A "Real" Breakfast

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  I am wearing head to toe green as I type this;)  I sent Addy off to school in a shamrock shirt though.  And the leprechaun came for his final visit this morning, and he left the girls chocolate coins and $4.  Apparently the recession has hit leprechauns too.  I would have imagined that a pot o’ gold would contain more than $4.  I almost forgot to even set out the “treasure”.  We were out late last night….filming Reno Style!

Reno Style is a local TV show that is all about local, small businesses.  We had so much fun filming it, with the host, Jessica.  I think we did great…..of course, I won’t know until we see it next week.  I could have been a massive tool.   It will air in the Reno area starting Thursday, March 23^rd.  It will also be online, and I will definitely post a link when that happens.

So the other morning, as I was getting Addy ready for school, she asked me when I was going to give her a “real” breakfast.  I was confused by this, as I could have sworn I wasn’t giving her an imaginary breakfast.  Turns out, she meant something other than a pop-tart or cereal.  Apparently, the little princess wanted me to actually turn on the stove.  I decided to make her little breakfast treats that are similar to quiches. 

I have always loved quiche.  Mainly because I like to say to myself “Very clever dinner.  Appetizing food fit neatly into interesting round pie.”  “How do you spell?” “Well, you don’t spell it, son, you eat it!”  And yes, I say that every time I even hear the work quiche.  Does everyone else love Sixteen Candles as much as me?

As it happened, I didn’t have some of the ingredients necessary for quiche, so I made a quiche-esque dish, that I think turned out even better then quiche.  And I made them in individual portions, which is always 10 times cuter.  I will show you how I did it.

Is this “real” enough, Addy?;)

To make these little “egg pies” (which is what I will call them from here on out), I used a pre-made pie crust, eggs, bacon (diced), onions (diced), mushrooms, and cheese.  I used both goat cheese and cheddar jack cheese.  I prefer goat, and my kids aren’t fans.  I won’t be giving you exact proportions today because it really depends how many egg pies you want to make.  I made 6.

I unrolled the pie crust dough on to a floured surface.  I used a large cookie cutter (about 3 to 4 inches in diameter) to punch out individual servings.  You can also trace around a bowl if you don’t have a large round cookie cutter.  You will get about 6 from one round of dough….more if you are extra ambitious and want to re-roll the dough out with a rolling pin. 

I placed the dough rounds into a muffin tin that I had sprayed with cooking spray.  Pie dough has a ton of butter in it and wouldn’t typically stick, but I wanted to be super sure that there was no stickage.  And yes, my muffin tin has seen better days.  I prefer to think of it as “well-seasoned.”

I baked these in an oven that had been pre-heated to 425 degrees.  I also punched several holes in the dough with a fork to keep it from poofing up too much.  This is called “docking”, if you are in the know;)  I only pre-baked these for 5 minutes.  I didn’t want to cook them through yet….I wanted to make sure they wouldn’t get soggy when baked later.

While the crusts were in the oven, I browned the bacon, onions and mushrooms in a large skillet….about 4 to 5 minutes.  Again, I can’t tell you how much to use because it depends how many you want to make.  I used 5 strips of bacon, ½ cup diced onion and ½ cup sliced mushrooms for 6 egg pies.  Make sure you salt and pepper this mixture!  Go light on the salt….bacon is already salty.

Once the crusts came out of the oven, I placed a spoonful of the bacon mixture in the bottom of each.  They don’t get much, maybe a teaspoon each.  I then topped that with cheese.

Finally, I cracked an egg into each crust.  Then, I salt and peppered again.  These baked at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.  Remember, the crusts pre-baked at 425 degrees so you have to turn your oven down!  15 minutes will completely set the eggs.  The yolks will not be runny at all.  If you want runny yolks….bless you.  You are one of my people.  But….my family prefers non-runny yolks, so 15 minutes it was.

While these cooled off enough for me to touch them….I also made a fruit salad with a yummy vanilla cream cheese dip.  I had bought a vanilla cream cheese dip from the grocery store a few weeks ago, and it basically tasted like the carton it came in.  But it did inspire me to make my own;)

I used room temperature cream cheese, vanilla Greek yogurt, honey and vanilla extract. 

In this bowl is 2 ounces of cream cheese, a 5.3 ounce container of vanilla Greek yogurt, 1 tablespoon of honey and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.  Because the cream cheese was already softened, this stirred together very easily.  This really makes a yummy dip for all sorts of fruit or a great topping for cakes and cookies.  So easy, and so good!

Once the egg pies were cooled a bit, maybe 5 minutes, I used an off- set spatula to pop them out of the muffin tin.  Some crust might stick because of egg overflow, but that is no big deal.  They still ended up perfect!  My whole family loved them.  They were easy enough that I will make them again and again.  Probably not on a daily basis….but you get the idea.  Besides, I can’t have the kids expecting breakfast like this every day.  They need to make their peace with pop tarts and cereal….

Aren’t they cute?  I sprinkled the extra bacon, onions and mushrooms over the top.

Yum!  Makes me want to eat more fruit;)

See you all next week….I hope you have a great weekend!