Easy Eats: Breakfast Ideas

February 23, 2010

I’ll start by warning you that not all of the following are as easy as say, Cheerios. But they aren’t the least bit difficult either – just more on the time consuming side. Still, they are perfect for Sunday morning breakfast or even Sunday evening dinner if you the breakfast-for-dinner sort, which we most certainly are!

I made all of the following for our Valentine’s Day Brunch, which despite a super-high girly factor, Zac seemed to enjoy quite a bit!

So let’s get to the cookin!

French Crepes with Lemon Creme Filling

Begin by huslin’ over to barefootcontessa.com and getting yourself this can:

Or – if you’re round my area – an awesome awesome awesome little shop called Fezziwig’s Market in Lebanon, Il carries it along with a great collection of jams, jellies, tea, wine and chocolate. And the store has a resident dog and basically that’s all a store needs to win over my business for life. So there you go.

Now that you’ve got your French Crepe Mix, because no one that I know has the time to fiddle with 15 different crepe recipes that all fail, we’re on to the lemon creme filling:

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 2 tablespoons grated lemon zest
• 1 cup heavy cream

In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese until soft. Blend in confectioners’ sugar, and beat until creamy. Mix in lemon zest. Whip cream in a chilled bowl. Fold into cream cheese mixture.

Now, unless you are feeding an army (And why, I ask you, do you plan to feed an army crepes?) you don’t need to make the whole recipe. I halved if, filled four crepes and had about 4 cups left. So half or quarter as needed.

It is so so perfect. Light, fluffy, lemony and fresh – good for this time of year when everything else feels dark and heavy and boring.

And your awesome creme filled crepes could be drizzled with a homemade raspberry sauce. Or you could get some really good raspberry jam, melt a bit the microwave and drizzle it over the crepes and just not tell anyone.

To go with your crepes:

Fruit Salsa and Cinnamon Chips!

I hereby declare this my new favorite snack!! It was awesome with breakfast – it was even better in the follow days as snack! Make it a day before so the juice has time to form and mix and be awesome. I didn’t add my apple until the morning-of because I thought it might brown or get mushy. But! Snacking on the salsa a full three days later, the apple was still the right color and just as crisp. This could be because I used Pink Lady apples which are unusually crunchy to begin with. If you can scare some up in your grocery store, definitely go with the Pink Lady apples! My favorite!

• 2 kiwis, peeled and diced
• 2 Pink Lady(!) apples – peeled, cored and diced (Granny Smith would be your next best bet.)
• 8 ounces raspberries
• 1 pound strawberries
• 2 nectarines, peeled and diced
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons fruit preserves, any flavor (I used strawberry)

Everything should be peeled and diced up nice and small. Small-small. Like just larger than a tic-tac small. Except the raspberries, those I cut into quarters as to not smash them, they’ll smash a bit and be smaller when you stir everything together.

So as you dice that all up, put everything into a bowl or dish with a lid. Add your sugars and preserves and mix very well. Cover it and keep it refrigerated for at least a half hour, but you’d be better to do over night.

Now onto making the cinnamon chips.

Simply spray both sides of each tortilla (I think I used 6) with butter-flavored cooking spray. I put a plate in the sink and sprayed them there and then stacked them on my cutting board. With a pizza cutter, cut them into triangle shaped chips. Arrange them in a single layer on a foil-covered baking sheet. Then get at ’em with the cinnamon and sugar. Be generous! Sprinkle sprinkle sprinkle!! Bake ’em at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes until they are crispy.

This salsa will go a long way in helping you shake off the winter blues!

And one more breakfast recipe – a hashbrown casserole! I’ll just say I love me a simple but delicious hashbrown casserole and this one takes the cake! I halved it and it made 4 servings. We ate two at breakfast and felt the other two servings desperatley needed to be served with fried chicken for dinner. So they were.

Creamy Ham and Hashbrown Casserole

• 1 (32 ounce) package frozen hash brown potatoes
• 8 ounces cooked, diced ham
• 2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of potato soup
• 1 (16 ounce) container sour cream
• 4 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

Mix all ingredients and 2 cups of cheese in a bowl. And don’t think about replacing the Cream of Potato with anything else!! Spread it in a lightly grease 9×13 dish and bake at 375 for 1 hour.

If you want you could easy spice this up with chopped veggies or a different type of meat!

So there you are – everything you need to know to make this Sunday morning a bit more awesome!

And just because, a shot of the beautiful pink tulips the hubs got me on Valentine’s Day!