Breakfast Supper with the Burrells!

Spinach Quiche:
1/3 cup mayo
1/2 cup milk
5 eggs, beaten
8oz shredded cheddar cheese
1 10oz pkg frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 9" unbaked pie shell

Preheat oven to 400*. Saute spinach and onions in a little butter or bacon grease on the stove. In a large bowl, whisk together mayo and milk until smooth. Whisk in eggs. Make several layers in the pie plate of spinach mixture and cheese. Pour egg mixture over it all. Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes. Remove cover and bake 10-15 minutes longer or until top is golden brown and filling is set.

Mmmm, this turned out great! I used Fannie Farmer's tart pastry recipe for the crust:

1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 pound cold butter, in smalll pieces
1 egg yolk
2 Tbs. ice water

I just mixed the flour, butter and salt in my food processor first, then added the egg yolk. That made it almost too moist, so I omited the water. Then smooshed it out by hand into my pie plate. Mmmm! It turned out great- one of those somewhat dry, crumby, buttery-flavored crusts.

We had this with fried potatoes and pineapple chunks, and Alex and Titus both agreed that it was a really good breakfast supper :).

PW's Chocolate Pie

This pie is amazing. It is very rich, so cut the pieces smaller than I did! I made this for my birthday. It was the best birthday dessert I've had since someone else made my birthday dessert for me!
(Someone else cooking/baking for you is always better. Thanks, Mom and Anna. I still think upon the cheese cake, and the baked Alaska with fond memories. Mmmm.)
Anyway I do want you to know that I only ate half of this piece and saved the rest for the next day! This pie is SO smooth, creamy, rich, and VERY sweet (as a word of caution).

Here it is straight from Pioneer Woman's website:
4 ounces, weight Unsweetened Baking Chocolate
1 cup Salted Butter, Softened
1-½ cup Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
4 whole Eggs *
1 package Baked Pie Shell

In small microwave safe bowl melt 4 ounces of unsweetened baking chocolate until stirrable (about 45 seconds on high). Set aside to cool. In a large bowl with an electric mixer beat 1 cup (2 sticks) of regular (salted) butter and 1 ½ cups of white sugar until fluffy (about 1 to 2 minutes). When melted chocolate is cooled, drizzle it over the butter/sugar mixture. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Beat the mixture thoroughly until combined (on a Kitchen Aid mixer, you will be using the whisk attachment).
Turn your mixer to a medium speed and over a period of 15 to 20 minutes add in the four eggs, one at a time, leaving about 5 minutes between each egg addition. Once the pie filling is well mixed, pour it into the baked pie shell, scraping every last speck of it out of the bowl. Smooth out the pie filling and place pie in the refrigerator to chill for at least two hours (preferably longer).
Plop a heap of whipped cream and garnish with a few chocolate curls if you’re feeling sassy.
Thank you PW, you said that better than I ever could have.

P.S. I have never in my life bought baking chocolate. I ALWAYS use the recipe on the Hersey's can: 3T cocoa powder, 1 T shortening (coconut oil for me) = 1 oz/square baking chocolate. Easy. Cheap. Always on hand.

*NEW AND IMPROVED! If you don't have access to good old disease-free "home grown" eggs, or get grossed out by raw eggs, you can always buy pasteurized eggs, OR you can pasteurize your own. It's not too time consuming, and it doesn't take a bunch of special equipment. Look here or here for instructions!

Breakfast Casserole

We bring this to the church camping breakfast potluck every year. I like it because it is pretty much a complete breakfast in one dish, and more importantly, nobody else brings it. We don't want a bunch of duplicates! You can go easy with this recipe, or you can go more homemade/cheap. I like cheap (and homemade, now that I think of it) so, I do a "more from scratch" version. For the camping trip, I make it in advance and freeze it, so I know that works well.
We have been on a weekly "breakfast supper" kick, so this is what we did this week. We had this casserole, Easy Pumpkin Muffins, and this:

I love fresh fruit in the spring! Regretfully, I share a table with 7 other people who also like fresh fruit.

