Bacon & Egg Toast Cups

I found this awesome recipe on Pinterest and had to try it.

Ingredients (makes 6 cups)

• 6 slices of bread
• 6 slices of bacon
• 6 eggs
• 1/2 cup shredded cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

Cut the bread to fit in your muffin pans.

Place bread circles in a greased muffin pan.

Top toast with halfway cooked bacon and a tablespoon of shredded cheese. Cook for 5 minutes at 400.

Add an egg to each cup. Drain off most of the egg white, and use just yolk. Cook for another 8-10 minutes. 

Pop out with a spoon and enjoy!

Christmas Baking

Today I started my Christmas baking. Abigail baked in her kitchen while I was in mine and we both danced to Mannheim Steamrollers on Pandora. First up, I made Nutella Sea Salt fudge. These are AMAZING. Tomorrow morning I'm dividing them up, packaging them, and assigning them to people so I don't keep eating them.

Then I made my own granola. I have grand plans of making more things from scratch and buying less things from the store, and overall be able to spend less time scrambling for meal ideas. Declan and Abigail eat their weight in yogurt each week, so I thought some granola would spice up the bowl a bit. I used this recipe, but only had enough oats for a quarter of the recipe. A good trial, I thought. It was wonderful! I may actually eat yogurt again!

Bacon makes everything better

Last night I tried (yet another) new crockpot recipe. It required a little bit more prep work (maybe 10 min total) but it was excellent!

Bacon Wrapped Apple BBQ Chicken
In a small bowl, mix 1/2 cup BBQ sauce, the juice of one lemon, and 1-2 apples, peeled and grated.
Place 3 to 4 chicken breasts (skinless, boneless as always) in the crock and cover with the apple mixture.
Then wrap (or cover) chicken and apple mix with 6 to 8 pieces of bacon.
Cook 8 hours on low.

I served it with steamed broccoli. The kids loved it!

Yes, I'm a Crockpot Girl

Today I made my first recipe from the ever popular, CrockPot Girls website. Super easy, super quick (only 3-4 hours on high, so you can forget about it in the morning and still have it ready for dinner), and super tasty. Declan had seconds and Abigail wanted thirds. Here it is:

Bacon Ranch Chicken


Mix together:
1 packet of ranch
1 cup of sour cream
1 can of cream of chicken soup
2 Tbsp (real) bacon bits
1 tsp minced garlic (I used garlic powder in a pinch)

Spread over 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cook on high for 3-4 hours. Shred chicken, and add some cooked egg noodles.

Herb-Crusted Chuck Roast

Tonight I made this wonderful roast. Yummy!

Combine these ingredients in a small bowl:

• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 teaspoon ground mustard
• 1 teaspoon ground savory
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed

Mix together and rub on the roast. Drizzle a little olive oil in the roast pan (I used my dutch oven) and place the roast in the center. I added some potatoes and onions and about 1 1/2 cup water. Cook for at least 2 hours at 325 with the cover on. 

Fourth of July Recipes

As we approach my absolute favorite holiday of the year, I have been thinking about some wonderful new recipes.

Here's what I am planning to make.

Summer Berry Trifle

Flag Cupcakes

I'm still thinking of some other foods, maybe a summer salad? Share with me your favorite summer recipe!

My first chicken

I have long heard that cooking a whole chicken is easy. But, I was still a skeptic until Monday.

I bought said chicken, at the commissary without a plan. Which, as those who know me, is odd. But my food shopping is often a tad spontaneous.



Then I searched the interenet for a plan. My new favorite blog, The Happy Housewife, had a great idea for cooking a whole chicken in a crock pot. So, I gave it a whirl.

Step one, remove chicken from wrapper, dispose of insides (which come in a neat little bag) and rinse. Then place some olive oil in the bottom of the crock pot and place chicken in the crockpot. Simple, right?



Well, enter the first part of the challenge. My crock pot was too small for my chicken! Thank goodness I have two and I could switch to my bigger one! So, in went the chicken. Then, to season, I sprinkled Lowry's Seasoning Salt on top.



After 7 hours on low, this is what it looked like.



Then I took off all the meat (and sampled some). It was well seasoned and juicy! The bones, skin, and 5 cups of water joined the remaining juice in the crock pot on low overnight and produced some chicken broth.



The chicken itself, gave us one dinner, one lunch leftovers, and MANY more to come. I'm thinking chicken enchiladas.....