Brussel Sprouts With Bacon

My family has a very limited list of veggies they like to eat.  I'm thankful they eat salad; however, alternating that with corn and peas becomes very boring, very quickly.  That, and I hate serving so many starches!  Mind you, they do eat some raw veggies -- carrots, cauliflower and celery -- as long as they can have some ranch dip.  Just seems strange to me to serve raw veggies as a side dish with dinner, so I've been on a hunt to find other veggie side dishes or new ways to present veggies to my family.

 

Last week, we tried brussel sprouts!  I think maybe once in my life I've had a brussel sprout.  Probably the time my parents said, "You need to at least try something before you say you don't like it." Since that's how I grew up, I figured my kids should have the same experience. Hey! I didn't die!  Well, only my oldest daughter and I liked them.  The hubby would rather do without them, but he said they wouldn't be too bad with more bacon and onion.  Whatdoyouknow?!?  Everything (even brussel sprouts) taste better with bacon!  And the younger two thought they were "disgusting"!  Personally, I think they taste similar to cooked cabbage.  I happened to like cooked cabbage, so brusssel sprouts are okay in my book.  Kinda strange to think I might actually go to the store and buy brussel sprouts on purpose though!

 

Brussel Sprouts

Ingredients

• 3 slices uncooked bacon, chopped
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 shallot, chopped
• 1 1/2 pounds Brussels sprouts, trimmed, small spouts left whole, larger spouts halved
• Salt and pepper, to your taste
• 1 cup chicken broth

Directions

Brown bacon in a medium skillet over medium high heat. Remove bacon to a paper towel lined plate. Add extra-virgin olive oil to the pan, 1 turn. Add shallots to the pan and saute 1 to 2 minutes. Add Brussels spouts and coat in oil. Season with salt and pepper. Cook Brussels sprouts 2 to 3 minutes to begin to soften, then add broth. Bring broth to a bubble, cover and reduce heat to medium low. Cook 10 minutes, until tender. Transfer sprouts to a serving dish with a slotted spoon and top with cooked bacon bits.

Receipe from Food Network.  Photo from Bing.com.

Hearty Breakfast

First of all, I apologize for not posting recipes for such a long time.  I honestly hadn't realize it had been that long . . .

 

This week, I decided do something special for Valentine's Day.  The kids really enjoyed it, and it wasn't too difficult.  Here's a picture of our breakfast.

 

 

Heart-shaped Bacon

 

Instructions: Fold bacon into a heart shape.  Bake at 400 degrees for approximately 18 mintues.

 

 

Heart Pancakes

I found this recipe here.  I adapted it a little bit since I didn't have a squeeze bottle.

Instructions:  Make your favorite pancake batter and heat your griddle.  Seperate about 1/3 of the batter and add pink or red food coloring.  Place the colored batter in a squeeze bottle or in a resealable bag and clip off a small corner of the bag. (NOTE: Make sure there are no lumps in the batter.) Pour the non-colored batter onto the griddle to form a pancake as normal.  Fairly quickly "draw" a heart on the top of the poured pancake.  Flip carefully when ready. Serve and enjoy!

 

It was a little tricky to flip the pancake without smearing the heart design.  Next time I might try drawing the heart first and pouring the other batter on top.  My 5 year old was slightly confused.  He asked if I had put icing on the pancakes and then cooked it.  He kept trying to figure out how I made them.  I finally had to show him the bowls I mixed the batter in before he understood.  He was too cute.

This is another idea I found . . . if you follow this link, you'll find some pretty amazing breakfast ideas!

Cream Cheese Danish

In my quest for new breakfast ideas, I came across a recipe a cream cheese danish.  I made it.  Everybody liked it (especially my mother-in-law), and it was yummy.  Seemed like it needed a little tweeking to become even yummier, so I looked around for similar recipes.  I pinned another recipe to make Christmas morning since we were spending it with my inlaws.  Horror of all horrors, Pinterest wasn't working Christmas morning, so I had to make it from memory!  (Always a scary thing with my sketchy memory.)  We LOVED how it turned out.

Here's what I did (since I couldn't remember the recipe exactly) . . . I used one package of cream cheese (on purpose - two is too much) as well as cut the sugar back to 1/2 cup in the filling.  The first recipe I made had a cinnamon sugar topping, so I did that . . . Instead of brushing with the egg white, I melted 1/4 cup (or less) of butter and brushed it on top of the uncooked danish.  Then generously sprinkled with cinnamon sugar before baking.    I'll also add that I used Pillsbury's Crescent Sheets.  SO much easier than using the rolls and having to pinch all the seams together!  (Photo from Chocolate Therapy.)

Recipe and photo from The Adventures of Kitchen Girl although the plate in the picture is the same plate I have in my kitchen.

 

Ingredients:
2 cans ready to use refrigerated crescent rolls
2 - 8 ounce packages cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg white

Glaze:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:
Preheat oven to 350* degrees and grease a 13X9-inch baking pan. Lay a pack of crescent rolls in the pan and pinch the openings together. Beat the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and egg together until smooth. Spread the mixture over the crescent rolls evenly and then lay the second pack of crescent rolls on top of the cheese mixture and brush with egg white. Bake for 35-45 minutes until the top is golden brown. Top with glaze after cooling for 20 minutes.

Kitchen Notes:
I have made this danish using low fat cream cheese and splenda (sugar substitute) and it was delicious! Also, the amount of filling the original recipe calls for makes a VERY heavily filled danish. I have halved the filling using 1 package of cream cheese, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 whole egg, and a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract and it was still very good. If you use the half filling method, bake for closer to 30-35 minutes.