Toast cups with eggs and bacon

I always like to try and make something new on the weekends for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I don’t have a lot of time during the week so we are limited with what I can make in a 30 min. period. I will post a blog later on about how I plan my meals out on a monthly basis.

So on this particular Sunday morning I was feeling crafty so I decided to make some egg cups. The only suggestion I would make on this recipe is to make sure the bacon is crispy before you place it in the toast cup. My husband and I love our bacon crispy so next time I will make sure to cook it a little more.

Egg – Toast Cups
Bread (white or wheat)
Eggs and bacon pretty simple ingredents

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly butter 6 standard muffin cups. With a rolling pin, flatten bread slices slightly and, with a 4 1/4-inch cookie cutter, cut into 8 rounds. Cut each round in half, then press 2 halves into each muffin cup, overlapping slightly and making sure bread comes up to edge of cup. Use extra bread to patch any gaps. Brush bread with remaining butter.

In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium, until almost crisp, 4 minutes, flipping once. (It will continue to cook in the oven.) Lay 1 bacon slice in each bread cup and crack an egg over each. Season with salt and pepper. Bake until egg whites are just set, 20 to 25 minutes. Run a small knife around cups to loosen toasts. Serve immediately.



Side view of the egg cups. I realise now it was prob. not the best idea to take the pictures while the egg cups were on my sterling sliver cake stand.

Top view, again sorry for the bad picutres.

This one might be a little better. You can see the cups without the glare. This was a great breakfast.

Here is where I got the original idea:

http://www.marthastewart.com/330179/bacon-egg-and-toast-cups

Toasted Pecan Pancakes with Strawberries and Cream

I love the spring, I love the warm weather and I love that it stays light out until late in the evening. So when I get home around 7 at night I still have some daylight. I also love the spring for the farmers market. I went this past weekend and found some awesome strawberries. So I wanted to try and incorporate them into our Sunday morning breakfast. I decided to make toasted pecan pancakes with strawberries and cream. No need for any syrup with these pancakes.

I refuse to use any pancake mix. I know that is going to sound like I am a snob, but I prefer to make as much as I can from scratch. It allows me to control what I put in the pancakes. This also allows me to NEVER run out of pancake mix.

Pancake recipe:
1 ½ cups flour
2-3 tablespoons sugar
1 cup milk
3 egg yolks
¼ salt
3 tablespoons of melted butter

Mix all the dry ingredients together and them make a well and fold in the wet. Make sure not to over mix, if the batter is a little lumpy that is ok.

I prefer to use whole pecans, but you can cut them up if you would like. Place the nuts in the oven for approx. 15 minutes at 350. Be very careful not to burn the nuts it will stink up the entire house. Once the nuts are toasted fold them into the batter.

I make my own whipped cream, it is super easy and you can control the sweetness. I just whip some heavy cream and add a couple of spoon full of powdered sugar.

I just sliced a couple of strawberries put them on top and breakfast is complete.


A picture of the pancakes with the bacon from the farmers market. How could this not start your morning off right!!!

A close up of the pancakes. So good.

One last photo, wow these were some great pancakes.

Cake Pops

My husband’s grandmother was having her 90th birthday and we were traveling to PA to celebrate with the entire family. I always like to try and make something to bring to my in-laws house because I don’t like to go anywhere empty handed. I made some bread and cookies, but I wanted to make something special that I had never made before. I decided to make cake pops. Wow, I did not know what I was getting myself into.

I don’t know if it was from the stress of trying to get everything packed and ready for travel (I love my husband but he gets VERY stressed when we have to travel), but making the cake pops was a very long process.

I feel like I might have cheated a little because I bought cake mix and premade frosting but I just did not have the time to bake a cake and make frosting.

The first thing I did was to bake the cake. Once the cake cooled I used my hands to break it up into smaller pieces. Once I had the cake in the desired pieces I mixed in an entire container of frosting until it looked like the picture below.

I placed the cake pops on a baking sheet with parchment paper and then placed them in the fridge. I wanted to make sure that the balls were cool before I tried to insert the lollypop stick in them.

Once the cake pops are completely cool dip the lollypop stick in melted chocolate and stick in the base of the cake pop. I then make sure that the sticks were completely dry until I dipped the cake pop into the melted chocolate.

Once the sticks were totally dry I dipped the cake pops in the melted chocolate. Be careful not to press down too hard or the pops will break. Tap off any excess chocolate that could be on the pops. While the chocolate is still wet make sure that you dip it into the sprinkles. Once you have the desired look for your cake pops I stick them in a piece of styrofoam. Once the cake pops have dried they are ready to eat. They were so cute and delish but like I said they def. took a long time to create. If you are short on time I would say this is not the recipe for you.

The cake after I broke it up into tiny pieces.

This is the cake mixture after I added the frosting.


The cake pops before I placed them in the fridge to make sure they were cold.

Cake pops after I took them out of the fridge.
The cake pops when they were drying .

The finished product. HOW CUTE!!!! They were so good just wish they did not take so much time.

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup

It was a very cold and gross weekend. It just rained all day on Saturday. For me personality I love rainy days. It just makes me want to stay in bed all day and cuddle with my hubby and watch horrible scary movies. Saturday morning we went out and ran our errands so that we would have the whole afternoon to relax in bed.

Whenever it is rainy outside I always crave grilled cheese, I don’t like tomato soup but my husband does. So of course he requested tomato soup when I said I was going to make some grilled cheese. I thought maybe if I made it myself I might start liking it. I went on the internet and found a recipe on Martha Stewart.

