Dutch Babies

Ingredients:
3/4 c. flour
3/4 c. milk
3 eggs
1/4 t. salt
1/2 cube butter

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400.
Melt butter in oven in a 9x13 pan.
Mix together flour, milk, and eggs in a blender until combined.
When butter is melted, and starting to bubble and turn slightly golden, pour batter into center of pan.
Cook until dutch babies are risen and starting to brown at edges.
Serve with powdered sugar and butter.

Makes 4 servings. Total time about 20 minutes.

Verdict:
I love dutch babies. We ate these growing up. This may be the only food that our kids eat with out complaining.

Egg and Avocado Sandwich

Ingredients:
1 large egg plus 1 large egg white
coarse slat and ground pepper
1 t. olive oil
1 small green onion, chopped
1 whole wheat English muffin, split and toasted
hot sauce (optional)
1/4 avocado, thinly sliced

Directions:
Beat together egg and egg white; season with slat and pepper. In a small nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium. Cook green onions until softened, 1 minute. Add eggs and cook, stirring, until almost set, 1 to 2 minutes.
Fold edges of egg mixture in to form a patty about the size of and English muffin. Continue to cook until set, about 20 seconds more.
Place egg on bottom half of English muffin and season with salt and pepper, and hot sauce. Layer with avocado, then other half of muffin.

Makes 1 muffin. Total time 10 minutes.

Verdict:
Just a glorified Egg Mcmuffin. I added bacon to mine. It was like a breakfast burrito on a muffin.

Spinach and Gruyere Souffle

Ingredients:
2 T. butter, at room temperature, plus more for baking dish
1/3 c. plain dried breadcrumbs
5 c. packed spinach, trimmed and washed
2 T. flour
3/4 c. plus 2 T. whole milk
1/2 c. Gruyere cheese, grated
coarse salt and pepper
2 large eggs, separated , plus 2 large egg whites

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375. Butter a round 1-quart tall sided baking dish and dust with breadcrumbs; set aside. In a large skillet, heat 2 T. water over med-high. Add spinach and cook, stirring constantly, until wilted, about 4 minutes.
Transfer to a strainer to cool; press to release liquid.
In a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium until bubbling. Add flour and whisk until a past forms. Continue to cook until pale blond in color, 2 to 3 minutes.
Whisking, gradually add milk.
Cook, whisking, until lumps are gone and mixture is thickened, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
Stir in cheese until melted; season with salt and pepper. Transfer souffle base to a large bowl.
In a food processor, pulse spinach and egg yolks until coarsely pureed. Add 1/4 c. souffle base; pulse until blended.
Stir spinach mixture into remaining souffle base.
In a large bowl, using and electric mixer, beat 4 egg whites and pinch of salt on med-high until stiff peaks form (do not over beat), about 3 minutes. In 2 additions, gently fold egg whites into souffle base.
Pour batter into prepared dish and bake until souffle is tall, browned and firm to the touch, about 35 minutes. (Avoid opening oven during first 25 minutes of baking.) Serve immediately.

Makes 8 servings. Total time 1 hour.

Verdict:
Souffle sounds so fancy, no? I was kinda excited to make this. Fancy cheese name, fancy food name, what is there not to be excited about? It came out of the oven all puffy and pretty and then it quickly deflated. Sad. The taste? It kinda reminded me of a soggy omelet. It was fancy but all together it was kinda...meh. If you can't find Gruyere cheese I would say a good substitute would be Swiss or Parmesan.

Quiche With Artichoke Hearts and Parmesan

Ingredients:
2 9-inch frozen pie shells
2 T. butter
1 onion, chopped
9 oz. artichoke hearts, slivered lenghtwise
salt and pepper
4 large eggs
2 1/2 c. half and half
1 c. parmesan, grated

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400. Line pie shells with foil and fill with dried beans. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove foil and beans and lower temperature to 350 and bake until lightly browned, 3-5 minutes. Cool slightly.
Melt butter in a large skillet. Add onion and saute for 3 minutes. Squeeze moisture from artichokes and saute for 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and divide evenly between shells.
Whisk eggs, half and half, cheese, salt and pepper. Pour mixture over artichoke mixture. Bake until set in center and lightly browned, 35-40 minutes. Cool slightly before serving.

