Back for Breakfast! (Part 2)

Alright, as promised, here is part two of the breakfast bonanza :)

So as I said, it is possible to cook a full breakfast in under 15 minutes.  So get your supplies and start the timer!  To get things rolling, you'll need three pans.  (Or two pans and a toaster).  If you don't have a toaster and can get a cast iron flat pan, that will work just as well.  Three pans (one flat pan, one deeper cast iron skillet, one regular skillet) three burners, all set to #4 (on my electric stove. Cooking times, temperatures and results may vary :P ).  For your hash browns, put a tab of butter in your hash brown pan (the deeper cast iron) and let it melt out.  While that's melting, go on and cut up your bacon into chunks and drop that in the regular skillet.  Next go ahead and put your bread on the flat skillet (or in the toaster...)  Finally drop your hashbrowns from the freezer bag into the skillet with the butter.  I tend to use about a handful and then move them around until all the butter has been soaked up.  Then just spread them out in a fairly even layer.

With all that going, let it do its thing but get your eggs ready.  A quick trick for scrambling eggs is crack them into a twist locking lid container, one of the smaller ones and shake them up.  Keep an eye on your toast as you will need to flip it over within a couple of minutes.  Unless of course you are one of those folks who loves burnt toast.  Keep an eye on your hashbrowns as they will need to be flipped as well.

Alright, once your bacon is getting slightly crispy and cooked, push it to one side of the pan and tilt it the other way.  Then take a paper towel and soak up the grease. Next spread out your bacon in the pan and dump in the eggs.  Once it's all cooked up, viola, you've got breakfast!

Give it a try, it's not that hard to have a great breakfast and get your day rolling :)

Looking to have a non-recipe post coming up next time, going to be talking about those ingredients that every kitchen should have in stock.

As always, May God Bless Your Kitchen!

Back for Breakfast! (Part 1)

Wow, sorry for the hiatus there folks.  Been busy and dealing with life, the universe, and everything else.  Well I am going to knock out two posts here that I had been planning on doing.  First off the value of a good cast iron pan.  Cast iron is easy to take care of, easy to clean, and cooks like a champ.  If you start cooking with cast iron make sure you season your cookware before you use it.  I've heard of people using lard, canola oil, but I prefer EVOO.  I've used seasoned EVOO as well and it seems to work just fine.  Probably one of my favorite things about cast iron and one of the pans I have in particular is that you can turn any stove into a grill.  It's just like a flat grill, but as this pan has a bottom with ridges on it it seems to grill a little better than a smooth pan.  But it has it's other uses too.  Here's a short example:


Pan fried pork cutlets.  I took a bottle of sweet and hot mustard and coated 4 pork cutlets in it, letting that sit in the fridge for a couple of hours.  When I was ready to cook I got everything set up:  pork cutlets, the breading (which I keep a jar of stale bread pulverized in a food chopper with spices handy in the freezer just for this kind of thing), and of course, the all mighty cast iron skillet.  Oh, almost forgot to mention the oil.  Put a small amount of oil in the pan and get it heating up, but not so hot that it's boiling.  I used the #4 setting on my stove.  Then it's simple.  Pork cutlet dipped into breading, flipped, sides covered, then set into pan.  Cooked a little more than 5 minutes per side and viola.  Done!

Set-up and ready to go!

Cooking away...  be mindful that you will have to add more oil on occasion and that the breading does like to fall off as it's not a "proper" breading.  But hey, it works!

Okay, so now that I've covered that aspect of cast iron, let us move on to the other side of this post.  Helloooooo full breakfast in 15 minutes!  (Yes, enough time to make and start drinking that cup of coffee too!)  I'm talking bacon, eggs, hashbrowns and toast here, good full breakfast that will get you going for the day ahead.  But before you go thinking you can do this tomorrow, there is some prep work that needs to be done the day (or whenever) before...

The part of this that takes the longest to prep is the hashbrowns.  I use small red potatoes for my hashbrowns.  I'll get a 5# bag of them and that will last at least a month of breakfasts.  Preheat your oven to 350* and get out a casserole dish.  Wash as many potatoes as will fit in the dish.

Taters, check.

Alright, now before you put the lid on those potatoes, take a knife (or a fork, or a grapefruit spoon would work too I suppose) and stab each potato.  Don't go overboard, this isn't the Carolina Potato Massacre, but if you don't put a "vent" into each potato that is what you'll end up with.  (Mini Physics lesson here.  Heating up a potato with no vent hole is like filling up a balloon.  The gasses in the potato will continue to expand until Blammo!  Exploded potato all over the inside of your oven.  If you like cleaning up that kind of mess, go ahead and don't prick your potatoes.  If you want hashbrowns with breakfast, then DO prick those potatoes) Ok, back on topic here.  Cook those potatoes for about 90 minutes then pull them out.  Let the dish and potatoes cool down to room temperature and then grab a cheese grater and use the biggest holes on the grater to shred your potatoes. (NOTE!!!  I've done this twice now and have found that slower grating renders nicer shredded potatoes.  Don't rush the process, learn to enjoy time in the kitchen.  Turn up the radio or turn on the television if you get too bored)  I advise doing this over a large bowl as opposed to a cutting board or a plate. The reason for that is once they are all grated you can take an opportunity and season your hashbrowns.  I used some chipotle spices and that added a nice flavor.  If you choose to do this, add some spices, mix the potatoes up then add some more.  Don't add it all at once.

Okay for the next step, grab a cookie sheet that will fit into your freezer.  (Pizza pan works too)  You will also need some wax paper or parchment paper.  Now, make sure there is ROOM in the freezer to fit the cookie sheet.  Put the wax/parchment paper onto the cookie sheet and sprinkle out the potatoes.  Don't layer them too thick, a thin layer I have found freezes better.  Now while the first tray is freezing, just set the bowl into your fridge.  When a tray is done freezing, take the frozen hash browns off and store them in a gallon sized freezer bag.  When you put them into the bag, don't be afraid to crush them a little, it'll make them easier to grab out on an early morning.

Like I said, thin layer.  This process takes a number of freezer trips to do all the hash browns.

Now I am a big believer in giving credit where credit is due, so here's the credit for the hashbrown prep.  I want to thank the Laura over at Heavenly Homemakers for putting up her recipe to give me a basis to go on.  (  http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/make-your-own-frozen-hashbrowns )

Okay well that's the prep work for an awesome breakfast.  I realize this post is getting a little long winded so I'm going to cut this into two parts.  Be on the look out for Part 2 coming very soon!  (Probably the next few days actually!)

As always, May God Bless Your Kitchen!