The Bacon's Breakfast Battle

So how does Mr. Bacon and I spend a day off together with only one kid at home?  Baking in the kitchen of course!  Well not every day but we do enjoy cooking with each other.  Lately we've been discussing breakfast ideas for our busy mornings. We do stock our freezer with plenty of homemade pancakes and waffles made from my home made mix.  But we were wanting something with more protein in it and eggs always make a good breakfast.  We were looking to put egg bake into a easy, single serve breakfast.  So we started brainstorming some ideas and we came up with egg bake muffins.

Out came the ingredients!

Egg Bake muffins:
 Eggs
 bacon
 breakfast sausage
 sauteed mushrooms
 cheese
 hash browns
 bread
 salt & pepper
 milk

Lots of great fillings for our egg bake.  That was the easy part!  How to assemble them was where Mr. Bacon and I had differences.  His idea was to layer the ingredients in the muffin pan and then add the scrambled egg over the top. Not bad but I thought it might be better mixing all ingredients in a bowl and pouring them in the pan.  Who's idea was better? We'll find out. We figured we'd  try out different types of egg bake in each muffin cup.  So we got busy mixing.

I mixed up all my ingredients in my bowl, and Mr. Bacon got busy layering.  Each has one egg mixed with milk and seasonings, hash browns, mushrooms, bacon, sausage, and cheese.  Make sure before you put anything into your muffin pan, you grease it well first.

Here they are side by side. They don't look much different right now.

After seeing them side by side, Mr. Bacon did admit he thought mine might turn out better.  So we decided to mix up a few more of the mixed one's since Bacon Bit could eat three all by himself!   During my mixing, I was a bit distracted and I noticed I didn't add in the hash browns.  No problem, we decided it would still make a good experiment for us.  We filled the two middle cups full and decided to only fill the other one 2/3's full to see if that made any difference.

Then there was one lonely cup left.   I decided it might be good to try one like the egg bake recipe I have. I mixed up one egg, a splash of milk, seasonings, bacon, sausage, and about 1./3 of a slice of bread diced up.  Mixed it all together and dumped it in.  Now they are all ready for the oven.

Since we were only trialing out our egg bake muffins we only made up a small 6 cup muffin pan. And to help save on electricity we popped them in our toaster oven to bake them up.

  Bacon Bit thought it was just as fun to watch them get big as Mr. Bacon!  It took them about 25 minutes at 350* to turn golden brown and get fluffy.  Your oven may be a bit different, especially since these were cooked in a toaster oven, so watch them starting around 20 minutes.

They look pretty good!   I found the one's with the hash browns and the bread in them got fluffier than the one's without.

I have to say we were surprised they all popped out of the pan just fine with no sticking. Mr. Bacon was a bit worried that when he layered the hash browns on the bottom of his muffin pan they might stick.

 Here is the 2/3's full muffin with no hash browns in it.  This one we decided to put in the freezer to see how it would taste re-heated.  I'll let you know how that turned out in a a bit.
Wonder how do they look from the inside? Delicious!

Like any good food critiques, we sat down with half a muffin of each to taste test them.  Yes we have quite hot dates huh?!   The verdict is in and the mixed egg muffin tasted the best.  The layered one was good, but you could taste each layer and the hash browns at the bottom seemed too mushy without being mixed together with all the other ingredients.  The muffin with no hash browns wasn't bad, it tasted more like an omelet.  But we both preferred the hash browns added in.  As for the one with the bread, it was just too much bread in it for our taste.

The best thing with these, is you can specialize them to everyone's liking.  All the kids except Bacon Bit think we are poising them when we add mushrooms to anything. So we can leave them out when we make their muffins.  I can't wait to remake these this weekend and let the kids design their own eggs. 

As for that frozen egg muffin, it re-heated perfect!  About a minute in the microwave and you have egg bake for a busy morning.  We waited to try it until Bacon Jr. was home and let him have a say in how it tasted too and he can't wait to have them on busy school mornings. And he's excited to help make them next time too!  And what did Bacon Bit think of them?

