Easy Breakfast Casserole

I have read different recipes from every corner of the Internet claiming to offer an easy, healthy breakfast option to the consumer.  Most of those, after careful inspection, are lackluster in flavor, substance, or are not really as easy as they claim to be.  When it comes to making breakfast, the easier the better, for me.  I don't want a 900 step recipe to follow in the morning when I shouldn't even be trusted to find my own shoes. 

Luckily for our family, I found a recipe for an easy breakfast casserole years ago.  Over time, we have adapted it to fit our new tastes and diet.  Honestly, other than pouring a bowl of cereal, I don't know that you could cook a recipe that was more simple than this in the morning.  This meal also fills you up enough to be a good substitute for dinner.  Who doesn't love breakfast foods for dinner every once in a while? 


Easy & Healthy Breakfast Casserole
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 45 mins

6 eggs - we use the Aldi brand of Egg Beaters and they are awesome. 
1 lb of turkey sausage, crumbled
1 package of low calorie crescent rolls
8 oz low calorie Colby Jack cheese

Preheat your over to 350 degrees. 

Brown the sausage.  Sometimes we buy the patties and crumble them up and sometimes we buy in bulk.  The calorie count is pretty similar, so I just work with what we have on hand.  Drain the fat from the sausage.  This is an important step or else you end up with grease elsewhere in your dish and that is less than ideal.

Press the crescent rolls into the bottom of a well-greased 13 x 9 pan.  I am emphasizing well-greased for a reason.  If you decide to skip that step, you will run the risk of not being able to eat any of the crust that forms on this meal because it will be horribly stuck to the pan.  Don't ask how I know. 

Once you have the crescent rolls pressed out into a flat layer in the bottom of your pan, pour the drained sausage crumbles over the layer of crescent rolls. 

Pour the beaten eggs over the sausage evenly and top with the shredded cheese. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 mins until the crescent roll layer is browned and crispy on the edges, the cheese is melty and the eggs are set. 

Enjoy!

Meal Planning 8/20- 8/25

The week back from vacation is always tough.  You have just spent several days not worrying about working or bills or what is for dinner.  And now you are back... sigh.  I guess that now is as good of a time as ever to start posting meal plans, grocery lists, and recipes again for weekly meals since I have been slacking on those. 

As a reminder, I always make a list of the meals that I want to have during the week but I never assign a specific day to a specific meal because that will ultimately go awry somewhere during the week and then my whole attitude towards meal planning will be thrown off. 

I write down the meals that I would like to have/make for the week like this: 

Then I take a separate sheet of paper and make a list of all of the ingredients that I will need to make any of these meals to see if I have any of the ingredients that are needed ahead of time so I don't repurchase items that we already have in stock.  As I find that item in my pantry or freezer I cross it off the list like this: 

 

 

Then, lastly, from that list I take all of the remaining items and write them down with an idea of where I am going to buy that item next to it like this:

 

                                              

 

Normally I try to buy the bulk of our items at Aldi because they are significantly less expensive especially when it comes to produce and usually dairy items.  If I have to go to Walmart, that is usually a last ditch trip where I have to buy name-brand items or something that doesn't exist at Aldi. 

 

As you can see, this week our meal plan is as follows:

• Baked Tacos
• Stuffed Shells and garlic bread
• Salsa Chicken and Spanish Rice
• Grilled Chicken/Steak and Twice Baked Potatoes or Baked Potato Casserole
• Spaghetti

What's on your menu for this week?  

Dieting sucks

Being on a diet sucks.  A lot.  And the worst part is, I am not even on a diet yet. 

Back when I was pregnant with Silas, Corry went to the doctor for the first time since he was a newborn, I think.  The doctor warned him about his blood pressure (which he knew was previously high) and his weight.  He made a resolution to eat better and much fewer calories and lost 70ish lbs in just a few months.  During that time, I also starting eating better and cutting out all the junk food, sodas, etc.  I lost about 30 lbs in the same amount of time.  And then I was 9 months pregnant and feeling like Godzilla and I was ridiculously un-excited about eating better, so we started eating horribly again. 

