Breakfast Strudel

Easter's coming and my kids and I are starting to get excited!  We have lots of company coming and I can't wait to get started on all of the good food we'll be serving.

Today's recipe is a perfect brunch dish for Easter morning.  I made these for our Christmas morning breakfast and quickly fell in love with them.  I've adapted this recipe from Cuisine At Home.  

This strudel is easy to make and I LOVE that you can make it the night before, put it in the fridge, and bake it in the morning.  It's perfect for Christmas or Easter when you have other things to do in the morning.

I also love that you use puff pastry for the dough.  This was my first time using it and now I'm hooked!  It's so delicious, all buttery and flaky.  

And, hello!  Are these not so beautiful?!  They make a gorgeous main dish for breakfast or a brunch.  I just love, love, love these.  So easy and so good!!

Here's what you'll need:

1 (1.1 lb) box puff pastry dough (you'll find this in the frozen foods isle)

2 Tbsp. unsalted butter

1 C. frozen cubed hash brown potatoes (next time I'll try the O'Brien variety for more color)

1/2 C. diced onion OR 1 Tbsp. dried chopped onion (if you use O'Brien hash browns, you can omit these)

1 C. diced ham

11 eggs

2 Tbsp. minced fresh chives, optional

4 oz. cream cheese, softened

2 Tbsp. orange juice

1 egg

1 Tbsp. water

2 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese, shredded

Thaw pastry according to package directions, about 30 minutes.  While it's thawing, melt the butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Add potatoes and saute for 5 minutes.  Add the ham.

Whisk the eggs and chives (if using) together.  Add them to the pan and scramble just until set.  (They should still be a bit soft and wet since they'll continue to cook in the oven.)  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Take off the heat and add the cream cheese and orange juice until blended.

Refrigerate the eggs while working with the pastry.

Unfold the pastry sheet on parchment paper that's been lightly dusted with flour.  Trim the pastry as shown.  

Fill with half of the egg mixture.  Fold up the flaps at each end and braid as shown.  Repeat with the remaining pastry and egg filling.  

Lift the strudels and parchment onto a baking sheet.

Combine the remaining egg and water.  

Brush over the top of the strudels.  Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

At this point, you can either cover the strudels and keep them in the fridge overnight or you can go right ahead and bake them.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until golden.  Let cool 5 minutes before slicing.

When ready to serve, cut the strudels at an angle.

These are so wonderful!  Hopefully these will help make your Easter brunch a beautiful breeze.

Ham Rolls with Apricot-Pineapple Sauce

I tried a new recipe from the cookbook that my sister, Lynae, put together and gave me.  It was quite good! And it was so easy to assemble and didn't take long to get to the table.  SWEET!!

I think this would make a great dish to serve while entertaining.  Just a thought.

                                        

Here's what you'll need:

Thick sliced ham lunch meat (I used a whole 1lb. package which had 16 slices in it)

Sliced Swiss cheese (one slice per slice of ham, so I needed 16 slices of cheese)

1 box Stove Top Stuffing

Apricot-Pineapple Sauce:

1 Tbsp. cornstarch

2 Tbsp. brown sugar

1 C. water

1 C. pineapple juice

1/4 C. apricot-pineapple preserves

1 Tbsp. butter

Prepare stuffing mix as directed on the box.  Set aside.  On a plate, lay out a slice of ham, top with a slice of cheese.

Then place approximately 1/3 cup of prepared stuffing on the cheese.  

Roll and secure with a toothpick and place on a shallow baking dish.

In a small saucepan, stir together the cornstarch and brown sugar.  Add the water and pineapple juice.  

Stir over medium heat until the mixtures comes to a full rolling boil.  Let boil for 2 minutes.  

Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and preserves.

 Pour over the ham rolls.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Serve hot with the sauce spooned over top.

Breakfast Rolls

So, my friends and I have a little bit of a problem.  When we get together to walk and get some exercise, we like to talk about food.  Many times, food that's so not good for us.  Then we go home and start making these delicious things we've been talking about.  Hence, our walking sessions turn out to be mostly for our social entertainment rather than keeping our bodies trim.

I love it!

That's where today's recipe comes from.  It was an idea that one of my friends had and tried and enjoyed.

We did too.

There's not much of a recipe to this, so it's easy to change the recipe to however you'd like it.

