My Yummy Breakfast

 

Happy Wednesday everyone! I’m actually a little surprised that I can function today. Our company had an important presentation in Kingston, Ontario yesterday which meant that this girl was up at 3:30 AM to get ready for the day. That time shouldn’t exist unless for newborn baby purposes.

I feel as though I haven’t fully settled into my groove of being a working Mom because Sam is still only going to Daycare part time. I think the hardest part is the mornings. Trying to get myself organized for work, Sam organized for daycare and the house ready for when we all get home (meat out for supper, dishwasher on…etc). Part of my new routine is that I have my morning coffee and breakfast on the road. The coffee part is easy, the breakfast portion? Hard to pull off something that is quick, healthy, yummy and can be easily eaten in the car.

While perusing Pinterest, I noticed that a lot of people made these yummy looking breakfast sandwiches. The only problem for me? It’s a lot of calories for one meal of the day. So, I tweaked it a bit to suit my nutritional needs!

To make my sandwich I used eggs, english muffins, bacon and medium cheddar cheese.

The first thing I to do is pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease some ramekin’s and then crack the egg. In order to reduce the calories of my sandwich, I separated my eggs and only used the whites! One egg white per sandwich.  

As that is cooking I prepped the rest of my ingredients. Cut the English muffins and grated my cheese. I already had leftover bacon in the fridge which made this SO much easier. To make 6 sandwiches, I only needed 3 slices of cooked bacon.

I started the assembly line and placed the cheese on one half of the English muffin.

 

Another huge calories saver is that I only use half a piece of bacon per sandwich! On a small English muffin that is all I really needed. A lot of the Pinterest reciepes call for Ham. But I prefer bacon!

After about 15 minutes, my egg whites are cooked! I allow them to cool for about 5 minutes to make them easier to handle.

 

The joys of the ramekin in that the cooked egg now sits perfectly onto my sandwich!

I close my sandwiches and in order to save a little extra coin  (you know me, every bit counts!) I put them back into the English muffin bag before putting in the freezer! 6 yummy breakfast sandwiches all ready for my busy mornings!

When I wake up the first the I do is set out my sandwich on the counter and start the coffee machine. I then get ready, do a little computer work if there is time, pack up all of our stuff and then wake up Sam. I nurse Sam and get him dressed and then pack up the car! As I am packing up the car I make a coffee in my travel mug and microwave my sandwich for about 30 seconds. Good to go! I am really enjoying my mornings driving Sam to daycare. I get to listen to my favourite morning radio show (thank you 89.9) sip coffee and eat a hot breakfast!

Oh yes, and that yummy bacon, egg and cheese sandwich? 250 calories. The protein keeps me full all morning until lunch! I don’t feel like I am eating a healthier version and feel as though this breakfast is giving me lots of energy to get through my mornings!

Happy Wednesday!

xo

Tortilla Roll Ups

 

Good Friday morning to you all! Mini celebration that the weekend is almost here! It’s raining cats and dogs here and melting all of our snow! Can’t say that this girl is all that disappointed! I talked to you all about my surprise baby shower on Monday and I mentioned how amazing the food was, as usual! It made me think about a recipe I had for a potluck item that I occasionally bring!

This recipe is kind of a twist on another item that someone else would bring. It was basically the same ingredients but I am not a fan of the raw onions that were in the wraps so I put my own spin on them. Since then I have been making them for parties all the time and they also happen to be a favourite treat of Ryan’s!

Ingredients:

- 1 package of flour wraps

- 1 cup of sour cream

- 1 brick of cream cheese

- 1 tbsp of lemon juice

- 1 “cap full” of Epicure salsa mix

- Salsa for dipping (optional)

1. The first thing you do is soften the cream cheese! Not going to lie, 9 times out of 10 I forget to take out my cream chees to make sure it is soft. So, instead I just microwave it for about 30 seconds. I stir it until it is lukewarm and then add the sour cream and lemon juice. Mix these ingredients all together.

2. Add one cap full of the spice mix. Sometimes I add more and sometimes I add less. It all depends on who you are serving it to and how spicy you like it!

3. Add it to your mixture.

4. And stir until WELL combined! You do not want any chunks of spice mix and end up burning your mouth with one little piece! Hot!

5. I love my huge working space in my kitchen, it makes this step so much easier! On my clean counter top I lay out all of my tortilla wraps! I then spoon on a little bit of filling onto every tortilla, trying to make sure there is an even amount on each one!

6. Using the back of a clean spoon I begin spreading the filling mixture over the entire tortilla.

7. Starting at one end I tightly roll the tortilla containing the spicy filling mix! To help seal the end I just take a little bit of the filling mix and spread it on the outside seam.

8. I place all the rolled tortillas back in the original package and chill for at least a couple of hours. Usually it’s longer because one of the best things about this recipe is that you can make it the day/night before!

9. After the wraps are chilled, slice them into 1 inch rounds! Serve with salsa for dipping and enjoy this easy and yummy treat!

There you have it! A guaranteed crowd pleasing, chef easy and yummy appetizer!

Happy Friday!

xo 

Applesauce

 

The nights have been cool around here. It certainly doesn’t feel like Fall during the day with the extreme heat but, nights are different. They are cool and crisp and there is the slightest tinge of color in some of the tree leaves. Fall is just around the corner.

With Fall brings one of my most favorite things to do….preserve food for the winter! My apple trees are not quite ready yet but a lady who works on the farm had some apples that were! She was bringing basket loads of apples every day! More then anyone could eat! With the excess apples, I brought them home one weekend and decided to make some applesauce!

This is probably one of the easiest applesauce recipes you will ever encounter!

First you take your apples and wash them off. 

