And now I’m back… from outer spaaaace… ok, so it has been WAY too long since I blogged. I want to be a better blogger again.. really, but I refuse to promise to blog at “X” intervals because well, I’d be a big liar head and really, I don’t want to be that way.
We’ve been trying to eat healthier (and mostly homemade) here at our house. I am working on losing more weight and just getting back to better over all health. I’ve lost quite a bit of weight over the past 18 months and am feeling great.
One of the things I completely and horribly stink at is eating breakfast… the MOST important meal of the day. It gets your metabolism going and provides fuel for your body for the day.
I skip breakfast way too often because mainly I am lazy not a morning person and don’t want to cook breakfast and don’t generally keep cold cereal (aka milk logged cardboard) in our house.. I do have some Raisin Bran for Brent.. .it’s his fave, but I only like it once in a while. I also don’t want to do dishes in the morning AND evening.. and before you say I can let the dishes wait until evening… hahahaha… excuses, excuses….
Here is a great WebMD article on why we shouldn’t skip breakfast:
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/most-important-meal… and another from The Kitchn:
http://www.thekitchn.com/why-breakfast-is-the-most-impo-1-113418
“Studies have shown that weight loss can be more difficult and weight gain more prevalent in folks who opt out on the morning meal. Those who skip breakfast have a tendency to consume more food than usual the next chance they get to grab a bite to eat and also have a higher tendency to snack on high-calorie foods to keep hunger at bay until then.”
And I was pretty much ordered by my doctor recently to start eating breakfast. I don’t take orders well, but I like losing weight and I like eating yummy foods. A bad combination of likes, but….
SO ANYWAY
I was perusing Facebook last night, since my brain was firing at warp speed and I couldn’t sleep… and saw a yummy looking picture of these delightful little breakfast “muffins”.
This is not my photo, I stole it from Facebook (because it is pretty):
At 1:00 am they were screaming, “MAKE ME!!!”
And at 1:00 am I was screaming, “GET IN MAH TUMMY"!!”
I am sure they are nothing “NEW”… but I hadn’t made them before so they were “new to me”… and this girl has made a goal to try
ONE NEW RECIPE PER WEEK
FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR!
YUM.
So this morning I got up and made breakfast. I made 12 of these little darlings, at two and put the rest in the freezer to be individually blasted frozen. (I will package them up in ziplocks once they are frozen solid.
I will not bore you with any “how to make these” photos… mostly because my hands were messy and I left my phone somewhere in the family room. Haha :)
So, I didn’t have shredded hashbrowns on hand and didn’t want to shred real spuds, so I raided the freezer and used tater tots instead…. They worked out perfectly… just thaw and smash.. use your hands.. works great! I also forgot the melted butter, but there is enough oil in the tater tots…..
This recipe makes exactly 12 breakfast muffins. Go lightly when adding the egg mixture to make sure you fill all your potato cups. I ate two for breakfast this am and popped the rest on a tray in the freezer. I will put them in a gallon size Ziplock so we (meaning Brent) can grab them on the way to work or I can reheat one in the morning for breakfast.
Breakfast “Muffins”
{recipe snagged from somewhere on Facebook and adapted by Erin Grotegut}
Preheat oven to 400* F
The Good Stuffs:
2 Cups of Hashbrowns, thawed (or TaterTots, thawed and smashed up)
3 T Butter, melted (real butter only)
1/4 C finely diced white or yellow onion
1/8 tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp fresh ground black pepper
16 oz (1 lb) your favorite ground sausage (pork, turkey, chicken, tofu, whatevah)
6 large eggs, beaten
3/4 C Colby Jack cheese, finely shredded
1/4 C Red Bell Pepper, finely chopped
Fresh chives or green onions (optional – but they do make the muffins prettier)
The How To:
1) Combine potatoes, butter, onion, salt and pepper in a bowl. Mix it, mix it goooooood.2) Press potato mixture into a regular size muffin/cupcake tin. Press the bottom firmly and up the sides of the tin. Make sure there are no holes in the shells. If the egg leaks through they are more stubborn coming out of the tin.
3) Bake potato shells/cups for about 12 mins… (I decided next time I will bake mine a bit longer, maybe 15 mins to get a crisper bottom.)
4) While the potato shells/cups are baking brown up your sausage and drain it.
5) Whisk together your eggs, cheese, and bell peppers. Mix in any other ingredients as desired at this point, too. I lightly salted and peppered my egg mixture, too.
6) Place about 1-2 teaspoons of sausage crumble in each potato cup.
7) Pour egg mixture over the sausage.
8) Bake for 15 minutes-ish or until the eggs are firm and set.
A Note on “Healthy”:
This isn’t Paleo, or “Clean”, or Low Fat, Low Carb, or what have you… but it is homemade and relatively healthy. ANNNNNDDD, (as with ANYTHING you make homemade) you CAN alter it to fit your dietary lifestyle.
* You can omit the butter (as I did, since I forgot, and it will still be yummy).
* You can use eggs from your farm or friend’s free range chickens.
* You can use ANY kind of cheese, homemade or organic, or from your pet goat.
* You can shred your own hashbrowns (which I should have done).
I don’t have any clue on WW points or calorie content (but I could figure it out), or whatever… What I do know is that per each one of these cups has approximately: 1/3 C shredded potato and onion, 1 tsp sausage, abt 1 tsp red pepper, 1/2 egg, and maybe 2 tsps of cheese.
Not too bad. I ate two breakfast muffins and was full. I guarantee if I had gone to breakfast somewhere I would have consumed many more calories and waaaay more potatoes AND PANCAKES (plus syrup) than eating at home.. and I didn’t eat milk soaked cereal… which is a good thing.
However you decide to make them… ENJOY!!!
Oh, and PS. My little town lit up our star in Broncos colors. LOVE IT! Although in years past I have not been a sports fan of any kind (excluding the Olympics), it is actually kind of fun being somewhere with a professional football team.
GO BRONCOS!!