You need (original version):

scramble and cook 12 eggs
one 10 oz. pkg "Little Smokies"
2 lbs. hash browns (fried)
1/2 lb. velveeta (sliced or grated)
1/2 lb. grated cheddar cheese
Directions:
Quarter smokies and put half in bottom of 9 x 13 greased pan. Next, put half of the cooked hash browns over that. Then, put all the eggs on top of the hash browns. Put half of both kinds of cheese on top of the eggs. Repeat layers-smokies, hash browns, and both cheeses as you did above.

If refrigerated overnight, bake at 350 for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hrs. If baking immediately after preparation, bake for just 30 min. at 350 or until desired "crispness" on top layer.

I often do bulk sausage instead of/along with the links. It's cheaper, you know. And I usually fry my own potatoes (cheaper, healthier fats, doesn't take much more time), but I have yet to make my own sausage or cheese. Sorry. Oh, before forget, I thaw the frozen casserole in the fridge before baking. It doesn't thaw fast.
MMmmmm! Good stuff.

Easy Pumpkin Muffins

Easy, folks. It's the word for the day. Ingredients: 2. Taste: good.

15 oz. pumpkin
1 cake mix (spice, yellow, white, maybe even chocolate for all I know!)

Mix. Scoop into pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 min, or until tops spring back when touched.

I have considered making a crumble topping for these, but that would defeat the purpose, right? I must however admit that since I don't buy cake mixes, I grab my favorite yellow cake recipe and use the dry ingredients along with a haphazard amount of coconut oil and some eggs. And I throw in cinnamon and ginger. I like things more complex. I guess. So I don't know why I haven't tried a topping. You have to draw the line somewhere. I guess.

"Buy an enchilada!" (I recommend watching Roy Rogers while eating these)

I made this Enchilada Casserole from Tammys Recipes awhile back and it was pretty good, but we ended up eating leftovers for too long afterward. So this time I decided to make a half batch. Here is the original recipe... I'll be sharing my changed method on here. Mmmmm, Alex mentioned about 5 times how good it was, and Titus ate as much as I did! So I guess they would both give it a 5 star rating :).

Enchilada Casserole- Burrellified style!
1/3 cup rice cooked with 1/2 cup water according to package directions (1 cup cooked rice total)
2 cups shredded cheese (approximately... I didn't actually measure it)
2 cups cooked ground beef
6 small flour tortillas
1/2 can (15oz) enchilada sauce- I made my own using this recipe
1 can cream of chicken soup
sour cream, for serving

Mix together your rice, beef, and half or so of the cheese and divide evenly between the tortillas. Roll them up and lay them in a 8x8 pan that has a bit of the enchilada sauce spread on the bottom. Mix chicken soup with the rest of your enchilada sauce and pour over the top and sprinkle with the rest of the cheese. Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes and serve with sour cream.

I didn't have any beans, forgot to season my meat with taco seasonings, and forgot to only use half a can of cream of chicken soup... but the guys loved it!! :) This is definitely an easy recipe to change all around to your family's tastes! Alex even wants me to make it for his parents now! :D

* Note: The picture was taken this afternoon of the leftovers I had for lunch, so it isn't quite as pretty as the first time :).

Slushie Stuff!

I tried making some strawberry limeade the other day, but added too many strawberries. SO... rather than mixing in more water, I decided to play with it! Here ye be...

(Original Recipe)
1 cup lime (or lemon) juice
1 1/2 cup strawberries (or berries of your choice, I guess)
3/4 cup sugar
4 cups water

Mix together in a blender and voila!! Mmmm :). OK. So I had probably 2-2.5 cups of strawberries and this made it rather thick. So I later used it as concentrate and blended in a bunch of ice to make a slushie. Yum! :) We're not big slushie fans, but it was great!! Sorry for the funky looking picture :P. And after that, I used the rest of my "concentrate" and blended in some ice cream to sort of duplicate Sonic's "Creamslush" and that was also very good! :) The tangyness of the lime juice was perfect in all of the above!! So y'all have fun playing around with this stuff... after it warms up up there, of course :).

