Breakfast for Dinner

Since Ryan's been away this week for work, I tried to come up with a meal plan for just Owen and me that would save some time and money, and attempt to make dinners that I wouldn't normally make if he were here. For instance, Ryan is not a big fan of BFD (breakfast for dinner), but I kind of love it once in a while. Anyway, here are two that turned out particularly well.

Quiche
I have never made a quiche before. I think I was intimidated by them, assuming that they were very complicated. Quite the contrary, I found...at least the version I made. I found a recipe online and tweaked it for what I had on hand and liked. The recipe was for a bacon and cheese quiche and I ended up with a broccoli, ham, and cheese version instead. I happened to have a frozen pie crust leftover from last Thanksgiving or Christmas, so it worked out well.

Owen ate an entire slice of this! He actually loves ham and broccoli, so that's part of why I chose the ingredients I did. I served it with hash browns and fresh fruit. Very simple.

Here's how I did it...

Ingredients
3 oz. (approx.) deli ham (I used Hillshire Farms honey ham)
1 cup (approx.) frozen chopped broccoli
1/2 cup chopped onion
8 oz. shredded Italian blend cheese
9-in. deep dish frozen pie crust
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup half & half

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a medium bowl, mix ham, broccoli, onion, and cheese. Dump into unthawed pie crust. Mix eggs and half & half in a bowl. Pour egg mixture over cheese mixture in pie crust. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and bake for an additional 35 minutes, until top begins to turn brown.

Really simple to put together and pretty tasty! I've been enjoying the leftovers for breakfast, too.

And tonight, another BFD...

Pumpkin Pancakes
I found this recipe in a MOPS magazine last Fall and thought it sounded good, so when I considered making pancakes this week, I decided to forgo my usual Bisquick recipe and give this one a try. I am glad I did! It was a little more effort than I anticipated and it made a HUGE mess of my kitchen (pancakes always do, though), but they were really, really tasty!

I added chocolate chips to a few of them because I was worried that Owen might not like the pumpkin flavor and figured that adding chocolate could up the ante. But the melty chips ended up making such a mess that I abandoned that move after a couple batches. He ended up eating two pancakes total, one with chips and one without, and he didn't even seem to notice that they were in there anyway.

One thing to note is that this batter was way thicker than any pancake batter I'm used to, so I had to do some strategic flipping and smooshing with the spatula. (That's a technical term, by the way...smooshing.) And if you don't love pumpkin flavor, you probably won't care for these. It called for almost an entire can of pumpkin (which I also had leftover from the holidays). Oh, and it made a TON! 28 pancakes in all, so there were lots of leftovers. I like to freeze leftover pancakes anyway between small sheets of wax paper and have them for a quick and easy lunch in the future.

Here's how it went down...

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour (cake or all-purpose)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
6 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon
6 Tbsp melted butter
2 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree
2 eggs
2 egg whites

In a large bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Add to dry ingredients and blend. Let batter stand for five minutes before pouring the pancakes onto the griddle.

I served these with real maple syrup (which I recommend over regular pancake syrup) and chopped nectarine on top. It kind of felt like we ate dessert for dinner, but it was fun and delicious!

And while I'm on the topic of food...if I can remember to get a few pictures tomorrow, I'll try to share two new cookie recipes I tried this week for my dad's retirement. Both turned out really pretty and yummy. I'm batting four for four (is that even the correct use of that baseball term?) on my cooking/baking skills this week! Yay, me!