Breakfast Muffins with Changes

The other blog is also updated, so don't forget to check it out.

Yesterday I got a morning call from daughter #1.  She wondered what was up with us and I soon discovered she was lonely.  Soon after that she was on her way to visit for the day.  What a nice day we had.  At the end of the day, I commented to her, "This is why I did not want you to move too far away from me."  We LOVE getting together SO MUCH!

Her main project for the day was to make 72 Breakfast Muffins.  If you refer back to one of the early posts you will find she did a guest posting on this recipe.  She makes these about once a month so her husband can get off to work in the morning with a healthy breakfast.  Not many people would put the effort into making these fresh each morning or at all for that matter.  For sure I would not be making them fresh each day.  But to make a large batch and freeze them is great.  I've been the recipient twice of needing a quick breakfast and enjoying this particular offering courtesy of my organized daughter.

As she has made this recipe several times there are some changes.  This time the change was using 2 ovens.  It cut the process down significantly so I hope you are putting a double oven on your list of things to add to your next kitchen remodel.  Since I lived many years without this wonderful feature and now have it, I'll say I MUCH prefer having a double oven in my kitchen.

Another change is to use fresh potatoes instead of frozen hash browns.  We think they must be healthier, but there is a little more work involved.

The ingredients are assembled.  Yes, that's 5 dozen eggs and 6 packages of cheese and precooked sausages.

Grating raw potatoes.

Putting raw grated potatoes in Demarle cupcake tray.

While those bake at 400 degrees for 13 minutes, she is breaking dozens of eggs into the mixing bowl.

 Can you tell I like close up shots?  These were later ground up and put on the tomato plants.

Mixing eggs.

Now that the eggs are mixed together, she adds several bags of grated Mexican cheese.

Adding seasonings.

Placing the cooked sausage on top of the baked grated potatoes.

Same thing, closer view. 

Now spoon the egg, cheese, spice mixture over top of the hashbrowns and sausage.

And bake using both ovens for 13 minutes or so.

While those were baking she started on a second batch.  She does not grate all the potatoes at once for 72 breakfast muffins because they turn brown quickly.

Oh, I just looked for a photo to post of the finished product but forgot to take one.  Well we sample tasted and they sure tasted great.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups frozen shredded hash browns, thawed
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 12 links breakfast sausage, or equivalent amount of ground sausage or cooked crumbled bacon
• 6 eggs
• 2 cups Shredded 4-Cheese Mexican blend cheese
• Garlic Powder to taste, optional
• Dill Weed to taste, optional
• Crushed Red Pepper Flakes to taste, optional

Directions:

• In a bowl, combine the hash browns, butter, salt and pepper.
• Fill Demarle muffin cup molds ½ full, tamp down.
• Bake at 400°F for 12 minutes or until lightly browned.
• Meanwhile, cut sausage into ½-inch pieces, and cook according to package directions.
• Divide sausage among muffin cups.
• Beat eggs and spices, stir in cheese. Spoon over sausage.
• Bake for 13 to 15 minutes or until set.

*If I am doing the 6 batches, I will cook the sausage the day before. That part takes about an hour.

Chocolate Champagne Mousse, not too sweet

It feels a lot like summer now and we still want chocolate.  The appeal of gourmet hot chocolate drink is on hold  until fall so I made this today as a stand in.  Talk about rich and delicious.  Also it was easy since strawberries are in season.  I wanted to make something with ingredients I had on hand.  While I don't usually have champagne, a friend gifted us a bottle when she moved.  This seemed like a good way to use it.  I still had some left over and used it in a cake for my daughter's upcoming birthday.  The cakes are in the freezer for next week's celebration. 

Notice the demitasse spoons.  I got them at a thrift store.  They are such a good size for these occasional gourmet desserts.

Recipe for mousse:

20 ounces heavy whipping cream

12 ounces dark chocolate, Lindt 85% Cacoa

½ cup champagne

6 tablespoon organic light brown sugar

¼ teaspoon sea salt

Combine ingredients over low heat and stir occasionally until chocolate melts and blends.

