Tag: sausage

Breakfast Egg Muffins

Please don’t judge my janky muffin tin – I need new ones – one day!

My youngest, in the infinite wisdom that only a 16 year old possesses, told me one morning this week that I need to get up every morning and cook her a meal. No, the granola bar was not sufficient. No, a piece of toast would not do. She needed a meal with eggs and meat! As a mother that, also, works full time – there is no way I’m getting up Monday – Friday and making a full on breakfast – nope, nada, not going to happen.

What I will do, though, is make something that would ‘keep’ in the fridge or in the freezer that my little 16 year old princess can easily pop in the microwave on her way out the door – Breakfast Egg Muffins it is!

I decided to do eggs, sausage, cheese, onions and tomatoes – all things that my family loves.

Originally, I was going to make them in silicon muffin cups (spoiler alert – I still wish I had! More on that later), but decided to use paper cups instead (what – with my loathing of doing dishes, I felt sure that this was the right decision – see spoiler alert above, one of the few times – HA! – that I was wrong). At the end, I’ll give some ‘lessons learned’ and ‘what I’ll do next time’ commentary!

As I chose to use Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage, I cooked up half the chub on the stove and set it aside to cool a bit.

I just whisked my eggs and poured into the muffin cups and I was ready to complete building the muffins! I suppose you could just whisk it all together and pour it in, but I chose to add the other ingredients into the egg muffins, one at a time (who knows why – don’t try to figure me out, I’ve lived with me for 46 years and even I don’t understand me) – just do it how you want to.

After all ingredients were added, I sprinkled on some pepper and they were ready for the oven!

45 minutes later – and I have breakfast for the next several days! I just portioned them out into sandwich baggies (after they had cooled) and threw them into the fridge for when they are needed.

Lessons Learned:

  • Paper muffin cups don’t work great with egg muffins (they stick), so either use the silicon muffin cups or well greased muffin pan – will definitely do this differently next time
  • It might be quicker to just mix everything together and add it into the muffin cups (rather than doing each ingredient individually) – but you do have more control over the amount of ingredients in each muffin – will probably still do it individually next time

Breakfast Egg Muffins

8 eggs
3/4 cups cheese (I used mozarrella)
1/2 chub of Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage, cooked
Cherry tomatoes (I used 3 halves per muffin)
salt / pepper

  • Cook sausage in pan and set aside to cool
  • Whisk eggs in bow (add salt to taste)
  • Add eggs to each muffin cup (filling about 1/2-3/4 way – this will depend on how much of the other stuff you add to each muffin, you just don’t want it to overflow)
  • Add ingredients into each muffin cup
  • Cook in preheated 375 degree oven for approx 45 minutes (my oven tends to take a little longer, so give them a check around 35 minutes to be sure not to overcook them)
by Michelle

Sausage and Spinach Baked Frittata

On Saturdays or Sundays, we like to do a brunch type meal – rather than a breakfast AND lunch. Frittatas are one of our ‘go to’ meals, for sure. We love eggs and a frittata, often, gives us the opportunity to ‘use up’ smallish leftovers in the refrigerator. Today’s frittata started with some Hillshire Farms sausage that was opened yesterday!

Not a pretty picture, but one that’s real. Also, didn’t use the pre-grated cheese in the picture, I had enough once I grated the block cheese.

For this dish, the first thing you want to do is to slice your sausage – I decided to be ‘fancy’ and slice a few pieces (6 – because my frittatas are usually sized for about 6 slices/servings) diagonally, to put on top of the frittata prior to putting it in the oven.

I, personally, could probably stand more than 1/2 of an onion – but, that might be overwhelming to some, so I stuck to 1/2 of an onion for this dish.

Combine the sausage and onion in a skillet, over medium – high heat.

Cook until the sausage has a sear and the onions are translucent. If you do the ‘fancy’ slices of sausage – cook them separate from the rough chopped sausage and onion, and set this all aside to cool a bit.

Grate your cheese (I ended up with about a cup, shredded, given the amount of block cheese I had left – but, you can just add as much cheese as you like – I am a big cheese lover, so rare is the occasion that I think it is ‘too much’ cheese) and chop your spinach.

In a bowl, whisk your eggs, milk, salt and pepper. Then add the other ingredients and mix well (I usually hold back a little bit of cheese, to top the mixture, as I love how it browns in the oven). Pour the mixture into a lightly greased pie plate (this is what I use) or frittata pan. Top with any reserved cheese and the diagonally sliced sausage.

Bake for 40-45 minutes (or until eggs are cooked through and top is nicely browned).

Sausage and Spinach Fritatta

6 eggs
7 oz Hillshire Farms smoked sausage (1/2 of a 14 oz rope)
1/2 onion
1 cup chopped baby spinach
3/4-1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 tbsp milk (or half and half or cream)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

  • Preheat oven oven to 400 degrees
  • Slice sausage (if you want, slice 6 slices cross ways to ‘top’ the fritatta)
  • Finely chop onion
  • Combine onion and sausage in skillet over medium – high heat. Cook until sausage is seared and onion is translucent – remove from pan and set aside to cool a bit
  • Shred cheese and chop spinach
  • In bowl, whist together the eggs, milk, salt and pepper
  • Add sausage/onion mixure, vegetables and cheese to eggs – mix well
  • Pour mixture into a lightly greased pie plate or fritatta pan
  • Bake for 40-45 minutes (or until eggs are fully cooked and nicely browned on top)
by Michelle

Skillet Sausage and Rice

Yesterday, I was looking for something quick, easy and with little clean up for lunch. As I always do, I took a look at the items I had on hand and I ended up with this one skillet dish that turned out delicious.

It all started with a chub of Jimmy Dean sausage, asparagus, mushrooms, garlic, beef stock onion and cilantro.

As I worked through chopping vegetables, I thought of seasoning – and I decided to add a packet of ranch dressing seasoning mix.

I started by browning the sausage (medium high heat), along with the onion and garlic.

Once that was done, I added the other vegetables and cooked until semi-tender.

After the vegetables were somewhat tender, I added in the rice and cooked until the rice was somewhat translucent.

Beef broth (that was just what I had on hand, I’m sure that chicken broth or vegetable broth would work just as nicely) was added next. I added half of the cilantro to the skillet and stirred everything up. I brought the skillet up to a boil. Once it was at a boil, I covered the skillet and reduced the heat to simmer – allowing it to cook for 20 minutes (cook until rice is done).

Add the remaining cilantro and serve! Super easy, delicious, easy clean up and reheats nicely!

Skillet Sausage and Rice

1 chub of Jimmy Dean (or similar) regular sausage
2 cups of long grain rice
3 cups of beef stock
1-1/2 cups of mushrooms
1/2 bunch of asparagus (1-1/2 cups, chopped)
1/2 white onion (diced)
1-2 tbsp of garlic (depending on how much you like garlic, I used 2)
2 tbsp chopped cilantro
1 packet of dry ranch dressing mix
salt and pepper to taste

Crumble sausage in skillet, with diced onions and garlic on medium high heat. Cook until sausge is browned and onions are translucent.

Add asparagus and mushrooms, cook for another 5 min (until vegetables are semi-tender).

Add rice and ranch dressing and stir to mix, cook until rice is translucent.

Add beef stock and 1/2 of the cilantro. Stir and bring to boil.

Reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes (until rice is done).

Add remaining cilantro and serve.

by Michelle