14 Layer Chocolate Crepe Cake

Here it is, folks. 14 layers of overwhelmingness.

I ran into this on another site and couldn't resist trying it out. Pretty much it is just crepes layered with ganache and whipped cream with strawberries. See? Simple. So I went to my trusty cookbook and found me a crepe recipe.

Crepes

1 1/2 c flour
1 T sugar, but we're doing chocolate crepes here, so we're going to up this to 1/4 cup.
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/4 c cocoa powder
2 c milk
2 T melted butter
1 t vanilla
2 eggs
Combine dry ingredients. Combine wet ingredients. Combine both combinations. I went slow on adding the wet stuff in this because I wanted to just be able to use a wisk to mix this, and I didn't want lumps. You could use a blender which is eaiser, but you have to get it out, and I was feeling too lazy. Weird. I did more work, so I wouldn't have to get a tool out.
Anyway, heat a 6" frying pan over medium heat, and butter lightly. I just use my butter as a crayon and "color" my pan. Everyone does that, right? Pour in a scant 1/4 cup of batter and tip the pan so the entire bottom is (fairly) evenly covered. Let cook until... well, the recipe says "light brown", but since this starts out dark brown, we're going to go with bubbles. When it's getting bubbly, flip and cook the other side for 20-30 seconds or so. Dump crepe out on a towel, and cover. Continue cooking batter. These cook really fast so don't try to do any multi-tasking. I then left mine wrapped in the towel and put it on a cooling rack to... well, cool.

Now you gotta make a ganache. Mine never comes out right, but don't ask me why, cuz it sure isn't hard. (Sara, maybe you could help me with this. Your frosting was perfect the time I had your mom's favorite chocolate cake.) I looked up how to pronounce this word once, but my memory is short. So don't ask. (Mom? It's French, so you know, right?)

Ganache
(I doubled the recipe so here is the double version.)

2 c chocolate chips
1 c whipping cream

Heat cream, pour over chips, stir until melted and smooth. Chill.

And now to up the cream content...

Extras

2ish c whipping cream
1-2 T powdered sugar
3/4 lb strawberries, thinly sliced

Take 2 cups whipped cream and fold it into the ganache. This is where my lovely, smooth ganache became grainy and not so lovely, still yum though. And whip some more cream if you want the whipped cream layers, and add the powdered sugar. The original recipe is straight chocolate, but I decided to break it up a little, and I was glad I did.

Now when everything is cool/ready we can start stacking!! Lay a crepe on your serving plate and spread a layer of chocolate stuff on it. The recipe said about a heaping tablespoon, but because of the thick, grainy texture of mine it took more like 1 1/2 - 2 T for me. I stacked 3 layers of crepe/chocolate and then did a whipped cream/strawberry layer, and so on. Just go until you run out of ingredients. Once again, my recipe had 20 layers, but I had 14 crepes, so I did 14 layers. Amazingly all my ingredients ran out at the same time. Impressive, huh? I put a pile of whipped cream and strawberries on the top. Refrigerate to set the layers somewhat. The recommendation was a few hours, mine was 45 minutes or so and was fine.

I don't have the faintest idea how many servings this is supposed to be, but experience says probably more than 8. Guess how many I cut it into? Astoundingly, 2 of us made it through the whole serving and wanted a little more. I was not one of them. This is fairly potent stuff! Jer says I should make it again, but I think I would be inclined to bring it to a gathering of chocoholics, or a ladies event. It probably won't be just a boring Monday night family dessert again!

A single (excessive) slice

Frappuccino!

2 c Milk

3 t instant coffee

1/8 c sugar (approximately)

1-2 t vanilla

Ice cubes

In a blender mix the milk, coffee, sugar and vanilla together, then blend in enough ice cubes to make it kind of like a slushy type thing.

I realize that it might still be a little cold for these in Michigan, but who cares... they taste good! I don't really have any proportions for these... I just kind of wing it every time, but they've been really popular here! They're great when you want some caffeine, but you don't want to drink a nice hot cup of coffee =). They look really schnazzy if you garnish them with cinnamon!