Egg Benedict Breakfast Pizza

The.Best.Breakfast.Pizza.Ever.... seriously!

What you'll need:

1 tube of pizza crust
4 eggs, scramble
Canadian Bacon, deli ham or cubed ham
Salt and pepper
1 cup Cheddar Cheese
1 cup Mozzarella Cheese

Hollandaise Sauce:

4 egg yolks,reserve egg whites for pizza
1 stick of butter
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 - 1/2 tsp black pepper

To prepare the sauce:

Melt one stick of butter in microwave. In a separate bowl, add 4 egg yolks. Set the unused egg whites aside. We'll scramble the whites later. Add lemon juice, paprika and pepper to yolks and whisk until smooth. Slowly whisk in melted butter. Whisk together until well combined. Set aside.

Pizza:

Preheat oven for whatever the crust calls for.

Unroll the pizza crust. Press the crust to your desired thickness on a greased baking pan. Spread the sauce on the pizza crust. Scramble 4 eggs along with the 4 egg whites set aside from the Hollandaise sauce. Add scrambled eggs and ham to pizza, and sprinkle on salt and pepper. Top the pizza with cheese. I also suggest adding some veggies - onions, peppers, mushrooms, etc.

Bake for 15 minutes or until cheese is melted. 

Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo Pasta

I found an alfredo recipe on Pinterest, and I felt it was challenging me to try it. It claimed to be better than Olive Garden's alfredo sauce. I don't think O.G. has the best alfredo sauce, but I don't think it's horrible either. Guess that means I'm neutral, but whoever named this sauce named it "Better Than.." and I agree 100%.

Well, challenge accepted. I give it a pretty good score, too! Creamy and flavorful! Take a look...

Find the original recipe here: Better Than Olive Garden Alfredo Sauce.

Honey BBQ Chicken Strips

One of mine and my daughter's favorite appetizers is Boneless Honey BBQ Chicken Strips from Applebee's. The sauce is just perfect for us. My husband loves Parmesan Garlic Wings from Buffalo Wild Wings. So for the Superbowl we decided to attempt at-home versions of both flavors. Unfortunately, my husband's recipe was a flop, but the BBQ strips turned out perfectly. Not exactly like Applebee's, but we were good with that because this sauce was really great. It was tangy and sweet.

The strips we chose were Tyson Crispy Chicken Strips, I'm telling you... they are just right for this sauce. We had leftover sauce and strips so I had this meal for lunch 2 days in a row. Just thinking about them now makes me crave them. These little sweeties will leave your tastebuds yearning for more. You'll be totally set with ranch or bleu cheese dipping sauce and a small side of slaw or these delicious homemade potato chips.

Let's get saucy...

Honey BBQ Sauce

1/4 C brown sugar
1/2 C + 2 tbsp BBQ (I used Sweet Baby Ray's)
1/4 C water
1 tbsp honey

Mix everything together and the sauce is ready to go!

Bake the desired amount of strips. The quantity of sauce was enough for the entire bag. We only made about of the half the bag and baked the rest when we ready to eat more. I like my strips extra crispy so I always bake them longer than the bag recommends.

Once your strips are done, give them a honey BBQ bath. Flip 'em and flop 'em around in the sauce.

 Now you are set to sit down and enjoy some tasty, tasty Honey BBQ Chicken Strips!!

Honey Mustard Bacon Wrapped Chicken

Chicken, bacon and honey mustard... dang, they go well together. Today I have an easy recipe for you. I like recipes that are hard to mess up and this is definitely one of them. You can easily adjust the quantity to family size too.

Bacon Wrapped Chicken

2 boneless chicken breast
8 slices of bacon

Honey Mustard
(makes a little less than 3/4 cup)
1/2 cup mayo
2 1/2 tbsp yellow mustard
1 1/2 tsp honey
1/4 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp black pepper

For a spicy version of the honey mustard check out this post: Grilled Honey Mustard Turkey Sandwich

Cut the chicken breasts in half (making 4 pieces) and fry it until fully cooked. Add any seasonings you wish. I added onion and garlic powder. Fry the bacon just until it's not so limp.

While the chicken and bacon are cooking, mix together all of the ingredients for the mustard.

Preheat oven to 350.

Once everything is cooked, wrap two slices of bacon around one piece of chicken. I inserted a toothpick to keep the bacon in place. Place chicken in a baking pan. Bake for 15-20 minutes. If you choose, add a slice of swiss cheese and bake for another 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Pour honey mustard over chicken and serve.

