Breakfast for dinner.....

While looking in the refrig for dinner ideas I realized that we still have about 3 dozen eggs left over from Easter (that didn't get colored) so I fixed one of my wife's favorite dinners - breakfast. Nothing special or spectacular, omelets and made-from-scratch biscuits. Sorry, but I'd taken a few bites before I remembered the camera.........

As you can tell from the picture, I'm not the best omelet cooker..... but they were tasty. I sauteed onion, green pepper, and mushrooms together, turkey bacon cooked in the oven (gotta keep it healthy ya know) and threw on a little cheddar cheese. I was quite distressed when I realized that we're out of salsa. I didn't have the ingredients to make it either. I voted for chorizo con huevos or papas con huevos (we're currently out of tamales - we'll need to remedy that situation) but as you can see, I lost that one. The biscuits turned out ok, next time I'll do buttermilk biscuits.

SUPERDOODLES!!!!

I really didn't cook much this weekend. Spent all day Saturday in Ft. Worth at a college Air Force ROTC event that one of my nephews was participating in. This morning after church, we went over and cooked breakfast for about 20 kids. I cooked migas, hash browns, bacon, beans, and tortillas. No pics...........

This afternoon I baked some cookies. I used a recipe that I've not tried before, but when I first saw it, was totally intrigued by it. I found the recipe at the King Arthur Flour web site. www.kingarthurflour.com The recipe is called SUPERDOODLES, it takes the classic Snickerdoodle cookie to another level. I think it accomplishes this by using cinnamon chips (they're like mini-chocolate chips) You can find the recipe here. Yes...they are incredibly delicious!!!!! The only drawback is that I haven't found cinnamon chips locally, so I ordered them online from King Arthur Flour.

The Last of the Chickens

Well, I still had 4 of the grilled breasts left. And of course, I must make it healthy. Somewhere along the way tasty, quick, and easy need to enter the picture. Here's what I ended up doing...




It's kind of a take on Parmesan chicken, without the breading. It was simple, quick, tasty, and...healthy!! I added about a tablespoon of olive oil, about 2 cups of tomato sauce* (homemade that I had in the freezer) about 2 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese, and about 1 tablespoon of fresh diced Basil; adding everything together in a non-stick pan. Laid the 4 chicken breasts in, covered them w/sauce and simmered covered for about 20 minutes. Then I added some nice thick slices of fresh mozzarella on top of each breast and sprinkled some Oregano on top of that. Simmered for a few more minutes until the cheese melted.

*Home made tomato sauce - if you're not making your own tomato sauce, you're throwing money away. I buy the the BIG (like half of a gallon) cans of crushed tomato at COSTCO for about 3 bucks instead of 5 bucks for one measly jar of preservative-laden tomato sauce at the store. Add your own spices, simmer, put in freezer bags, use later.

Left overs......again????

The pasta and yellow tomatoes


Texas Olive Ranch olive oil - http://www.texasoliveranch.com/


What was left........


Had some left overs sitting around that I wanted to use up. I had some boneless, skinless chicken breasts that I marinated in Italian dressing and grilled after rubbing them w/some herbs de Provence. I also had some REALLY good yellow salad tomatoes that we picked up at Costco this past weekend, some left over red grape tomatoes, and some left over fresh Basil that I really needed to use up.

Of course my wife wants everything to be healthy, so here's what I did.

• Cooked one box of whole-wheat rotini pasta and drained
• sliced up two breasts, kind of a large dice-but I sliced them thin
• halved about a dozen of the yellow tomatoes and about a dozen red grape tomatoes (I ended up using all of them up)
• medium dice on about 12 ounces of fresh mozzarella cheese
• 2 large cloves garlic - minced
• about a dozen black olives - chopped
• about a half teaspoon of red pepper flakes ( I like it spicy!!)
• salt to taste
• about 6 large basil leaves - finely chopped
• about 1/4 cup olive oil - I used Texas Olive Ranch extra virgin, it's grown and processed in Carrizo Springs, Texas. It has a wonderful fresh flavor, we save it for dishes like this where the olive oil flavor can 'stand out' and really be appreciated.
• mixed everything together and chilled for about 2 hours - just before I served, I squeezed some fresh lemon over it.

This was a large hit at our house!!! Sorry for the poor quality pictures.....

I'm AWFUL about getting pictures, and almost didn't get any.....it was almost gaone by the time I got the camera out.