Organic low-fat breakfast sandwiches

I woke up one morning craving a breakfast sandwich and thought… why don’t I make my own healthy version, way better and cheaper than some McDonald’s greasy fattening sandwich! So I went to my local whole foods and bought me some whole wheat english muffin, organic free range eggs, turkey bacon, and organic cheese. This recipe is for 6 sandwiches, there are only 5 in the picture because I ate one and it was lovely!!! I thought it would be nice to write some inspirational quotes on top to give myself a little pep and a smile to start my day! Who knows, one little positive phrase could make your day so much better!

To get started, preheat your oven to 350°. Beat 4 egg whites and 2 whole eggs in a bowl with the spices listed. Don’t freak out about the color of the eggs, the cajun seasoning makes them look a little funky! Grease 6 spaces in the muffin pan with some Pam. Pour evenly in the muffin pan. Next take a baking pan and place the strips of turkey bacon side by side. Place in the oven for 6 minutes. After 6 minutes, turn the bacon, then place your eggs to bake for 9 minutes. I ended up putting the bacon on the top rack and putting the oven on high broil for a few minutes to get the bacon extra crispy!

While the eggs and bacon are baking, slice up your muffins.

Next up, get your grill pan or panini press and start to heat it. Assemble your sandwiches. Place as many as you can on the grill and press down on each side to total about 5 minutes, or until the muffins are golden brown and the cheese is starting to melt.

Once done, set aside and get out your wax paper.

Wrap up your sandwiches with the wax paper. And if you choose to label them or make inspirational sayings, add those now. Place in the freezer.

When you’re ready to eat them, place in the microwave for 2-2:30 minutes or until the middle is warm and the cheese is melted. Pair with some fresh fruit or yogurt and you’ve got yourself a great low fat breakfast! I won’t lie, it felt like I was eating some McDonald’s! Next time I will make some breakfast burritos! I used all organic products, but you can make whatever you prefer to use!

What you’ll need:
6 Organic whole wheat english muffins
4 egg whites and 2 whole eggs, Organic and free range
A few dashes of garlic, onion powder, cajun seasoning, and pepper
A package of Organic Turkey bacon
6 slices of Organic American Cheese
Pam

Breakfast Pizza

Breakfast pizza…or is it?? We call this tasty meal, Brinner (breakfast for dinner!) Creative, yes…super tasty…yes, easy to make?? YES! This pizza gives you that breakfast craving you find yourself longing for on occasion and doesn’t disappoint! I decided to stray a bit from your ordinary pizza and make individuals for myself and RJ. I thought the smaller dough‘s would look better with the egg on top giving each of us our own egg and not to mention all of the other amazing ingredients included. The best part about this meal is that you can have endless ideas and options to toppings. I went with protein packed and veggie loaded.

The dough is Boboli, ready made. All you have to do is place it in the oven, and it’s super fresh and tasty~ (I still haven’t knocked down homemade dough yet). The sauce however, is homemade and amazing! It’s super easy to make and doesn’t take much time! The best part about it is that you have extra for other quick weeknight meals. I used the Jimmy Dean‘s turkey sausage for a healthier option, and the bacon.. well that’s just impossible to get healthy, but it’s a staple for my pizzas!

I start with the sauce. Mince your garlic (your fingers will smell for the night, it’s a lot!! But just enough for the sauce) Saute with some olive oil, on medium high. After a minute or two add the paste and fry with the garlic on medium. Then pour in your tomato puree, wine, and water. Add your spices. Turn on low and simmer.

Turn your oven onto the highest setting, mine is 550 and that would be ideal. I would suggest using a pizza pan, they cook the best. Take your sauce and place some in the middle and gently spoon in a circular motion towards the outside, (as you can see the one on the left was much better) Next add your ricotta in clumps throughout, it will melt out during baking. If you like goat cheese, add this as well. Next add your veggies and meats. Lastly, sprinkle with shredded mozz or more goat cheese whichever one you desire (the left has no mozz, just the right).

Place in the oven for 5-10 minutes. Take out and crack an egg in a cup, then gently pour the egg on top of the pizza. As you can see, my pizza on the right was a sad casualty, but that will happen! It still tasted just as good! Place back in the oven for another five minutes, and I actually put my oven on high broil for these last five minutes to give the toppings a nice crisp to them. Careful not to cook too long, unless you don’t want your eggs a sunny-side up style.

That’s it!! You’re done, and how easy was that?! Did I mention how good it tastes? Something unique and different than any other pizza I have ever had! Definitely a first for me with the egg on top, and I loved it and I hope you do too!

What you’ll need:
For the sauce:
10 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbsp tomato paste
28 oz can of tomato puree
1/2 cup red wine
1 cup water
1/4 cup olive oil
fresh parsley, basil
dried Italian seasoning
pepper
For the pizza:
Boboli pizza dough (I used individual size)
homemade pasta sauce
whole milk ricotta cheese
goat cheese (or mozzarella if preferred)
Your favorite pizza toppings!
2 eggs

Hummingbird Cake

Sweet summertime! Everyone loves the sunny days, laying out by the pool, drinking an ice cold lemonade (maybe an adult beverage if you will). But when I think of summer, I think of all the amazing salads, seafood, BBQ, and fresh fruit! I usually don’t crave desserts, unless it’s frozen yogurt or ice cream, but this hummingbird cake is amazing and the perfect treat this summer! This coffee cake is filled with fresh pineapple, bananas, and coconut and topped with a sweet icing sprinkled with nuts.