Not-so-traditional Eggs Benedict

This past summer my husband and I went to San Diego. We stayed in a hotel just minutes from the beach and within walking distance of many awesome delicatessens and restaurants. My favorite restaurant was Mona Lisa Italian Foods... oh mama mia! If you go, you must try the lasagna. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water. Absolutely the best I have ever had. Ever. But today we aren't talking about that kick butt lasagna. It's all about Eggs Benedict today.

Our hotel in San Diego served breakfast. I had yet in my life to ever try Eggs Benedict. We had it three times that week! Yeah, it's that good and also we were too lazy to go any further outside of the hotel for breakfast on those three days. Don't worry though. We absolutely checked out some great coffee shops too.

My husband is now a die-hard Eggs Benedict fan. Seriously, so much, I think he could eat it daily for the rest of his life. The Hollandaise sauce has a boat load of butter... that's explanation enough. The guy loves butter. But if we're honest, who doesn't? I admit though, and some won't agree, I have a limit.

Pile ham on baked biscuits

Needless to say, we've made this dish many Saturday mornings since our San Diego trip. The husband has become somewhat of a Hollandaise sauce master. Don't tell him because his head will swell, but his sauce is better than mine.

To spice up this recipe, I decided we should try a new approach. I'm so glad we did. We loved it. We will still make the traditional style Eggs Benedict with english muffins but this new recipe will definitely be entered into our food rotation too.

Pile over-easy eggs on biscuits and ham

Biscuit Eggs Benedict

Tube of Pillsbury biscuits (8 count) I used flaky layers but regular biscuits will work too
8-10 eggs
thinly sliced ham (I used 2 slices per biscuit)
salt and pepper

Hollandaise Sauce

4 egg yolks
1 stick of butter
4  cap fulls of lemon juice*
5 shakes of paprika*
5 shakes of black pepper*


Instructions on making the sauce (written by Jeremy, the husband):

Start by separating the egg yolks from the whites and reserve them in a bowl.  Next melt one stick of butter in the microwave for about 1-1/2 minutes, be sure to cover as it will splatter.  Combine the paprika, pepper and lemon juice with the egg yolks and whisk until smooth.  Finally mix the melted butter with the rest of the ingredients slowly while whisking them together.  Pretty easy and simple compared to a traditional method while achieving a very similar results.

Pour on the sauce

Cook the biscuits according to the tube's directions. Cook all eggs over-easy or however you like your eggs cooked. Salt and pepper the eggs while cooking. When biscuits are fully baked, add ham to top of biscuits. Place the eggs on ham. Pour Hollandaise sauce over the eggs. Warm in oven for a few minutes, if needed.

Just look at that sloppy goodness!

 **Love Jeremy's measuring method haha

Banana Jam

I was introduced to banana jam by the mom of my daycare kids, Jackie. She knocked this one out of the park. I begged her to share the recipe and she said YES! So here it is:

This, my friends, is ooey gooey toasty warm flavorful goodness!

Banana Jam

3 bananas, sliced very thin
1/3 cup water
1 cup sugar

Cook sugar (yes, sugar only) over medium heat until the sugar mostly melts and turns light brown. Add water. Adding the water may make the sugar hard, but don't panic. It will gradually dissolve. Add bananas and cook over low heat until there are little to no banana chunks.

Put jam in canning jars. If you don't have any canning jars, don't stress. Just put the jam in some tupperware containers and refrigerate. No worries on expiration dates... you'll go through it fast!

Jackie also brought us Thomas English Muffins. A limited edition... banana bread. Oh, I'm telling you these little delights are amazing. I topped my toasted english muffin with peanut butter and banana jam. Because of the banana bread english muffin and the banana jam, you might think the banana flavor would be overpowering, but it really isn't. It was a perfect blend of peanut butter, banana and english muffin.

Thousand Island Burger

I'm not a huge fan of Thousand Island Dressing, but I do enjoy it on sandwiches and burgers. If it makes the sandwich messy, I'm sold! I'm still not able to fully understand my obsession with messy food, but I see it as a positive thing and I'm always assured by others that I am not alone when it comes to this obsession.

Today I have a delicious Thousand Island Burger made with a beef patty, fried onions, Swiss cheese, homemade dressing and sourdough bread. Much like a Patty Melt.

Thousand Island Dressing is made a few different ways. Some people add chopped eggs or Worcestershire Sauce. I went a little more bland with mine. I will definitely add Worcestershire sauce next time. The dressing was good as is, but the Worcestershire sauce would add a nice flavor.

Thousand Island Dressing (makes  1 cup):

½ cup mayo

¼ cup ketchup

¼ cup sweet relish (a little more, a little less, depending on your relish preference)

Dash of salt and pepper

Now to construct your burger:

Grill or fry up some beef patties. