  Cool completely before slicing.