Brunch ideas... don't forget the wee ones.

Just one more quick one: Baby Frittatas from Weelicious.

I'm thinking that, instead of asparagus, I'll make it a Denver omelet. And maybe add some cottage cheese to the egg mixture, instead of milk. If anyone beats me to it, let me know how it went.

A Day At The Museum

Quick slideshow of Z's first trip to the children's museum.

A Day At The Museum.

Pictures I've always wanted to take

There's a link down to the right to a little blog called Hardscrabble Times. It's there because the author lives in a gorgeous part of Colorado and from time to time posts some amazing photographs.

Today is one of them. Check it out here.

Valentine's Day Surprise

This weekend, surprise the family by making them something new for breakfast. Head this way for three ideas.

Weekend Brunch Part II

So your first option is the World's Greatest Granola. It's easy, relatively quick, and provides you with a hot breakfast today and left-overs for the rest of the week.

But if granola isn't your thing, here are a couple of others for the weekend.

Let's start with french toast. I love french toast, but it's hard to make for 4+ people if you make it the traditional way, by dipping bread in the batter and frying up on the griddle. The first one served either has to eat his warm toast alone or wait for everyone else and watch his golden fried bread go cold. And for some reason my first batch never looks like the last batch, since cleaning the griddle or skillet between servings isn't really an option.

But baked french toast makes all of that go away. Whip it up the night before, let it soak up the custard all night, clean up the kitchen before you go to bed, and then just pop it in the oven when everyone's up the next morning.

I use day old french bread, but any sturdy artisan bread will work. I've cut the recipe in half for just the two of us, doubled it for company, or make it as listed here. Any left-overs can be put in the fridge and nuke for 20-30 seconds for breakfast later in the week.

2 baguettes or one large loaf of french bread, day old or air dried for a couple of hours
(Slice the bread into 2 inch slices)
7-8 eggs
1 ¼ cups milk and 1 ¼ cups half-and-half, or 2 ½ cups buttermilk, or any other combo
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Spice: minimum of ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, and ¼-½ teaspoons of cinnamon, ginger, or cloves, according to your taste. (I'm a big user of ginger — probably use a full teaspoon plus half a teaspoon of cinnamon, but that's your call.)

Butter or spray a baking dish with non-stick spray. (13X9 for the 2 baguette version, but it's best to lay down the sliced bread and eye-ball it to see what size you need. I'll use two smaller pans a lot of the time.)

Whisk together everything else in a largish bowl. A wide bottom in essential so that you can soak as much of the bread at the bottom as possible.

Gently place the sliced bread into the custard mixture and let is soak up the egg for about 5 minutes. You might need to toss the bread once or twice to get it all evenly soaked. Use tongs (silicon coated are best) so you don't tear the bread.

Place the coated bread into your baking dish, and pour any extra egg mixture evenly over the bread. Cover with plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge. You can chill it for as little as an hour, if you get up early to make it the same day, or for up to 24 hours before the bread will start to fall apart.

When it's time to bake it, make a streusel topping as follows:

½ cup flour
¼ cup sugar
dash of salt
3 Tablespoons butter, slightly melted
¼ cup sliced almonds

Mix everything in a small bowl and spoon over the sliced bread.

Pre-heat the oven to 375º and then bake for about 30 minutes, until the bread is set and the struesel is golden brown.

Serve plain with maple syrup or with sliced fruit, berries, or what have you. Just no peanut butter! We're not savages here, you know. And no hot sauce — it's not a t-rat, after all.



So there's option #2. Option #3 is a sausage / potato casserole. This one is great for a family sit-down breakfast if one person can get up about half an hour before everyone else. It takes about 20-30 minutes to assemble, and then you bake it for 30, so you have half an hour to clean up and get the table set. I love recipes like that, because there's nothing worse than enjoying a great meal and then looking at a trashed kitchen when everyone wents to get started on the weekend.

This came from our buddies to the east at the Greasy Skillet. He did a great job explaining the steps, so I won't steal his thunder. Check it out here.