Here's what you'll need:

A tube (or two) of crescent dough, the seamless sheet

Cooked and crumbled breakfast sausage, or bacon

Scrambled eggs

Shredded cheese, any kind you'd like

If you haven't seen the seamless sheet of crescent dough at the grocery store, this is what it looks like.  I LOVE this stuff!  It's so nice when you don't have to worry about the seams in their original crescent rolls.  But if you can't find the seamless sheet, the regular crescent roll dough works just fine too.

Cook your meat and set it aside. 

Roll out your dough.  If you're using the regular crescent roll dough (that has seams), just press the seams together.

Assemble your ingredients.

Place scrambled eggs on the dough.

Sprinkle the sausage, or bacon, over the eggs.

Top with shredded cheese.

Roll up carefully jellyroll style (like cinnamon rolls).

Cut as you would cinnamon rolls.

I originally placed them onto a cookie sheet to bake.

They turned out ugly, still tasty, but ugly.  Like this...

Then I tried putting them in greased ramekins and the results were much better.  If you don't have ramekins, use a greased muffin tin.  It'd be perfect!  Bake at 375 degrees for approximately 15 minutes, or until golden.

We enjoyed these topped with country gravy.

So simple and so yummy! 

Ham Fried Rice

Today's recipe is the perfect companion to my Sweet & Sour Chicken!  With just a little prep work ahead of time, this dish comes together within minutes.  I love that!

Thanks to Kolette for another yummy recipe (adapted sightly)!

Here's what you'll need:

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 tsp. chopped green onion

1/4 C. diced ham

1/3 C. frozen peas and carrots, cooked and cooled

2 C. cold, cooked rice

1/8 tsp. salt

Dash of pepper

1 tsp soy sauce, opt.

Earlier in the day, I got as much of the prep work done as I could.  So, I chopped my green onion, diced the ham, cooked the peas and carrots, and cook the rice as well.  Then I just kept each of those things in the fridge until I was ready to put everything together just before it was time to eat.

When you're almost ready to eat, cook your eggs over medium-high heat until firm.

 Add the green onion, peas and carrots, and diced ham and stir until heated.

Stir in the rice, salt, and pepper.

 If you'd like, you can add the soy sauce.  Stir until all the ingredients are well mixed and rice is hot.

Serve immediately.  If you get all of the prep work done earlier, it takes about 5-10 minutes until this dish is ready to eat.  Awesome!

Pizza Pasta

This recipe is very kid-friendly.  It can be assembled earlier in the day, covered, then baked when you're ready.  Or it's great to layer in a crockpot (directions at the bottom of this post) just before the kids get home from school or right before you head to church and have it piping hot in a few hours when you're ready to eat.

You can just use canned or jarred spaghetti sauce or you can make this dressed up canned sauce for a little extra flavor.  And you can add mushrooms, olives, and a chopped green pepper too.  I love how versatile this recipe is.

Here's what you'll need:

1 lb. hamburger OR sweet Italian sausage OR 1/2 lb. of each

2 T. dried chopped onion

1/4 tsp. garlic powder

1 lg. can or jar spaghetti sauce

1 (16 oz.) can diced tomatoes, undrained

1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste

4 tsp. dried oregano

1/4 C. packed brown sugar

salt & pepper to taste

sliced mushrooms, sliced olives, 1 chopped green pepper, all optional

1 (16 oz.) pkg. rigatoni pasta

1 C. pepperoni slices

1 C. mozzarella cheese, shredded

Cook pasta according to package directions; set aside.  While pasta is cooking, brown meat, onion, and garlic powder.  When meat is cooked through, add spaghetti sauce, tomatoes, paste, oregano, brown sugar, salt and pepper, and mushrooms, olives, and pepper, if desired.

In a large bowl, combine pasta, sauce, and pepperoni.  Place in a greased 9x13 inch pan.

Sprinkle with cheese.

Loosely cover with foil that's been sprayed with non-stick spray (to make your foil non-stick).  Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

You can also make this dish in the crockpot too!  To do so, here's what you'll do:

Cook your pasta for the shortest time listed on the package.
Make your meat/sauce mixture.
Spray the crockpot well with non-stick spray.
Layer 1/2 the sauce, 1/2 the pasta, 1/2 the pepperoni, and 1/2 the cheese.
Repeat layers.
Cook on Low for 2-3 hours.