Makes 2 quiches. Total time 55 minutes.

Verdict:
I used those marinated artichoke hearts. I also put this all in one pie pan. This tasted good. It needed a little bit of salt. It won't fall under my favorite list but it is still good.

Breakfast Strudel

Ingredients:
1 box puff pastry dough
2 Tbsp. butter
1 c. frozen cubed hash brown potatoes
1 c. red or green pepper, seeded, diced
1/2 c. onion, diced
1 c. ham, diced
12 eggs
2 Tbsp. green onion, thinly sliced
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 Tbsp. water
2 Tbsp. parmesan cheese, shredded

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Thaw puff pastry dough according to package directions.
Melt butter in large skillet. Add potatoes and cook until starting to brown. Stir in bell peppers and onion. Saute about 3 minutes then add ham.
Whisk together 11 eggs and green onions. Add them to pan and scramble until set. Off heat stir in cream cheese until blended.
Unfold pastry and using a rolling pin roll out dough length wise to 12 x 10".
Cover baking sheet in foil and place rolled out pastry dough on baking sheet. Using a knife cut strips on both sides every 1/2 inch at a 45 degree angle (making sure to keep it attached to center). Place half of the egg mixture down center of dough. Braid dough over egg mixture alternating sides using strips.
Combine the remaining egg and water. Brush lightly over top of strudel. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and bake for 20-30 minutes or until golden.

Makes 2 strudels. Total time 45 minutes plus thaw time.

Verdict:
The strudel was surprisingly simple to make. I was a little worried about the braiding process but when it cooks up it doesn't really matter what it looks like. If you were just going to make this for a normal size family I would definitely cut the recipe in half. I made the whole recipe only to find out that it made two strudels. That is a lot of food. Everyone seemed to love it. The kids ate the eggs in the middle but not the crust part. The rest of us ate it gladly. Blake had it for lunch the next day and liked it some much that he sent me a text to tell me how good it was.

Breakfast Pizza

For the pizza:
8 large eggs
1/4 c. milk
1 Tbsp. butter
1 c. chopped ham
1 c. picante sauce
1 c. shredded cheddar and monterey jack cheese
pizza crust
(you can use Boboli pizza crust or you can use a frozen raw dough bread loaf that has been thawed and rolled out. I used the dough.)

Preheat oven to 425
Roll out dough and place on pizza pan.
Cook dough until it is a light brown color and looks to be cooked through all the way.
Whisk together eggs and milk in bowl. Melt butter in large skillet and saute ham for 3-4 min. Add egg mixture and let set until you can pull the eggs away from the sides of pan. Using a spatula pull all sides into the middle. Do not mix. Then as the eggs cook some more pull sides in again. Continue to do this until you have a big egg pile in the middle of the pan. Some of the eggs will still be a little under cooked. Remove from heat.
Spread picante sauce on cooked crust. (We used pace.)
Top pizza with egg and ham mixture and then cheese.
Cook pizza in oven for 8-10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and bubbling and the crust is the color that you like it.

Makes 1 pizza. Total time 20 min.

Verdict:
Eggs on pizza? That was my first thought. I have seen a recipe like this in a couple of different places so I thought, why not try it? It was good. Really good. It was like breakfast burritos except instead of the tortilla you have yummy pizza crust. I also liked that most of these ingredients I have on hand almost all the time. Blake loved it too and we both had leftovers the next day. Laney and Gavin both picked theirs apart and ate it separately. Baby steps.

Picture and recipe from Cuisine at Home grilling