Perfect for a lovely breakfast paired with a cup of coffee or a nice and light dinner dessert. The crispy outside meets the soft moist inside, and let me tell you, you’ll be in heaven! Not to mention, it’s super easy to make!! So let’s get started.

Preheat your oven to 350°. Grease your bunt pan with butter, then pour flour over the greased parts. Tip the pan over and pat to remove excess flour. Take a small bowl and combine the flours, baking powder and soda, cinnamon and salt with a whisk. Set aside.

In an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar on med-high until soft and fluffy about 2 minutes. Mix in the eggs one at a time until well incorporated. Blend in vanilla and coconut extract (if available). Beat in the yogurt. Take a rubber spatula and evenly mix together from the sides of the bowl.

On low speed, take your dry ingredients and place half in the mixer. Then take your mashed bananas and the other half of dry ingredients and mix well until just incorporated.  Take your rubber spatula and add your coconut and pineapple, do not mix, but fold gently.

Pour your mixture into the bunt pan and evenly spread. Place in the oven for 50-55 minutes, turning the pan halfway through baking. Once it’s ready take a toothpick and stick in the center of the pan, if it comes out clean then it’s ready!

Let cool 20-30 minutes, then turn over on a wire rack and gently take a knife and slide out onto the wire rack. Allow to cool completely before pouring the glaze on the cake.

To make the glaze, whisk together all of the ingredients in a small bowl until smooth. If it’s too thin, add more confectioners sugar, if too thick add another tsp of milk. Drizzle the glaze over the top of the cake with a large spoon. Sprinkle with the chopped nuts and coconut.

Slice, serve, impress.

What you’ll need:
For the cake:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. salt
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. coconut extract (if available)
1 cup low-fat plain greek yogurt
2 mashed bananas
2/3 cup shredded coconut
1 cup finely chopped pineapple

For the glaze icing:
2 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 tbsp. milk
½ tsp. vanilla extract
¾ cup confectioners’ sugar ( maybe more if needed see recipe)

For the topping:
shredded coconut
chopped walnuts & pecans
enough to cover the amount you would like!! I used about 1/3 cup each

I derived this recipe from none other than my fav. food blog annies-eats.com

Goetta & Cheese Croissants

For all of you who don’t live around the Cincinnati area, you are missing out on a LOT of good food! One tasty item that I am hooked on is called goetta. It’s served mostly for breakfast and it is a mix of some meats with oats and spices. You fry it up on the skillet (just use PAM) and cook it until crispy! It is the best thing since sliced bread! It may not be the healthiest thing for you, but it’s worth it every once in a while!

RJ & I came back to our home in FL after spending Christmas in Cincinnati and brought back a couple goetta packages and some La Rosa’s spaghetti sauce (another one of my favorites in Cincinnati) so I was super excited to be able to make it here in FL. One morning RJ & I were craving some goetta. We were out of eggs and didn’t have pancakes, so I was trying to think about what to make other than just goetta. I found a package of croissants and had some shredded cheese. I thought that it would make a perfect match!!

This recipe is super easy! Preheat the oven to package directions on the croissant rolls, I used Pillsbury. Then cut up the goetta into slices, spray the skillet with PAM, and cook them on the skillet on medium high heat. Cook until crispy on the outside and browned.  Once cooked, place on a plate over a paper towel.

Take a baking sheet and unroll the croissants onto the sheet. Take your shredded cheese and try to evenly sprinkle the cheese on the rolls. Then take the goetta and place that on top of the cheese. Roll each up where the pointy side would be last and on the outside. Bake according to package directions, or until golden brown.

What you’ll need:

1 package of goetta (I like the spicy version)
1 package of croissant rolls
shredded cheddar cheese
PAM

And that’s it!!! How easy is that?? I hope you get a chance to try this (maybe on a splurging day)

Happy Breakfast everyone

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Ohh how I love the Fall!! It’s an excuse to make anything and everything pumpkin. There is nothing better than the smell of Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Cloves. Takes me back to many Thanksgiving and Christmas’s, and like I’ve said before, nostalgia is so tasty.

I cannot take credit for these amazing breakfast treats. This recipe was found on one of my favorite food blogs: annies-eats.net. Anything with pumpkin and cream cheese in one sentence is my kind of food!!  To top it off, the top of these have a slight crunch to them from the cinnamon sugar topping, it makes the perfect combination with the soft cream cheese filling.