Well….I was wrong, still not a fan of tomato soup but I think I found something the hubby really likes so that always makes me happy.

Below is the recipe for the soup. I also wanted to jazz up the grilled cheese a little so I cut it into fourths and put it on skewers. HAHA I don’t know how jazzy that is but I think that my husband approaches the effort. Or at least I hope that he does.

Ingredients
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
24 ounces canned whole plum tomatoes
3 cups homemade or low-sodium store-bought chicken stock
2 teaspoons sea salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add onion and garlic; cook, stirring, until onions have softened, about 15 minutes.
Add tomatoes, chicken stock, salt, and pepper; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook until tomatoes, onions, and garlic are soft, 10 to 20 minutes.
Working in batches, transfer soup to the jar of a blender and puree until smooth. Return to saucepan and place over medium heat. Cook until soup is heated through. If soup seems too thick, stir in some extra stock to thin. Serve



The soup and the grilled cheese. Oooo it looks tasty.

Top view of the soup and sandwhich. Cant wait until the next day when it rains.

Chocolate Chip Stuffed Oreo Cookies

I have been getting board with the same old cookies that I have been seeing on the internet. So I decided to flex my cookie making muscles this weekend and make some chocolate chip cookies stuffed with Oreos. I know what you are thinking how you are going to stuff an Oreo into a chocolate cookie. It definitely took me some time and trial and error to figure out the best way to do this. But I think they turned out great and so did my husband so that is what is important to me. They were pretty easy to make. I first made a chocolate chip cookie dough recipe just taking the one off the chocolate chip bag. Once I finished the dough I placed it in the refrigerator so that it would be cold. You are going to be handling the dough with your hands so you want to make sure that it is cold. Once the dough is cold, take an Oreo cookie and place one tablespoon of dough on top and one tablespoon on the bottom, so the Oreo is sandwiched between the dough. Work the dough so the entire cookie is covered. Once all the cookies are complete place them on a baking sheet with parchment paper and place them in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. These are awesome cookies and are great hot out of the oven. They are a crowd pleaser and will have your family asking for them by name.

Picture of the dough before I put it in the fridge.

This is how it will look when you "sandwhich" the Oreo cookie in the chocolate chip cookie.

This is what the cookie will look like once the dought covers the entire cookie. It looks so delish!!

What the cookies look like once they come right out of the oven. They look so delish and brown and good. This is the cookie once it is cut in half. Look at how great that looks. It just makes my mouth water when i see it. YUM YUM YUM!!

Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookie Streusel

So if you are like me you love Girl Scout cookies, and I mean LOVE. This year my husband and I bought 10 boxes and there are just two of us. So in an attempt to try and do something different with the cookies I decided to make some Girl Scout streusel. The recipe is currently not like your normal streusel recipes but a hybrid. It was quite easy to make, all you will need is some puff pastry, egg, sugar , powered sugar and water.

Make sure that you defrost the puff pastry and roll it out. You may need some extra flour to make sure it does not stick to the rolling pin. Once the puff pastry is rolled out you will need to cut it into squares. I used this awesome ravioli/pastry press from my father-in-law. It was a big cut out which allowed me to place a whole thin mint in the center. Of course feel free to use whatever cookies you would like but those are my husband’s favorite.

I used a fork to press down both sides of the puff pastry. Once the puff pastry was crimped I used egg wash to make sure they crisped up a little, and added some sugar on the top. Once the pastry was done I took it out of the oven and let them cool. Then I added a little icing (just a little powdered sugar and water). My husband loved them. I have to admit they were not my favorite, I think next time I am going to mix together thin mints and cream cheese and maybe make them into a croissant. All well that ends well he loved them and that is all that I care about.

A picture of the puff pastry after I rolled it out and used the pastry press.

Placing the cookies on the puff pastry.

These two pictures above are what the cookies will look like once you have placed the puff pastry on the top and the bottom.

The pastry with egg wash (egg and water) and some sugar on the top.

What the cookies look like when they come right out of the oven. Still too hot for the icing

The two pictures above are the finished cookie with the icing on top. Like I said these were very tasty not my favorite but I plan to jazz them up a little.

Snickerdoodle Popcorn

My husband loves snickerdoodle cookies. I have been very busy and have not had the time to make cookies as often as I usually do. So last night when I got home from work at a reasonable time I decided I wanted to cook for my husband. Something that I LOVE to do and that relaxes me. So last night I whipped up a quick risotto, haha , and made some sickerdoodle popcorn.

It is a great salty sweet snack that I could eat bowls and bowls of. It is very simple to make. I make a pot of popcorn. While the popcorn is still hot I pour approx 3 tablespoons of butter on it. This will allow the cinnamon and sugar (the same topping as snickerdooles) to stick. Once the butter is poured over the popcorn you can now pour the sugar and cinnamon on top, shake the popcorn to ensure the coating gets on all the different pieces of popcorn. I then pour the popcorn on a baking sheet with parchment paper and melt some white chocolate chips in the microwave. Once the chips are melted I pour it over the popcorn. I then really quickly add salt. The warm chocolate helps the salt to stick on the popcorn. It is so good my husband said that he likes it better then the caramel popcorn I have made before. The popcorn in the pot before it start to pop.

It was hard to take pictures because the popcorn is white and the choclate is also white. Let me know what you think