Ladle into demitasse cups , cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.  Serve with fresh strawberries and pineapple mint.

Worm Composting

A little while ago my grand girls came for a few days.  What fun memories we created.  They were quite interested in watching their aunt and uncle get on the bus.

They feed carrot scraps to the worms.  It was a fine chore as long as they didn't have to touch the dirt which had the potential of touching a (gasp) worm.  Many of you know the fish cleaning stories from my childhood so I'm sympathetic.

The children and I had the opportunity to attend a worm composting work shop a month ago.  As recently as a few months ago I would not have guessed worm composting was going to be on my bucket list.  But sometimes these things just develop.  At my husband's work they needed some people to commit to the workshop.  Even though we were busy getting a vacation rental ready we decided to "help out."

As it turned out it was so well attended we waited a week to go back and build our own worm bins as they didn't have enough for everyone.  That's why the photos show me standing around with my arms folded watching everyone else stick their hands in it.  Eventually I did too.

Here is the process:

Drill several holes in your bin.   Fill it about 1/3 full of 7 month old decayed leaves.  Here is a photo of what it looks like:

Next you add a few large handfuls of soggy, shredded newsprint.  No glossy paper as it gives the worms indigestion.

Dried eggshells only please:

Grind the dried egg shells.  Aaachoo!  It is a dusty process.

Now add a cup of sand because the worms need it for roughage.

  And most of a cup of ground eggshells:

 Turn it and toss it like a big salad:

Add veggie scraps.  Go light on fruit.  No meat or dairy!

Under each of these piles of dirt is a good supply of red wiggler worms.  Whatcha do is pick the worms out of the dirt one by one until you have a cup and then add them to your bin.  This picking the worms took the longest of the whole process.

This is the result you are going for.  The worms digest the ingedients of the bin and turn it into nutrient rich soil.

These squash and cosmos plants were started as examples and we got to take some home.  They were planted just two weeks prior to this photo being taken.  Hard to believe, I know.  They were in a  greenhouse so that also helps hasten the process, but mainly it is due to the rich soil.

Now add a half to one gallon of raw veggie scraps per week.  In about 5 months you will have a bin of great soil to use for your garden starts next year.  Or you can make a tea/fertilizer from your results.

Eat Dessert First . . . Homemade Huckleberry Ice Cream with low sugar then Enchiladas

Jumping ahead...

The last post isn't yet finished, but I want to get this one up because Mom and Dad will want to see photos of everyone enjoying their homemade wild huckleberry jam in homemade ice cream.  Mom says she makes her wild huckleberry jam with less sugar than it calls for.  Then we also cut way down on the sugar in the ice cream recipe.  I like desserts that are not overly sweet anyway.

Someone (who hasn't spent time in North Idaho) called it Blueberry Ice Cream but I was in another conversation when I slightly overheard that so I didn't correct them.  If you have been around my family or other huckleberry gourmets you will know there are several differences between wild huckleberries and blueberries.

Mark came for dinner last night and they knew he was coming so they sent me home with a pint of homemade huckleberry jam so I could make him some ice cream with it.  This is one of his favorite desserts.  Well I twisted my knee yesterday while gardening so didn't go out and buy the milk, ice and sugar I needed to make the recipe.  When Mark got here he generously offered to go to the store and get what we needed, but I suggested I make it for tomorrow night and take it out to the farm for the whole group to enjoy.  Anyway it would take more than an hour to make it plus the time to go to the store so it wasn't very practical.  I had made black bottom cupcakes instead and we just ate them all right up even though there were only 5 of us.  Okay, there were two left and I ate those for lunch today.  Sorry Heidi, I'm not being very supportive am I?

I thought I had the home made huckleberry ice cream recipe because Eileen gave it to me a few years back but I could not find it so called mom and got it.