Well he ended up eating almost three of them, just like predicted!  I'd say they were successful!

Sometimes you just need some comfort

Ahhh...comfort food. Everyone has their favorite right? Mr. Bacon's is hot dogs, really I'm not sure how he can eat so many! One of mine is a childhood favorite. But I have to warn you, I think I'm the only person out there that eats it! Ok I can maybe think of two others, Grandma Bacon and Sis Bacon, none of the Bacon kids will try it (perhaps Bacon bit will enjoy it, I craved it enough while he was inside me baking!), neither will Mr. Bacon despite the fact it has hot dogs in it! This does make me a bit sad since I don't think this recipe will live on, which is why I'm posting it here, perhaps there is another crazy reader out there that will decide they like this enough to make it too!

Regardless, I still make it as a special treat for my self on occasion. And every time I do I remember back to when my mom would make it for us kids. I can still remember the beat up old fry pan (I'm pretty sure it didn't have anything to do with the many times one of us kids dropped it) she made it in. I'm sure Grandma Bacon made it because it's pretty easy and a cheap meal (thrifty lessons started early for me!) that would feed some hungry kids, besides how yummy we thought it was!

So I know I've gotten you wondering what it is. And I'll say this, even if you don't like my comfort food, keep reading because I'm sure you'll love the 'mommy treat' I have posted at the end!

So this recipe has no 'exact' amounts that I use, it's all measured by 'guess' you could say. I'll try my best to add what I think are approximate amounts to the measurements for you.

Noodles, eggs and hot dogs:
2 handful's of wide egg noodles (about 1-1.5 cups uncooked noodles)
2-3 hot dogs cut up
2-3 eggs, depending if you prefer more or less eggs, I prefer more!
a splash of milk- about 1 tbsp per egg
dash of salt & pepper
spoonful of butter- about 1 tbsp

Boil noodles according to package, drain and rinse. Place in skillet with cut up hot dogs and butter. Cook over med heat, stirring occasionally until bottom of noodles start to brown.

While that is in pan cooking, in bowl mix eggs, milk, salt & pepper well with fork (like making scrambled eggs). Once noodles start to brown on bottom, add eggs to pan. Stir until all egg is cooked well and no runny egg left.

Now for me I usually will leave this in the pan once the egg is cooked for a few more minutes to insure the noodles start to get a little crispy on the bottom. Place it on a plate and true to kid nature, I eat mine with ketchup! Ok, that's the one part of this meal my kids did decide they liked, they eat EVERYTHING with ketchup. Some days I think I should have bought stock in ketchup. By now some of you probably think I've gone completely crazy (no Mr. Bacon, you can not agree with them!). But there is something about eating a meal you had when you were a kid that takes you back to your childhood. So please share yours with me! I love to read your comments!

Now on to that yummy 'mommy treat' I mentioned above. Trust me, this will appeal a lot more to most of you. Ever have one of those moments when you just are craving chocolate? Open the pantry only to find you did actually eat that last hidden chocolate bar you thought was still there. Can't run to the store, what to do? What to do? I make these yummy treats. But SHHHHH... they're a secret! Because some treats we need to just keep for mommy!

Mommy secret:
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 heaping tablespoon peanut butter (about 1.5 tbsp normal size)

Place chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for about 1 minute or until chocolate chips are melted. Stir in Peanut butter.

Drop by tablespoons onto wax paper covered plate. Place plate in freezer for 5-10 minutes until chocolate cools.

Once cooled, peel off wax paper and ENJOY! They taste a lot like a peanut butter cup. One of my favorite things about these is they don't take long to make, which means I can cure my chocolate fix fast!

Keep these hidden in the freeze if you have any leftover. You don't want the kids finding them! Also they melt very fast in your hands (hey they're not M&M's!) and at room temp so they are best eaten straight from the freezer. I hope these help you out next time you are in need of some chocolate fast!