Starbucks has nothing on these!! I have to say this is the best baking treat I have made yet, and my fiance agrees, eating 3 in one sitting saying over and over again how good they are, I’ll take that compliment

Lucky for me, I had just enough of the cream cheese filling leftover from a previous baking project when I made the Halloween cupcakes, the frosting I used is the same for the filling in these muffins! So FYI, always save your extra icing in the freezer, it will come in handy! If you are making the icing from scratch, you want to mix the cream cheese and confectioner’s sugar until well blended. Then, transfer the mixture to a piece of plastic wrap, roll into a log about 1-1 1/2 inches in diameter. Then take a piece of foil and wrap it around, transfer to the freezer for 2 hours or until it’s partly firm.

Time for the muffins! Preheat your oven to 350°. Line your muffin pans with paper liners, this recipe will make about 24 muffins. In a large bowl, mix the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, pumpkin pie spice, salt, and baking soda. Whisk and blend well. With an electric mixer, combine the eggs, sugar, pumpkin puree, and oil. You want to mix on medium-low speed until well blended. Next turn the speed down to low and slowly add the dry ingredients until all is mixed and blended together. You do not want to over-mix this.

Next make the topping. If you do not have a pastry cutter, it is VERY important that you keep the butter cold, do not take it out of the fridge until you are ready to make this topping. In a cold bowl, mix the sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Next take your cold butter and cut into small pieces. Do this as quick as you can without handling it too much because the heat from your hands will melt the butter. Use two forks, or if you’re lucky your pastry cutter, and mix until crumbly. After this is done, place the bowl into the refrigerator until you are ready to use again.

Time to assemble!! Place about 1-2 tbsp of the batter into the paper liners. Next take your cream cheese log and cut 24 slices as equal in size as you can. Place them on top of the batter. Then take the remaining batter and cover the cream cheese filling evenly to fill the paper liners. You may have some batter left, but that’s ok, you don’t want to over-fill the muffin cups. Lastly take your topping mixture out of the refrigerator and lightly sprinkle the muffins with the crumbles.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until an inserted toothpick comes out dry. Transfer to a wire rack and cool. ENJOY!! Starbucks will never taste the same, I promise you!!

What you will need:
Yields: 24 muffins

For the filling:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup confectioners’ sugar

For the muffins:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. ground cloves
1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
4 large eggs
2 cups sugar
2 cups pumpkin puree
1¼ cups vegetable oil

For the topping:
½ cup sugar
5 tbsp. flour
1½ tsp. ground cinnamon
4 tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Breakfast Casserole

Sunday. One of my favorite days. For one, I put it in my head years ago that Sunday means lazy, & with this I also have told myself that Sundays also mean free-to-eat-what-I-want-day. We slept in, woke up hungry, and the first thing that came to our minds was some good ole’ fashion breakfast eatin’. I then had that “light-bulb” feeling in my head, Breakfast Casserole! 

This recipe is from my momma, it takes me back to those Thanksgiving & Christmas mornings when I was young and let me tell you, nostalgia is wonderful!

Here is all you will need for this tasty casserole! I actually only ended up using one Crescent roll package. 

First and foremost, pre-heat your oven to 350°

 Place your meat and veggies in the skillet on medium high, add your spices to taste then cook until the meat is brown and the veggies are soft. I forgot to add the mushrooms, don’t judge. I ended up realizing it mid-assembly so I sauteed some real quick and threw them on top of the meat mixture in the pan! Wheew, can’t forget those!! 

Beat your eggs into a bowl, or in my case my trusty Pyrex measuring cup! I didn’t have an exact measurement for the milk, but I like to do the same as I do for scrambled eggs, until it is a light yellow color.

Now it’s time for the Assembly! Easy Peasy kids.

First, you want to spray a 9×13 pan with PAM. Next press the crescent roll dough evenly across the pan. After that you want to evenly pour the Simply Potatoes over top. After that you add the meat and veggie mixture, then the eggs. Last, but certainly not least, you add the cheeeeeese.  Ohh gotta love the cheesy goodness of any meal, especially breakfast!

Place in the oven covered with aluminum foil for 50-60 minutes, then uncover the foil for the last 10-15, this will make the cheese somewhat crispy and brown.

Voila!!! Easy as that! The hardest part is waiting!

Take a look at that ooey gooey goodness!! Breakfast will never be the same. Everything amazing about Breakfast is all bundled up together into one amazing pan of deliciousness. Your mouth is watering, and you already know what you’re having for Breakfast tomorrow.

What you will need:

1 roll of your favorite breakfast Sausage

1/2 of a Yellow Onion, diced

1/2 of a Green Pepper, diced

1/2 package of Mushrooms, diced

Pinch of Crushed Red Pepper

Pinch of Garlic Powder

Pinch of Salt & Pepper to taste

PAM

1 Crescent Roll Dough Package

A Package of Simply Potatoes Shredded Hashbrowns (You will most likely find this in the dairy section)

6 eggs

Whole Milk

Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Aluminum Foil

Thank you for following my blog and I hope you continue Enjoy this for Breakfast, Brunch, or Brinner! I have had some leftovers and can tell you it tastes just as good!!

Please feel free to add some Red Hot to this, it gives it a good kick! 

This healthy passion may come with a side of high sodium and cholesterol, but it’s Sunday so who cares!!!!