Life so busy? Make breakfast for dinner

Life in the Shuman household is insane. I just returned from being on the road for work, 3 out of the last 4 weeks. My husband and children couldn't wait for my return, and while I have been home a full school week, my son is still telling me that he missed me. Don't get me wrong, they are fully capable and self sufficient, but my husband does not come home until after 9 every night, (the life of a teacher/tutor) and two teenage girls cooking dinner, bathing, and putting a 4 year old to bed, while attempting to complete their own homework, is exhausting. Special shout out to my MIL (Mother In Law) for totally saving our hides on numerous occasions during this time.

So here I am, back from the road, ready to make wonderful and complicated dinners for my crew to show them how much I love and missed them, until Thursday comes... Since we keep the Sabbath, and sundown is now at 5:15 on Fridays, we no longer have the luxury of readying meals on Friday. So today was filled with work 9-5 (at least), grocery shopping at 3 different stores, picking up children, and the usual dinner, bath time and homework. So much for a well thought out, sit down dinner. I had no clue what to create for dinner and daughter #2, on her hour and a half long ride from school, says, "oooh, eggs sound really good".

Boy was this a work in progress, but the final product was spectacular!

In our house, as likely most homes, everyone likes their eggs made differently:

• Dinner #1 for daughter #3 consisted of fried egg whites, pita bread and hash browns. 
• Dinner #2 for Daughter #2 needed a little more protein. So we pulled out frozen tofu crumbles, and I cooked them up with scrambled eggs, no carbs in this one. 
• Dinner #3 for Mom was a variation of the above with added onions, peppers and cheddar. 

And then.... and then,,,,, the man of the house came home; hungry and still working. (love you babe) The final product was the best yet, and I knew he would love it. The idea came from a breakfast I had while on the road trip. The culmination of this looong business trip was in Peoria, IL where I was so excited to spend the weekend with my daughter at her Sorority Mom's weekend; shout out to Pi Beta Phi. One of Alex's favorite places to eat is a place called Wild Berries and its a true Mid-Westerner's breakfast heaven. There, I ordered a meatless scramble, that consisted of hash browns, veggies, and cheese culminating with an egg on top. Ok, so the diet started when I got home, I'm not proud, but yum!!! Back to dinner. I had no more hash browns, but was determined to make this hash. Into the freezer I went, and found tater tots, perfect! and thus began to build. The ingredients were so simple, but the result was spectacular. When all were fed and satiated, the consensus was unanimous, this was a great dinner and such Good Food In Good Time.

Tator Tots thawed and smashed make great hash browns

Tofu Crumbles with peppers and onions

Everything is better with Cheddar

Time to Build the scramble

The topper, yolks are ooey and gooey, mix all together and mmmmmm.

Egg Scramble

10 Tator Tots
1/2 cup of Morningstar Farms crumbles
2 Tbs oil
1/4 small onion
1/4 green pepper
1/4 cup cheddar Cheese
2 eggs
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste

Begin by  placing Tator Tots and 1 Tbs oil in pan. Let them cook on both sides until soft. Smash with a fork or spatula and continue to cook until crispy. Next, saute the crumbles in a pan with the remaining oil. Season with all the spices and cook until slightly crisp. Add onions and peppers and continue to cook until soft.  Remove from pan to bowl. top with cheddar while hot and let melt.

Wipe out the pan and spray with cooking spray, Crack eggs into the pan and cook on medium high, after about 1 minute and set; add a Tbs of water and cover. The steam with make the perfect sunny side up egg, Place the eggs on top of other ingredients in bowl and serve, Break the yolk and mix the custard around with the rest of the dish,

You cook your own Chicken Livers Why!!???

A bizarre thing happened to me this morning as I was shopping at the local butcher for ingredients for the Shabbat meals. I was checking out and a woman from behind me looks at a container I have on the counter and asked "what is that?" I explain it is frozen chicken livers. She looked at me like I was from outer space and asked, "so what do you do with it?" (Now for those that don't know, every Jewish grandmother in their day made chopped liver. You also can find it in Deli's across America, along with pate and many more variations.) I turned and said I make Chopped liver. The next 2 minutes consisted of her asking and me explaining how it is done. Chicken livers do not come to the home already koshered like other meat. It is in its raw form and you need to salt it, broil it on each side, and rinse them before cooking and eventually eating. This is the most natural process to me as I learned it from my Hungarian mother and she from hers. Before I was walking out of the store she says "well... why don't you just buy it ready made?" It was my turn to look at her quizzically, and I said "why should I when I know how to make it fresh and I really enjoy cooking."

In today's day and age we are all working and running from place to place, and I understand not everyone enjoys being in the kitchen, but I have to say the best meals I have had, were ones made from scratch with love. Maybe I sound like too much of a romantic, but let me finish with this. My daughter Alex calls me from college and says "Mom, you and Dad spoiled me: the food here is so bad, you should not have cooked so well for us growing up". This is to us both, an incredible compliment, and today she is our #1 ravioli maker and yes she makes the dough from scratch.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! OH AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY

The new year comes so fast it seems now. Time has sped up and life seems to be going by so quickly. I love seeing my children grow and become adults, and yet at the same time it means that we are getting older. I so enjoy the holidays; November and December are months filled with family, food and fantastic traditions. Whats not to love?? But, it is January that brings the most fun to our household.

 It starts every year at New Years. These days there is no giant party, no going drinking or dancing. Mostly our evening consists of a special dinner, and games with the kids, culminating in watching the ball drop and listening to the neighbor kids shoot off fireworks, likely one day to set my house on fire. It's the strike of midnight when the fun begins, you see my husband Mike's birthday is January 1. So in an instant we turn to birthday mode, singing and celebrating his life and accomplishments. Traditionally, we go to Brunch or lunch out somewhere, and he then hunkers down for the remainder of the day watching football and hockey, happily relaxing in front of our 50 inch television. Dinner on the other hand is where we can show our love for him and those things he enjoys most. This year he asked for an ice cream cake and thus the bar was set. We love ice cream cakes from Carvel as much as the next guy, but we recently watched a Kelsey Nixon show where she created a Raspberry, vanilla ice cream cake and I knew Carvel would not be getting my money this year.

The recipe for Kelsey's cake is in this link. http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/kelsey-nixon/ice-cream-birthday-cake.html While raspberry's are a favorite of mine they are not Mike's flavor of choice, so I took her recipe and changed it up a bit, using a different crust and ice cream flavors. I would say you could mix and match any flavors you like and this would be a hit. The number one key item in this recipe is the layer of pound cake. It is the perfect cake as it holds up so nicely frozen, yet melts in your mouth.

I went shopping with my youngest daughter Samantha for the flavors and here is what we came up with in the end:

Crust: Chocolate Graham Crackers
Ice Cream: Chocolate and Mint Moose Tracks (Mint Chocolate chip works great too!)
Fudge: Chocolate Fudge
Cake: Sponge Cake
Icing: Whipped Cream

The chocolate crust was just enough crunch to add some nice texture to each bite and the way the cake layered each person had chocolate and mint in every bite. The sponge cake has a way of dividing the cake and keeping it from being too much ice cream and not enough....cake. :)

Come up with your own flavors, try this for your next birthday cake, I assure you you will not be disappointed. Let me know what you have made post it here and take a picture.

I neglected to take pictures along the way this time but will do so next time and add them.

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday Mike!!!