So I was working in the garden again today and tweaked my knee AGAIN so it really slowed me down.  But I did hobble to the car and drove across town using my other foot to operate the pedals.  Awkward!   I went across town because there is a smaller store there that I could get the ingredients without walking so far.  It made me glad when there was a parking spot just a few feet away from the entry door.  I found the milk, sugar and ice and came back home and mixed up the ingredients.  Can you believe I accidentally bought flour instead of sugar.  I don't know how that happened.  But as you can guess I was trying to figure out a way not to go out again.  I had about two tablespoons of sugar in the bottom of the canister (vacation renters used it up last weekend and I forgot to put it on the last list).  Also there was about a 3rd cup of sugar in the sugar bowl.  Well that so was not enough so I looked in the pantry and found a bottle of corn syrup.  I decided to use that  as a substitute.  It worked.

While the ice cream maker was working away I decided to put together a batch of enchiladas.  I have chicken smoked on the Traeger Grill but my husband doesn't enjoy it much unless it is in something like... enchiladas.  But of course I was out of the correct ingredients and had not thought about what I was making for supper while I was at the store.  That trip to the store was not what it should have been.

Here are the items I had that could be tricked into being enchiladas.  I didn't put the corn in and the rice and beans were side dishes.  The peanut butter jar contains the smoked chicken.

Probably I should have plugged the ice cream maker in somewhere else but it is rather heavy and I need to watch it to keep adding ice so I just worked around it.

This photo below is the tomatoes, pureed in the food processor, the can of whole green chiles, also processed in the food processor, the last of the yogurt (see previous post for the rest of that story), and salt and pepper.  I dunked the tortillas in this and also put a generous amount on top of the enchiladas before the cheese.

And here it is ready to go in the oven.

At 5:45 the ice cream was done and the enchiladas were in the oven at 200 degrees. I don't know when we will be back so I'll just turn it down low.

Naturally everyone was finished with supper and waiting for us.

Both are really wanting that paddle.

She looks really good for having left the house at 5:15 this morning.

Next are photos of some of the people in attendance.

Middle row with backs to the camera:  Bronson W. and Daniel K.  They say hi to the North Idaho relatives.

A close up of the yummy wild huckleberry ice cream.  Looking down in the can.

Evening sun in the eyes.

Delivering the lift thingamajig for a project:

Everyone really enjoyed the treat and they thank you for your generosity.

And the children and I ate ice cream with everyone else even though we hadn't had supper yet.  Now we are back home and having supper, though we aren't very hungry.

Spanish rice:

Refried Beans:  Not such a great photo.

Enchiladas:  Our daughter was so sure she wasn't going to like them but she did and took seconds even though she wasn't hungry.  Our son said you outdid yourself again.  So I guess they liked them just fine.  Not bad for being short on the right ingredients.  My husband didn't know dinner was in the oven so he ate cereal.  Guess he can have it tomorrow and I won't have to cook.

And now for the recipes:

Homemade Wild Huckleberry Ice Cream

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup white corn syrup

1 quart real cream

1 quart 2% milk

1/2 tsp. sea salt

4 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

4 eggs

1 pint homemade wild huckleberry jam

Mix together and put in ice cream maker. Then surround the cannister with:

1 bag of ice (keep it filled as it melts) and mix with

1 box rock salt 

Run it until it stops (about 45 minutes this time).

Chicken Enchiladas

In a food processor:

1 can of tomatoes, 28 ounces

1 can of whole green chiles, 7 ounces

1/2 cup left over plain yogurt

5 shakes of salt and 3 shakes of pepper

Place a thin layer of this sauce in the bottom of the 9 x 13 baking dish.

14 tortilla shells, flash fried in butter then dipped in the sauce above.

1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella mixed with 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

3 chicken thighs cooked (smoked on Traeger grill), cut up in small pieces

Put a generous amount of cheese and chicken in each tortilla after it is dipped in sauce and roll up.  Place on top of a thin layer of sauce and then spoon sauce over the top.  Add a thick layer of mozzarella cheese and cheddar cheese to the top.

Bake at 200 degrees for two hours or 25 minutes at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Spanish rice

3 cups left over white rice rewarmed and mixed with about a 1/2 cup of the left over enchilada sauce.

There you have it.  A fun, tasty and disjointed evening.  Though I prefer to think of it as flexible.