Easy Breakfast Ideas

The blog world is full of talented people with brilliant ideas, like you! So I want your ideas. More specifically, I want your breakfast ideas.

On a typical morning, I will eat a waffle or a bagel on the way to work. During the weekend it's usually cereal or one of the following:

Pancakes and eggs. I have a most wonderful recipe for pancakes and it's quick and easy too. I'll have to share it some time.

Egg and cheese on whole wheat bagels.

Omelettes. Standard.

And a southern classic, biscuits and cocoa. If you're not from the South then you probably wouldn't understand. I grew up on my grandma's biscuits and for breakfasts on the weekend our grandparents would make us biscuits and cocoa. I got the recipes from her and now from time to time I make this.

I would like to branch out from these staples though and try some new breakfast ideas, so lay them on me! What are your favorite breakfast ideas?

Herb Stuffed Bell Peppers

Since the beginning of Summer I had been wanting to try a stuffed bell pepper recipe, so back in July I actually got around to trying one. I searched a few sites, but all I found were non-vegetarian recipes. I finally decided to just alter a recipe to fit what I wanted, since I pretty much do that every time I cook anyway, haha.

Here's what I came up with (altered from here):

Herb Stuffed Bell Peppers

4 large sweet red peppers
1/2 chopped onion
3 cups cooked brown rice
2 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon oregano
1/4 cup vegetable broth
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
2 1/2 teaspoons dried basil
1/4 cup grated Parmesan 
1/4 cup grated mild cheddar

Wash the bell peppers, cut the tops out and remove the seeds.


Bring a pot of water to a boil and put the peppers in for 10 minutes.

Cook onion in a pan over medium heat until brown. Remove from the heat and stir in the rice, parsley, salt, cayenne and oregano.

In a small saucepan, bring the broth to a boil. Stir in the balsamic vinegar, basil and parmesan cheese.
Mix all ingredients and then spoon into the peppers.

Place the peppers in a shallow baking dish, cover and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Sprinkle cheddar cheese over the tops and bake uncovered for 5-10 minutes.

We really enjoyed these and I thought they were quite hearty for a vegetarian meal. There's a lot of flavor packed in to them and they are very filling.

Grandma's Red Velvet Cake

I grew up in a very tight-knit family where we spent every holiday together and my sister and I spent almost every weekend at our grandparent's house. I became very close to my grandmother over the years and, of course, she was everything a grandmother should be: warm, loving, fun, a great baker, a great cook, selfless, hard-working, energetic and more. She passed away a few years ago, but I have only the most wonderful memories of her. She was an amazing woman and I admired her so much, especially her ability to bring the family together with her cooking. Every Sunday after church we had lunch at her house. It was more of a feast actually as in about an hour the table would be filled with all sorts of food, hot and ready to eat. And of course there were desserts on stand-by for afterward. Usually a pecan pie or homemade ice cream, but other times we would get a cake and if it was a red velvet cake, the crowd would go wild.

I have a cookbook from the school where my grandmother used to work and after looking it through it for recipe ideas, I discovered my grandmothers very own red velvet cake recipe! I had to make it ASAP and I did indeed. It wasn't as good as my grandma used to make, but I did what I could and it was still delicious. =) Besides, nobody can bake as good as grandma, right?

If you want the best red velvet cake recipe ever, read on:

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp. cocoa
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cup oil
1 tsp. vinegar
2 eggs
1 oz. red food coloring
1 tsp. vanilla

Combine dry ingredients. Add other ingredients in order. Mix for 2 minutes. Bake in greased and floured pan at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Cool completely before icing.

Here's what my cakes looked like with I pulled them out of the oven. Nice and red! You could do this as a sheet cake, but I wanted a round cake to take to a family event.

After the cakes finished cooking, I started working on the icing. Once again I used my grandmother's recipe. What goes better with red velvet cake than cream cheese icing? That's right, nothing.

Ingredients:

8 oz. cream cheese
1 stick margarine
1 box confectionery sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Blend together cream cheese and margarine until smooth. Gradually add box of confectionery sugar and vanilla while blending.

I did a crumb coat first and then iced the cake. My grandmother usually garnished the cake with slivered almonds, but I was lazy. =) haha.

It was still a hit at the family gathering though so that's good. Yay for grandma and her recipes!

College Food

I was looking through some of my older pictures the other day and I saw several I had taken during college of food my roomie and I had made.

This is my college roommate Sharon. We went to high school together, played trumpet in band together for many years and then went on to share a dorm room. We were very poor in college.