Like he said, we need to add some veggies to this. I'm thinking a half-cup each of sauted green peppers and onions, but I need to figure out whether it goes on the bottom with the sausage or into the flour/egg mixture. Spinach might work, and you can't miss with tomotoes, either.




So the ball's now in your court. You have three choices for a hot, sit-down, family breakfast instead of cold cereal in front of the TV this Saturday morning.

Now comes the fun part... burning off all of these calories.

Happy trails!

Weekend Brunch

Here is the first of three options for a weekend breakfast. The first is the healthiest of the bunch, so I'll start with the world's greatest granola recipe. I know what you're thinking: Ewell Gibbons died just like everyone else, so you're not going to sit around eating pine cones and tree bark just to go out like he did. Trust me on this one: this isn't the crap you buy from the far end of the cereal aisle.


Mountain Granola, adapted from Colorado Collage, from the Junior League of Denver.



(click the graphic for a close-up view.)









Homemade Granola
8 cups oatmeal
½ cup vegetable or olive oil
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 cup honey
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt
1½ cups shelled, unsalted sunflower seeds, toasted
⅔ cup sesame seeds, toasted
1 cup sliced almonds, toasted


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread seeds out on a baking sheet and toast in oven for 5–10 minutes, stirring once or twice to avoid burning.
Place oatmeal in large bowl. In a medium saucepan, heat oil, brown sugar, and honey over medium heat, until thin—about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Add vanilla and salt. Pour mixture over oatmeal; add sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, and almonds and toss to combine.
Spread evenly on 2 baking sheets and bake 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes. Serve with yogurt and berries.

(Makes enough for a family of four for about a week. Feel free to cut everything in half if you only want to use one baking sheet.)

For variety, use a little less sunflower and/or sesame seeds and add the difference in pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, raisins, dried apples, or whatever else. We also usually add a little coconut and a sprinkle of flax seed meal.

I almost forgot to mention: friends of the family used this recipe at the Nebraska State Fair a couple of years ago and took the grand prize in the breakfast category.

For options #2 and #3, continue reading here.

Tough guys

I like to read about folks like this to remind me how soft my life is.

Canadian Rider Has Made Unorthodox Climb to the Top

"We will never be here again."

High Plains Weather Report

Chinook winds with a full moon.

That means you can expect some howling from those around you. Time to lock up the firearms and move the kitchen cutlery out of reach.

Everyone is a bit on edge. Z. got up screaming in the middle of the night, and before we could make it to his bunk to check on him, he was already sound asleep. That's the wind, howling through him.

The dogs are all skittish and wary as well. Every sound or creak makes them jump out of their skin. Our six pound cat decided to sleep on one of the dog beds, and she just stared down 300 pounds of Great Dane as they tried to move her. M-dog finally gave up and went to sleep in the basement, as far away from all of the crazies as she could get.

The wind and the moon make everyone a bit uneasy. You have to give yourself wide berth of all obstacles, be they physical, spiritual, or psychological. The slightest things set folks off, and over-reacting is everyone's MO until conditions change.

Or maybe we're just a bit anxious about today's court hearing...

Latest pix

Quick slideshow here.

Happy trails!

Saturday Brunch

Heading out the door, so just pix today, story tomorrow.

Made a scrumptious brunch this morning, using a recipe from our flatlander neighbors to the east at the Greasy Skillet. One of life's biggest joys is making something tasty and watching your kid devour it.




Super simple and moderately messy... The Greasy Skillet Sausage and Potato Breakfast Casserole is going to be seen in our house on weekend mornings a lot this year, I'm thinking.






Z. learned a new trick to day. We got him this gimmicky bowl that sticks to his tray with a suction cup and has a spill lip that sticks out in his general direction, sort of like an inverted fly fishing cap with an over-sized bill. Supposed to catch spills.





Well, Z. figured out that if he spills some food on the lip, presses down on it, and then releases it, he can launch the mess out into the stratosphere, catapult-like. Lovely. Now I have to keep him from watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Please, no one get him this for his birthday.