Italian Sausage Breakfast Casserole

Growing up, my Mom would always make a special breakfast/brunch on Saturday mornings. I always looked forward to this and miss it. I wish I had the time and energy to do that come the weekend, but I often times don't, some of that could be due to pregnancy, but it's more my children. My kids are the type that need to eat as soon as they get up or they get "hangry", and I am not an early riser by nature. Sleeping until 8/8:30am is very much ideal for me and my body. My boys like to wake up after 7am, so it leaves me feeling very tired and unmotivated. So, I have had to learn to give myself grace and make special breakfast dinners instead and on special occasions I will get up and make a special breakfast.

Baseball season has been in full swing in our house and it's turning my life upside down with dinner time. We eat at crazy times, nothing is ever consistent and it's driving me bonkers. One day I thought to prep this delicious casserole ahead of time in the early afternoon. I usually drop Benson off at baseball practice and I can make it home and have a half hour to 40 minutes to accomplish something before I have to go pick him up. The idea to make a breakfast casserole, pull it out when I go to drop off and have the oven pre-heating while I was gone, and then pop it in when I got home that way it would be done shortly after I got back from pick up sounded like a brilliant plan, and it was until practice got cancelled because of a thunder/lightning storm. Still, if it was a normal day, it was a brilliant plan!

My Mom originally got this recipe from a co-worker, and we have since tweaked it ever so slightly. I love that it uses the Italian sausage over regular breakfast sausage, it makes it more savory. Lucky for me, I had all the ingredients on hand it was easy to pull together. Think sausage, cheese, bell pepper, in a custard type dish. Yum. To go along with it, I just pulled out a bunch of random fruit that needed to be used up in my fridge and some yogurt. Easy, healthy, delicious.

I cut the original recipe in half because I didn't want or need a ton of leftovers, we aren't very good at eating leftovers in our family. The original recipe with our slight ingredient adaptations will be given below.

Italian Sausage Breakfast Casserole

1 lb Italian Sausage
1 small onion, diced
1 small red pepper, diced
2 cups monterey jack or sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
2 cups milk
4-5 slices of white bread
8 eggs

Spray a 13x9 pan and set aside. Cook Italian sausage in a frying pan until done. Drain sausage on a plate lined with a paper towel. Saute onion and bell pepper in the same frying pan. Add sausage back to pan and mix.

In a separate bowl, mix milk and eggs, set aside. Add salt & pepper to taste. Break bread into small pieces, and slightly toss in milk and egg mixture. Add Italian sausage, onion, and pepper mixture to the bread mixture and toss until ingredients are mixed evenly. Finally add the cheese and toss until well mixed, you could reserve some cheese to top casserole if you would like. Pour mixture into prepared 13x9 pan and refrigerate overnight.

When ready to bake, while the oven is preheating, allow the pan to come to room temperature, especially if it is a glass dish. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

*I finished preparing this at about 2pm and baked it at 6pm and it turned out just as delicious as if you were to allow it to refrigerate overnight.

Super Moist Chocolate Zucchini Bread

You guys, I have tons of zucchini to use up from my garden. One of my favorite ways to use it up is to mix it into muffins or make this bread. The recipe came from a food blog I follow, but I did some slight tweaking to it and it tastes like super moist Costco muffins with the bonus of zucchini to make it healthy, right?!

Now I told you the pictures were not going to blog worthy perfect, but the recipe is legit. So let's just jump right in shall we. I promise you will want to make it soon. If you have kiddos who struggle with veggies, they won't even know the zucchini is in there - you can hardly tell unless if you do some serious looking for the green flakes!

Super Moist Chocolate Zucchini Bread

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
6 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sour cream
3 cups finely grated zucchini
1 cup milk or semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tbsp flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat two of your bread pans (8" or 9")with butter and flour, or I coat them with shortening and flour. Mix together your dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking soda, unsweetened cocoa powder, sugar, and brown sugar in mixing bowl or stand mixer. Add in your wet ingredients: vegetable oil, eggs, vanilla, sour cream, and zucchini. There is no need to drain your zucchini, the water content helps make it super moist. Leave it as is. In a smaller mixing bowl mix together the chocolate chips with the tablespoon of flour so that your chocolate chips won't sink to the bottom of the pan, they will float and dot the bread. Gently fold in the chocolate chips and pour evenly into your prepared pans. Bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes. To tell if they are done, insert a toothpick and if it comes out clean, their perfect.

Now you will be tempted to get that bread out of the pan right away, if you can, wait! Let it cool, and then serve. It's delicious, I promise!

