Atlantas Frugal Mom

We had family over last week for brunch and I put off planning food until literally an hour before everyone showed up.  I am either to one extreme or the other – planning meals a week in advance, or flying by the seat of my pants.  So I got online that morning and started searching for brunch recipes.  And what did I find?  Quiche.  And more Quiche.  Oh, and quiche.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE quiche, but just did not want to make it for brunch.  And also, I didn’t want to go to the store and buy the ingredients. 😉

So I went in the kitchen and did what I do, just started digging through the fridge and grabbing things.  I ended up with potatoes, cheese, 4 eggs, sausage links, and a slightly wrinkly pepper.

So what do you make when that’s what you’re working with?  

Twice baked breakfast potatoes, of course!  

These potatoes are pretty simple to make, and they are incredibly delicious.  Plus they seem like they would take a long time, but really they don’t.  (shhhh…..most of the time is just cooking them in the microwave)

Twice Baked Breakfast Potatoes

Ingredients:

5 large potatoes, washed

4 eggs

1 cups cooked sausage (I chopped up links)

1/4 cup chopped bell peppers

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp parsley

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 cup shredded cheese

Directions:

1. Poke holes in potatoes with a fork and cook all together in microwave for 20 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 400.

3. Mix together eggs, sausage, peppers, and spices.

4. When potatoes are done cooking, cut in half and scoop out the middle.

5. Pour egg and sausage mix into potatoes and top with cheese.

6. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until egg is cooked all the way.

Click here for a printer friendly version on Twice Baked Breakfast Potatoes

These are so easy to make, and everyone will love them, trust me!  the hardest part is scooping out the potatoes, and that’s not even difficult.  Just be sure you don’t burn yourself, they will be hot!  And save all the potato scoopings in a container, because you can make them into a small potato salad, add them in to soup, etc.

What’s your favorite family friendly brunch dish?  Share in the comments below!

Earlier this month, I received a free voucher for Johnsonville Premium Fully Cooked Dinner Sausages from BzzAgent, and I knew right away what flavor I wanted to try.  They have 5 different varieties, but I am an Andouille fanatic, so that’s what I headed straight for when we got to Kroger.

When I got home, I logged on to AllRecipes.com, one of my favorite sites for cooking inspiration.  Well, you know, besides Pinterest of course! 😉  I found an easy jambalaya recipe that I could start with, but of course I modified it along the way to suit my family’s tastes.

Easy Cajun Jambalaya

Ingredients:

1 Tbs olive oil

1 lb Johnsonville Premium Andouille sausage, diced

They like to help in the kitchen, can you tell? 🙂

2 10 oz cans of chicken breast meat, drained

2 onions, diced

2 green bell peppers, diced

3 ribs of celery, diced

1/4 cup minced garlic

1 Tbs onion powder

1 Tbs Cajun seasoning

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (more if you like it spicy!)

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

4 cups of uncooked rice

12 cups of chicken broth (I used water and bouillon cubes)

6 bay leaves

1 1/2 Tbs Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp Texas Pete hot sauce

Directions:

1.  Heat oil in a stock pot over medium high heat.

2.  Saute sausage for five minutes until browned.

3.  Add in chicken, onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic.

4.  Season with Cajun seasoning, cayenne, onion powder, salt and pepper.

5.  Mix well and cook until onions start to soften.

6.  Add in rice, chicken broth, and bay leaves.

7.  Bring to a boil, then simmer while covered for 20-25 minutes.

8.  Mix in Worcestershire and hot sauce.

9.  Remove bay leaves and serve.

Printer friendly version of this Easy Cajun Jambalaya recipe

This isn’t a traditional version, but it sure is tasty!  Have you tried to make jambalaya at home before?

I received a voucher for free product from Johnsonville and BzzAgent but this recipe and all opinions expressed are my own.

We’ve all been to restaurants that offer those delicious looking molten lava chocolate cakes on the dessert menu. They look amazing, but frankly I am a little too cheap to order dessert out after having dinner. When I saw this mix on clearance at Aldi, I immediately grabbed it because I knew my family would really enjoy it.

I expected to find some sort of chocolate truffle balls in the mix that go in the middle of the cakes, so I was surprised when we open it up and found nothing but a bag of cake mix. At that point, I was a little skeptical of how exactly they were going to turn out. But we all love chocolate, so we dug right in anyway, lol!

(By the way, I’m not listing ingredients and measurements because this is a box mix, and each one is different.  I don’t want to give you directions that are different from the ones on the box you may purchase.)

This was one of the simplest mixes I have ever seen.  It only required eggs and butter, and of course the bag mix.  Instead of using ramekins, we used the muffin tin we had.  The recipe called for us to oil the tin first, but I chose to use Cake Release that I had on hand.  If you haven’t ever used Cake Release, it is AMAZING!  You can literally just dump the cake right out of the pan after baking.  Be sure to use it liberally, or your cake will stick. It has the consistency of a soft butter, not quite as thin as oil.  You should be able to find it at any grocery store or specialty baking shop for under $3.00.

The directions are pretty easy.  Whisk the eggs, melt the butter, and slowly mix the two together.  Then add in the bag mix and stir until mixed completely (don’t beat).  Then pour into the greased pan and pop it in the oven.  That’s it!

The key to making these molten lava mini cakes is to cook them until the tops are just barely done.  The middle ends up being soft and runny, but the heat is enough to cook the eggs inside, so don’t worry about that.

Flip the cakes out of the pan and serve them upside down.  I dusted these with powdered sugar to add a nice touch at the end.  When you cut into the cake with a fork, you can see the yummy chocolaty center.

Doesn’t it look divine?  I was so impressed that this bit of deliciousness came from a box mix, and only took a few minutes to throw together.  And the best part of making these cakes?  Licking the bowl, of course! 🙂

Have you ever made a molten lava cake from a box mix?  What’s your favorite cake to make from a box?