A few months ago, we decided that we wanted to get back on the eating plan from before and just never have.  My job annually hosts a "biggest loser" competition to inspire folks to get in shape, eat better and exercise.  I have never participated in said competition.  I don't want to sign up this year but I did tell my husband that I want to get back on the eating plan during the time that my job is hosting this event.  This should give us enough time to be on the plan so that once the competition is over, we should be able to easily maintain and further increase the weight loss that will have occurred up until that point. 

One of the most difficult parts of being on a restricted eating plan is not calling it a diet.  You will notice that even if you say the word diet, you feel immediately angry.  I try to say restricted eating plan, or something like that.  I try to not tell many people when I start something like this because I don't want to constantly talk about it when they ask how it is going, etc.  I think it's that I am also always afraid of failing and having to be accountable to someone.  I guess this is completely the opposite of that by spreading this news on my blog? 

Once the first week is over generally I feel better.  The first week is spent either starving or detoxing from all of the junk that I have been consuming recently.  We are strictly just lowering calories.  This was the advice of the doctor.  I am still trying to eat lots of fruits and vegetables and not just eat like one item totally 1,100 calories for the day.  I also am trying to eat more olives, pickles, and 'sour' type items because I have developed quite the sweet tooth over the past few weeks and am going to try to kick that habit.  Eating olives and pickles has helped me with that in the past. 

Tomorrows menu:

Breakfast
1 hard boiled egg
1 Torta bread (we found these at Costco)
2 cups coffee w/ 1/4 cup skim milk and 1 tbsp coffee creamer
Calories: 398

Snack
1 plum
1 100 calorie yogurt
Calories: 150

Lunch
4 ozs turkey breast
1 oz Colby jack cheese
1 oz pita chips
2 pickles
1 hard boiled egg
Calories: 420

Snack
1 hard boiled egg
6 olives
Calories: 130

Dinner - undecided

Total without dinner: 1098

My goal at this point is to get right at or under 1500 for the day.  This is a bit less than when I was on this plan before and I was able to lose some weight.  I have a tendency to snack at work because I feel like I am hungry.  I am trying to combat this in two ways.  I am bringing 2-3L of unsweetened tea to drink during the day to remind me to drink liquids since I could just be thirsty.  And two, by eating protein (Greek yogurt, eggs, etc.) any time that I eat. 

I am also going to follow my job's plan and weigh once a week.  I am, of course, not going to reveal the number but I do plan on reporting back how much weight I have lost.  Wish me luck!

-Sara

Backyard Garden: Building Raised Beds

So the day is finally here ... drum roll please...

Raised bed building day!! 

My mother definitely deserves much more credit than she gets for helping me bring to life all my crazy ideas.  Mid-afternoon today we left the brats with my father and sister and took off to Lowe's.  With Ana White's blog post in mind about how to cheaply and quickly make a raised bed, we took off towards the cedar fence pickets. 

We found them just as she mentioned for $1.59 a piece which was nice since we knew that we needed 24 of them for the amount of beds that we were looking for.  Without thinking about the exact dimensions of the beds we spoke about wanting to make four raised beds to handle all of the plants that we wanted to experiment with this year.  We found the 1'' and 2'' screws as well and we were on the way. 

Ripping the fence pickets down to 1x2's was a scary time with a table saw.  Too many stories about people with now missing limbs have made me weary of that tool.  I wish that we would have figured out before ripping them that we were going to greatly differ from the plan. 

Her idea of how to make raised beds is a good idea.  Her subsequent blog post and description leave something to be desired.  And her photo of how to put the boards together is sub par at best.  I am going to show an equally lacking photo but I am not expecting anyone to follow my directions to reconstruct these beds. 

