Breakfast for dinner

Today I had some friends over and decided to have breakfast for dinner.  I mean who doesn't love breakfast food...with so much stuff to do it's hard to have time to make a really good breakfast.  So on my menu I made some cinnamon rolls, unfortunately from a pillsbury can, a granola and fruit parfait, a crescent roll egg bake from my favorite blog Our Best Bites (check them out), hash browns and mimosas.

So this is my crescent roll egg bake

this originally is supposed to look braided, but since I had to feed four people I had to stuff it extra full.

Ingredients:
4-5 eggs
1/3 cup frozen shredded spinach
6ish turkey sausage links
1/2 an onion
1 cup cheddar cheese
1 can pillsbury crescent rolls

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. First I cut up the onion and the sausage links.  You can use cut up patties too, or even bacon or ham.  Put the onion and sausage and onion in a pan and cook it until the meat is done.
In a separate pan mix the eggs and spinach while scrambling them in  a pan.  I added a tablespoon of milk and salt and pepper, but just make it however you make scrambled eggs.  Once the eggs are almost completely cooked add the onion and sausage mix.  Mix it all together.  Add in the cheese.  Roll the crescent roll dough on a greased pan.  You can roll it on a different surface, but its hard to transfer, so I just did it on the pan.  Once it is rolled out, put the egg mixture in the middle of the dough.  Roll the ends of the dough over and if you want the braided look cut lines down the sides of the dough and fold them in one at a time.  Stick it in the oven for about 15 minutes or until the dough is slightly golden brown.  Let it cool for a couple minutes and serve it by cutting along the lines created in the dough.

I also made these cute little parfaits.  the yogurt ran through the granola, but i still think they turned out ok.

S'more Cupcakes :)

So I have been waiting to try this recipe I found from nibbledish.com and I finally decided to make it today.  I think that it turned out pretty tastey.  I didn't especially like the marshmallow frosting and it was super sticky and hard to work with, so I am not going to put that recipe up.

Ingredients for cupcakes:

• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted
• 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar  
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt 
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

 Directions:

1. Combine 1 cup of  the graham cracker crumbs and 1/4 cup of melted butter. Scoop a tablespoon into each cupcake paper, pressing down to cover the bottom. Set aside.
2. Beat 1/2 cup of butter on high speed until soft, about 30 seconds. Add in brown sugar. Beat on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beat for 30 seconds after each . Set aside.
4. Mix together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
5.  Add milk, vanilla,  and flour mixture to the butter/sugar mixture. Beat to combine.
6. Fill cupcake cups with cake batter (they should be 2/3 - 3/4 full).
7. Place muffin tins on the middle rack of a preheated 350 degree oven. Bake for approximately 18-20  minutes, rotating pans halfway through. Cupcakes are done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
8. Remove cupcakes and let it cool down for 20 - 30 minutes.
9. After the cupcakes have cooled, use a knife and cut a hole into the cupcakes (shaped like a cone). Fill with chocolate fudge filling .
10. You might want to keep the top of the cupcake hold to over the fudge so the  frosting doesn't sink in. Mine turned out looking like little mountains, but I think that's better than it sinking in.

Ingredients for fudge fillng:

• 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate, cut into pieces
• 1/2 tablespoon butter, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 teaspoons milk

Directions:

In a double boiler, mix all ingredients together until fully combined.

cool and fill each cupcake with a spoonful of fudge

use the extra as decoration on top of the cupcake

Rainbow Cupcakes :)

I made these today and they were so fun and cute :)

Mini Apple Pies

I'm a really big fan of pies.  The problem is that it would sit at my house until my roommate ate it all ourselves.  It's too much of a hassle to give pieces of pie away.  I had this brilliant idea of making mini pies so that I could share them!

First I took one granny smith apple and peeled the skin off. The first time I made these I cut the apple chunks too big and it was hard to get very many in the pies and after they had baked the filling was pretty sad looking inside.  Make sure that the apple chunks are tiny! The more you can get to fit in the pies the better!  Put the apple chunks into a mixing bowl I then mixed in 1/4 cup of both brown sugar and regular sugar.  I added about 2 tablespoons flour maybe a tiny bit less (I was revising a recipe I had found).  Then lastly add a 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and a 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg.  Stir all of these ingredients around until the apple pieces are completely covered.

For the dough I just used a pillsbury premade pie crust. I actually tried a generic brand too, but everyone agreed that the pillsbury crust was better.  I laid the pie crust on a cutting board and rolled it out to be a little thinner.  The crust was a little too thick without rolling it out.  I had to experiment with different cups that could cut out the right size circle shape. Try a few cups or round objects so you get a nice circle of dough that can fit in the mini cupcake pan.

After I put all of the dough circles into the pan I generously filled them with the apple filling.  The apples shrink so don't worry about them overflowing too much.  I actually put a tiny dollop of butter on top of the apple filling before I put on the pie top.  For the top of the pie you can do any sort of design with the extra pie dough.  I decided to be fancy and create a woven top (which took forever).  I spent probably 45 minutes making the tops of these pies (luckily lord of the rings was on.)

With the oven at 350 degrees bake them for about 15-20 minutes or until the edges are brown.  Take them out, let them cool and serve with some vanilla ice cream!

Ingredients
1 Granny Smith apple
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Pie crust
Butter (optional, but it makes it extra tastey!)

Wonton Soup!!

 

Ok so I got this soup from a book I have at home. It turned out really well and my family loved it!
First I chopped up a glove of garlic and a teaspoon of cilantro.  I put 4 oz of ground pork, the cilantro and the garlic into a bowl and mixed it together.

I then took wonton wrappers and started putting a dolop of the mixture in the center of it.  I then wet the edges of the wrapper before I folded it over and sealed it.  When sealing it I made sure to press all the air out.

After I used all the mixture to fill the wontons I started on the broth

In a large pot I put a tablespoon of canola oil and 8 oz mushrooms. I let the mushrooms simmer until they became soft and then I added the shredded cabbage.  I let it simmer for a couple more minutes while stirring.  I then added the three 14 oz cans of chicken broth and brought it to a boil.  I then put in the salt and pepper and then added the wontons. I let the wontons cook for about and hour just to be safe.  When I poured the soup into the bowls I sprinkled some chopped green onions on top for decoration.

Ingrdients

WONTONS

1 small clove garlic

1 teaspoon chopped cilantro

4 ounces ground pork

12 3-inch square wonton wrappers

SOUP

8 ounces mushrooms

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 cup shredded Chinese or Napa cabbage

3 (14-once) cans chicken broth

salt and pepper

2 green onions

Smore Cookies!

These are pretty easy to make.  Roll 1 inch balls of chocolate cookie dough and flatten it down wwith your hand.  Add a piece of hersheys chocolate  and mini marshmallows. After removing them from the oven add pieces of graham cracker. Yum :)

Cupcakes!!!

Sohonestly this wasn't my favorite recipe, so I'm not going to post it. I just thought they looked super cute! I made them for my teammates birthday :)