We pretty much always shopped at the Wal*Marts and we bought food as cheap as we possibly could. Standards were: cheap pasta, cheap pasta sauce, cheap Wal*Mart brand frozen vegetables, frozen edamame, Knorr side dishes (when they were on sale), big boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios or regular Cheerios, huge packages of peanut butter crackers (I'd get a box of 14 packages for about 2 dollars), peanut butter, jelly, bread. Hmmm... yeah, that was the standard stuff.

Here's a typical meal:

Mac n cheese with squash, pasta roni, and some green giant broccoli.

Another dinner - more green giant vegetables, pasta roni and corn.

Of course every now and then we would get fancy. We had a "dinner party" one night and we made tomato soup, corn casserole and "gourmet" grilled cheese. I made up this grilled cheese sandwich were you take fancy bread and add some sliced american cheese and strips of orange bell pepper (so colorful!) and then you grill it in a pan. Simple, but sooo tasty and I did always feel fancy eating it, haha.

The sandwiches were especially good dipped in the tomato soup, of course.

Here's another typical week night dinner. We have some pasta, edamame and those amazing Wal*Mart brand vegetables.

And if I visited boys in college, this is what I got to eat for dinner:

 

Haha. Is it just me, or are college boys just not as creative when it comes to cooking dinner? Well, I guess it is easier to just throw a pizza in the oven, but still.

What kind of things did you eat in college? Were you broke like me and my roomie? Haha.

Knock it off, Napoleon! Make yourself a dang quesadilla!

So the other day for dinner, I had my friend Kelly and her fiance over as well as my friend Parneet. I wanted to use up some tortillas we had in the pantry so I decided to make quesadillas and since I love a theme I decided to make it southwest themed. Well, it was my attempt at that theme, haha.

I made the quesadillas on our griddle and it was so super easy. I love my griddle... Anyway, I just sprayed cooking spray on the griddle once it had heated up and then put a tortilla on. I immediately sprinkled cheese on one side and then used a spatula to fold the tortilla over. Each quesadilla was so quick and simple to make.

Rice is a classic southwestern side dish so that was my next task. All I ever buy is brown rice so I cooked about 3 cups of rice in 2 and a half cups of vegetable broth with a little bit of vegetable oil (so the rice wouldn't stick together). I added some peas and carrots (yay veggies) as well. After the rice was cooked Kelly seasoned it to perfection with some garlic salt and parsley. Yum! It was some pretty tasty rice.

I wanted to make some veggies as well so I heated up some mixed vegetables and then heated up some Sante Fe style cooking creme and mixed it in with the vegetables. It gave the vegetables a nice kick.

I'm a sucker for quick, easy meals so this is definitely one I'll be doing again in the future. And yay for themes. =)

I Give You... Squash Casserole

I absolutely love squash and zucchini and after an awesome sale at Publix I had a lot of it. So I made a casserole!

This recipe claims to be the World's Best Squash Casserole and it is indeed very good!

I altered it by putting in cream of mushroom soup instead of cream of chicken. I also didn't put in the stove top stuffing mix.

So if you happen to have a lot of zucchini and squash you should try the casserole! =)

Homemade Oreos

For Father's Day this year, I made homemade oreos. I've been making these for a few years now here and there and I think they are really tasty. They don't taste exactly like real oreos, but I like them better. =) They are fun to make and they turn out pretty cute looking.

Here's a picture of some that I made a few years ago for a party. I cut the dough with a cookie cutter and got these cute flower shapes.

The recipe that I use for them is one I copied out of a magazine several years ago. I can't even remember the name of the magazine, but here's the recipe:

To make the cookies:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa (I always use Hershey's cocoa)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

To make the filling:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Mix together flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar in a mixer. While on low speed add in the butter and the egg. Continue mixing until dough comes together.

Lay down two sheets of parchment paper. Divide batter in half and place one piece on each piece of parchment paper. Put another piece of parchment paper on top each piece of dough. Roll out dough between the pieces of parchment paper then place the two pieces in the freezer for about 10 minutes.

Pull the pieces back out and then cut out cookies with a cookie cutter or biscuit cutter and place on a cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes.

To make the filling, put butter and shortening in a mixing bowl and mix at low speed. Then slowly add in the sugar and vanilla. Turn the mixer on high and mix for 2 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.

Then it's the really fun part -- putting the sandwiches together! I just take one cookie and spread the filling on it with a knife and then top it with another cookie. Pretty simple. =)