Freezer Breakfasts!

Recently I have discovered how much I love breakfast. I have a bit more time in the mornings now I'm not waking up so early. In high school and college, I never really had much of an appetite before the sun came up. I really enjoy my days when I can have a slow start to my morning and cook up some eggs or french toast and savor a cup of coffee.

The mornings I do have to get to work, I find I am so disappointed that I have to grab a quick bowl of cereal, a granola bar, or worse...nothing at all.

The husband OBVIOUSLY needs a strong breakfast - he has morning PT and a full day of work (in a building with no A/C, mind you), so I realized I needed to find a solution to these early/busy mornings. Sacrificing, or having a sub-par breakfast, is just no longer an option for me.

After dragging my feet for a week or two, I finally buckled down and prepped my freezer breakfasts!

English Muffin Breakfast Sandwiches

Cook your bacon

IN THE OVEN,

ON A BROILER PAN.

I will never cook bacon any other way again.

Crack an egg into a spouted cup, and gently break up the yolk. Try to keep the thick albumin intact.

The what?

Basically the egg white has two parts, the thin and thick part.

Just google "image of a chicken egg diagram" and you will see.

Keeping the thick albumin intact will keep your egg from running all over your pan while you fry it up.

Pour the egg into your buttered pan.

 

My oven is not level, so my egg ran to the side of my pan. I was hoping to cook more than one at a time, but I decided not to.

Can you see the thicker egg white oval surrounding most of the yolk? That is the thick part of the egg white. When undisturbed, it shouldn't really spread like this egg did.

If your egg runs like mine, don't worry - use a glass to cut out a circle in your egg to make it fit on your english muffin. 

And keep the scraps - you can use them in breakfast burritos!

One down, 11 to go!

I had to drag Duke's bed closer to the kitchen so he could watch without being in the way!

What. A. Face.

I think he could smell the bacon cooking and it was driving him crazy!

I had quite a time trying to get my bacon cooked. I turned on the oven to preheat, and shortly thereafter, I smelled something burning. I was thinking to myself, I wonder what was the last thing I baked that's cooking off right now...

 And then the burning odor got really strong, so I opened the oven to see what was going on...

I vaguely remembered someone putting their child's leftover plate of food in the oven last week at the Platoon BBQ we had at our house...and there it was, all melted/burnt in the oven. I freaked out, and did one of those I-don't-know-what-to-do-first-so-I'll-just-turn-around-in-circles-for-a-few-seconds dances before I could comprehend and respond. It just so happened I had a floor fan in the next room and placed it in front of the open oven and aimed it AWAY from the smoke detector and whipped open a few windows. I used kitchen tongs to pick all the food and the melted plate out of the oven.

Small little setback.

But the bacon turned out great!

Later, I saw that Duke had crept closer.

Once all your sandwich components are prepped, you can now begin assembling sandwiches!

I sliced the bacon into thirds, and I used the same circle cutting technique on the cheese slices.

Just be sure to do them one at a time or else they will all stick together!

While toasting my english muffins, not even browning them, it set my smoke alarm off. Great. Scared me and poor Dukie.

I'm sure the cats hid under the bed upstairs, too.

MOVING ON...

English muffin bottom:

Cheese:

3 Bacon strips:

Egg:

English muffin top:

Then little Dukie decided not to listen to my command, and while trying to run away from me, he crashed into his water bowl (which I had just filled up) and spilled it allllllll over the floor.

I practically needed a mop.

So he got sent to his kennel.

Which is on the other side of the kitchen, so at least he still got to watch.

All wrapped and already in the freezer! I labeled them with a "B" for bacon, in case I made any more sandwiches and used sausage or canadian bacon. It's always good to know what's inside random stuff in your freezer!

Breakfast Burritos

At this point, I was really tired from my eventful cooking project. I looked around at my dirty kitchen (it was a mess, despite the nice photos), and after a few seconds of debating, I washed my skillet for a second time and got out the breakfast sausage to start assembling my burritos.

I saved my cheese and egg scraps from cutting circles so I could use them in my burritos. I used two rolls of sausage and I think I used 18 eggs...

Cook everything up, and assemble your burritos!

I wish I had some peppers. Or jalapenos. I think I would have added those.

I labeled these with an "S" for sausage. It made 13 burritos.

And during all this, I browned some ground turkey, and made some rice for a mexican "one pot" dinner!

Bag up the burritos and freeze 'em.

I

Was

Tired.

Bulk cooking is definitely exhausting, but SO worth it. Now we have 25 days of grab-and-go breakfasts!