I have this awesome apple slicer from Pampered Chef that I use to slice and core my apples. A simple knife would work too! Please note that I have kept the skin on! Very important!

I always like to keep one bowl for scraps so that it is easy to discard of afterwards.

The good apple slices I put in the large pot that they would be cooked in!

I then add about 1/2 cup of water to the pot of apples and put it on the stove over medium high heat for about 30 minutes, covered.

After 30 minutes, you’ll notice that the apples are nice and soft!

I then take my emulsifying mixer and mix away at the mushy apples!

After about 5 minutes of mixing and stirring you get apple sauce!

I put all the yummy apple sauce in sterilized mason jars and put them in the freezer to have for later!

This apple sauce recipe is so simple. No peeling your apples for hours! Just slice and cook and you have a delicious treat! Keeping the peel on the apples adds extra fibre and nutrients to the unsweetened apple sauce! The best part? Almost a week later and the house still smells like fall! Yum!

Happy Friday!

xo

Canning Tomatoes

 

Happy Friday everyone! I don’t know why but this week has really dragged on. In fact, it feels like the whole month of September has dragged on! It feels like Shawville Fair was months ago rather then weeks ago. I guess that’s just preparing me for the long winter months ahead.

I think one of my favorite things about Fall is getting ready to hibernate for the winter. Getting the pool shut down, patio furniture put away and harvesting the garden.

This years garden was pretty meek. The drought really kicked the butt of most of my plants. My tomato plants on the other hand? Thrived!

This year I planted 8 tomato plants and yielded many tomatoes. Of course, I don’t like raw tomatoes so I have to process them all. I figured today I would share with you all how I do that.

1. Grab a canning pot and fill it full of water. Put it on high and begin to get it to boil. This is one big pot of water and takes a long time so go ahead and get that started!

2. Fill a LARGE bowl with cold water and ice and place it in your sink. Some people just place the tomatoes right in the sink but did you know your kitchen sink is one the ‘germiest” places? Yuck!

3. Take a smaller pot of water and allow it to boil. Grab a tomato and at the bottom of the cut it with a “X”. This just helps with the peeling process.

4. Place as many tomatoes as you can in your pot of boiling water. Cook for 30 seconds.

5. Immediately, remove from boiling water and place in ice water to stop the cooking process. Allow tomatoes to cool completely! 

6. Begin removing the skins from your cooled tomatoes. They should literally fall off.

7. Cut away any marks or bruises and remove core. Now, you can either keep the tomato whole or dice them like I do. I just like doing the extra step so that when I use my tomatoes they are already diced for me.

8. At my “prep” station I always keep two bowls/pots. One is for the good pieces of tomatoes that I will be putting in mason jars like this:

And the other is a scrap bowl. You accumulate alot of scraps fairly quickly so it’s nice having a scrap bowl right on hand.

9. In CLEAN and STERALIZED jars you will need to put the following;

Pint Jars: 1 tbsp Lemon juice and 1/2 tsp of sea(or canning) salt

Quart Jars: 2 tbsp Lemon juice and 1 tsp of sea(or canning) salt

10. Using a canning funnel. Scoop pieces of diced tomatoes into jars. Using the end of a wooden spoon (or something like that) smash down any air to make room for as many tomatoes as possible. Leave a 1/2 inch of head space between where your tomatoes and where you would put on the lid.

11. Place CLEAN and STERILIZED canning lids on jars and screw tightly. GENTLY, place jars in canning pot of boiling water. Cover with canning pot lid.

Allow to cook 35 minutes for Pint jars and 45 minutes for Quarts.

When are the time goes off, remove from canning pot with specialized canning thongs. Very hot!

12. Allow jars to sit. You will begin hearing some popping sounds of the seals. Very normal! By the time the jars cooled completely you would be able to test that the top of the lid does not move up and down when pressed on.

Store your canned tomatoes until you are ready to use them in your favorite recipe! After opening a jar and eating your fresh tomatoes in the dead of winter you can’t help but taste summer!

Out of 8 tomato plants I got 20 quarts and 5 pints of diced tomatoes.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

xo

Cheater Chicken Parmesan

Let's face it. It is exhausting always having to put together a perfect meal from scratch. Where I live I do not have the luxury of just picking up a phone and ordering take out. Plus, sometimes I don't want to spend over an hour preparing a meal. So, that is when I came up with a way to have Chicken Parmesan, with out a lot of hassle.

Ingredients:

Chicken Breasts

Shake and Bake

Garlic Powder

Parsley

Left over hamburger buns

Mozzarella cheese

1 jar of pasta sauce

Spaghetti noodles

Butter

*Optional*

The makings for Caesar salad (Roman lettuce, dressing, etc)

Instructions:

1. In the bag provided by Shake and Bake add coating mix, 1/2 tsp of garlic powder and 1/2 tsp of parsley. Mix and coat chicken. Bake for 30 minutes.

2. While chicken is cooking begin cooking your noodles.

3. Mix butter and 1 tsp of garlic powder in a bowl. Spread over hamburger buns. Top with cheese and parsley. Bake for 8 minutes.

4. When chicken is almost cooked pour a little bit of your pasta sauce over the chicken and top with cheese. Return to the oven for last 5 minutes.

5. Add the rest of the sauce to the spaghetti and heat.

6. Serve altogether and enjoy! :-)


This meal is done and sitting on the table in 30 minutes. It has staple ingredients that I usually always have. I plan this meal around a week where I am already using hamburger buns. There is nothing that I hate more than throwing away 2 or 3 moldy hamburger buns. Plus, they make delicious garlic bread. It may not be an overly fancy meal but it is inexpensive, quick and tasty! Yum!

Have a great weekend!

xo