French Toast and breakfast for dinner

We love breakfast for dinner at our house. It's generally fast and easy. Paired with fruit and eggs, or even potatoes, it's perfect (and you can add that really unhealthy side meat, mmm my favorite)...

1/4 c. Flour
1 c. Milk
1 pinch Salt
3 Eggs
1/2 t. Ground cinnamon
1 t. Vanilla
1 T Sugar
12 slices bread

Whisk together flour and milk. Add salt, eggs, cinnamon, vanilla and sugar.

Heat your pan. Soak both sides of bread and cook until golden.

Chicken Nuggets, Tots, Fruit

Chicken strips
ranch dressing
Bread Crumbs (with Seasonings of choice)

I use the ranch as the glue for this recipe. Dip the chicken in the ranch and then coat with seasoned bread crumbs. I usually bake it at whatever temperature anything else needs baked (like the tots or fries or whatever). If it's the only thing I'm baking, I bake it at 375 for about 20 minutes or so. Usually I just take the biggest strip and cut into it to see if it's done.

Beef Taco Bake, Cornbread

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Chicken Parmesan, Garlic Bread, Parmesan Crusted Asparagus

9 Layer Dip

We regularly have appetizers for dinner, and this is one of my favorites.

We start with refried beans. We make them ourselves in the crock pot, but canned works fine too. Occasionally we'll add bacon and/or grilled chicken. Then we put cheese on top. I like mine baked, so at this point I will bake it until it's all warmed up and the cheese is nice and melted. Then we top it with tomatoes, sour cream, and sometimes guacamole.

Obviously it's not really 9 layers, but if you count the bacon and chicken by itself, we're at 7, and if you count the chips, we're at 8 layers. I don't know what else I'd put on it to make it 9 layers.

Mongolian Beef, Lo Mein, Fortune Cookies

Chicken kabobs and Saffron Rice

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Beef Stroganoff over Egg Noodles

THIS WEEK MAYBE?

Tortellini with Alfredo Sauce, Sauteed Zucchini, Garlic Bread

Pretty simple. I use Barilla Tortellini and alfredo with sun-dried tomatoes sauce. Garlic Bread is just french bread sliced up and spread on top with garlic butter. Then bake for a few minutes at 350 or so.

Zucchini...
slice up the zucchini (I actually made each slice into quarters). Saute in a pan with olive oil. Sprinkle garlic on about halfway through. At the end sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Pork Chops, Scalloped Potatoes, Caramelized Green Beans

My husband grilled the pork chops and just basted them with bbq sauce. The scalloped potatoes weren't terrific, so I'm not posting that recipe. I'm really here to post the green beans recipe.
Growing up, my mom made different vegetables for dinner sometimes. But my dad, he really only eats corn and succotash (lima beans and corn together). I never could eat peas (they seriously make my tongue itchy...guess I'm a little sensitive??) and green beans from a can were gross. So I basically only eat corn. (I also eat salads and fresh veggies, but cooked ones, pretty yucky to me).

I really LOVE LOVE LOVE the Best Bites site. And that is where the recipe for Caramelized Green Beans come from. I use frozen green beans in the recipe, so it cuts down prep time significantly.

Caramelized Green Beans (Courtesy of Our Best Bites)
1 lb. (actually, just a little bit more...maybe 1 1/8 lb.) fresh green beans
1/2 lb. bacon
1/2 red onion, sliced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
olive oil
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
Lots of freshly-ground pepper

Begin frying the bacon in a large skillet. Start boiling a large pot of water. Place beans in a colander and rinse them well. Then snap the ends off and snap them in half.

Prepare the sauce by mixing sugar, soy sauce, and salt in a small bowl.

Make sure your onions are sliced, garlic is pressed (or minced..), and everything is ready to go.

Remove bacon from pan and drain on a paper towel. If you feel like it, you can crumble it now or wait until it's cooled off a little. Pour bacon drippings out of pan.

Return a couple tablespoons of bacon drippings to the pan or just use some olive oil and heat pan to medium-high heat. When the pan is hot...

--Add onions and garlic. Give them a quick stir and then...

--Add beans to boiling water. Place colander in a clean sink. Boil for one minute; you're not cooking them until they're done, just blanching them to take the edge off. Meanwhile, stir the onions and garlic so they don't scorch. After one minute, drain beans in the colander in the sink.

--Once beans have been drained, add them to the onions and garlic. Stir fry 2-3 more minutes.

--Give your sauce a quick stir and then pour on top of the beans. Keep stir-frying until the beans get kind of glazy. Do this for another 2 minutes.


--Add crumbled bacon and lots of freshly-ground pepper to the beans. Keep stir frying until the sauce sticks to the beans and the bacon. Transfer to a serving dish and allow to stand a few minutes so the beans cool down a bit and the glaze thickens up a little.

Broccoli Beef, Rice

Basically I followed the recipe from Allrecipes for Beef Broccoli I (or was it Broccoli Beef I?) Either way, that's the basic recipe. When I update, I will post what I did differently.

Creamed Chipped Beef, Biscuits, Fruit

My husband is on the city council. There are nights where he comes home just fast enough to see us and run back out to the meeting. On a normal day we don't eat dinner until 7, when he gets home, but on these days, I'd much rather eat at a regular time. So usually I go for quick and easy cooking and sometimes I'll let the kids eat in front of the tv for dinner, so I also usually go for not too messy.

Creamed Chipped Beef
4T Butter
4T Flour
3 c Milk
Pepper
Dried Beef

Melt the butter. Add the flour and make a roux. Then add the milk. When it starts thickening a bit, season with pepper and add the cut up dried beef. Serve over toast or biscuits. We've also made it with bacon and sausage instead of the beef.

Breakfast Sandwiches, Fruit

Again, breakfast for dinner, and this one is easy. Sometimes when I eat out, the thought never occurs to me that I could make this at home. But this one did...

Toast some English Muffins, scramble some eggs, fry some bacon. Layer it together like a sandwich (don't forget the cheese...) and you have a DELICIOUS, cheap, and (slightly) healthier version of our favorite McDonald's sandwiches. What I love most about this is it can easily be changed up. Use Buttermilk biscuits, homemade, or in a tube. I've also used lunchmeat when we were out of bacon (I can hardly believe that in this household...)

Pair it with fruit, or yogurt, or do some potatoes. Juice and milk, and you're all set in just a short amount of time.

Zucchini Parmesan, Garlic Bread, Salad

NEED TO MAKE TIME TO COME BACK AND UPDATE THESE POSTS