Recipe Slightly Adapted By: Our Best Bites, Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Quick Chicken Parmesan

Summer began in our house before Memorial Day and I have been so occupied with both my boys making memories and trying to survive the boredom spells that seem to fall upon my oldest. I'm not going to lie, I have also been super busy with my garden. Weeds galore. I love gardening, but those dang weeds just keep coming.

Tonight on my menu we were supposed to have something completely different for dinner and I had to make a quick adjustment because my husband was needing to leave an hour earlier before he went to mutual (a weekly activity for teens in our church). So, I took a quick peek into my freezer and I saw that I had these chicken patties that you will see in my picture below. I generally keep these on hand for a quick fix meal at any time in our house especially on school nights where I have to teach the next day. Sometime in the future I will share my recipe of a more traditional Chicken Parmesan that I prefer to eat, but in a pinch this works great!

I also really LOVE this brand of marinara sauce, Francesco Rinaldi. No high fructose to be found, and it just tastes good to me, try it. I find it pretty cheap at Winco.

For my oldest (7 years) and I, we generally eat 1 chicken patty, my youngest (2 years) only eats about a half unless he is super hungry. My husband generally eats 2 of these. This is just to give you an idea of how much to prepare, but it's totally up to you. 

Quick Chicken Parmesan

5 chicken patties
Marinara Sauce
5 slices of mozzarella cheese

1. Turn your oven to 400 degrees (what the package says to cook the chicken).
2. Lay your chicken on a cookie sheet. For quick clean up lay parchment paper over cookie sheet, then top with chicken patties.
3. Spoon marinara sauce onto chicken patties.
4. Top chicken patties with mozzarella cheese.
5. Bake 17-20 minutes (or follow your package instructions).

*We will sometimes serve this pasta and a veggie, or garlic bread and a veggie. I feel like these chicken patties are so versatile. Sometimes we will top them with BBQ sauce and smoke Gouda, or instead of having a hamburger you can have a chicken burger. 

One final note, make sure to get the "Chicken Patties" not the "Southern Style Chicken Patties", once I made that mistake and that Quick Chicken Parmesan did not taste the same.

I also think this recipe would be great to suggest for someone who may have college students. This is not a show stopper recipe, but it sure helps in a pinch. Hope this helps you for some of those crazy nights where things don't go as planned, but you don't want to take the splurge and eat out. 

Recipe Source: My mom

The beginning: Strawberries & Cream Oatmeal

You guys, I am taking the plunge. I have thought about doing a food blog for a long time, over a year actually, because I love sharing new recipes with all of you that I think are a must try in your own home with your own family. I am a busy mom who works part time, so when there is a recipe that is a keeper, I jump for joy!- Especially when my picky eater gobbles it down. The major thing that is drawing me back is the fact that there are a million other food bloggers on the internet. My goal is not really to be HUGE, but to share my own recipes that my family loves that you my own friends and family might love too.

Now this whole food blogging thing is going to be a major stretch for me. My photography skills stink. The lighting in my house stinks. So bear with me as I go about learning. The most important part to me is just getting the recipe to you, so that you can try it and decide for yourself. So for this first post, there isn't going to be a picture because I ate it too quickly before I realized what I was about to do.

This first recipe was actually inspired by a breakfast I received for Teacher Appreciation from the principal of a school I was working at quite frequently. He surprised all of the staff with Jamba Juice oatmeal one morning and it was awesome! I also used to keep the quick instant oatmeal on hand all the time because it's perfect for a quick somewhat wholesome breakfast that will keep my kiddo who is in school full until lunch. I came up with this on my own, but it can be easily adaptable however you would like. I was taken away with the fresh strawberries and brown sugar combo. I can't believe I have been missing out on this all 28 years of my life! My kids, even my picky eater loves this! I feel so much better eating this and knowing what is going into it instead of the weird ingredient list on the instant oatmeal box. Plus, if you have to make multiple it doesn't take forever to make.  

Again if you don't want cream, sub in milk. If you have the time to make steel cut oats, even better and more power to you! On a quick morning, this works for us, but on mornings where I have more time I do prefer the steel cut oats. Adapt away my friends and enjoy!

Strawberries & Cream Oatmeal

Serving: 1

1/4 cup quick cooking oatmeal
1/2 cup water
3-4 strawberries, sliced or diced
1-2 tsp brown sugar
splash of cream or half and half

Place 1/4 cup quick cooking oatmeal and 1/2 cup of water in a bowl. Microwave oatmeal mixture for 1 minute. In the meantime, quickly dice your strawberries. Immediately remove the bowl from the microwave and place strawberries inside giving it a quick stir. Add your brown sugar and splash of cream. Enjoy!

Recipe By: Me