We put almost the entire bed together before we realized that her idea works in theory but in practice it probably was best if built another way.  Corry showed up and saved the day.  We ended up removing the braces that she calls for on the outside of the boards and went a new direction using scrap wood that was originally in 2x4 form and ripped it down to 2x2x11. 

This is the basics of how our beds look right now. 

All sides are two fence pickets stacked on top of one another and screwed in with 2'' screws.  It's certainly not the most pretty looking thing but it will definitely be more than functional.  These are the dimensions on the first one.  The two others will be half as wide at 1x6x17.5 which were the original dimensions from Ana's blog post.  I am experimenting with both and will decide which one I like better. 

I haven't been this excited about a household project in awhile.  I don't know what will succeed and what will fail miserably, but I am definitely psyched to try it out.  We are currently growing onions, two different kinds of tomatoes, jalapenos, oregano and parsley in our kitchen window that were already potted.  The oregano so far is the only thing that is just looking sad.  The tomatoes, onions and parsley have taken off and are growing insanely fast.  We also got a seed starter container today so I can start my seeds that we bought a few weeks ago - I am super excited about that part for some reason.  The only item left is a second blueberry bush since we need the cross pollination from two different types of blueberries. 

We are currently building the beds at mom's house since the table saw is there, but my next post will include pictures of the installation of the beds and later the planting. 

-Sara

Backyard Gardening: The Plan

For years I have wanted to have a garden.  Like a real garden that would actually grow and put off fruits and vegetables. I would have even settled for plants that didn't bear any food.  However, it is a well-known fact that in the past I have had a brown thumb.  There are even arguments that could be made to say that I had a black thumb.  I have been HORRIBLE at growing both indoor and outdoor plants.  I have only kept one plant alive in my entire life, not including the plants that we have in our front yard right now that my mom takes care of during the day.

I am, historically, a difficult plant owner.  I either forget to water them, or I don't pay attention to which plants need sun, which plants need shade, etc.  I can blame some of it on the Texas climate, because for months during the summer the ground in Texas feels like it's on the face of the Sun, but that's only a little piece of it.  Other people can keep plants and gardens alive in Texas.  I should be able to do this. 

I have decided to take a stand this year.  No more procrastinating.  This is going to be the year.  I am going to build raised beds in my backyard and plant a garden.  I have decided that I am going to plant a little bit of a lot of different items that way we can see what is successful in the area that we are in and what we would potentially like to do next year.  This is a learning garden for all of us.

We don't have an ideal set up in our backyard for a garden because about 4-5 feet out from our front porch starts this fairly steep slope all the way down to our fence at the end of our property line.  I read on some one's website re: raised beds that, ideally, you would want the long sides of your beds to face north and south, which would mean that we would need to build the beds on the slope.  I am not sure of the logistics of this plan, but since I am doing the actual marking out of the beds tomorrow and hopefully the building this weekend, I will let you know when I know. 

My mother and I were running some errands today with the kids and ended up at Lowe's in the garden section.  I went ahead and bought some plants that I would like to plant that can grow in pots indoors until the beds are built and the temperatures have leveled out more.  I bought jalapenos, two different varieties of tomatoes, oregano, flat leaf parsley, onion bulbs and a small blueberry bush.  I need to do some further research because there is a sign on the blueberry bush that says that it requires a pollinator and I have NO idea what that means.

Eventually, I would like to have the following items in my garden:

• at least one variety of lettuce (Lowe's had a salad mix which I thought looked neat)  
• onions
• potatoes
• tomatoes
• cucumber
• zucchini
• oregano
• parsley
• mint
• blueberries
• jalapenos
• bell peppers
• carrots

I have that one bush of blueberries that will be external to the beds but everything else will go within the beds.  I am thinking that I would like to build two raised beds.  Anything else and I think that it would require more work than I would be in for at this time. 

Next up: building the raised beds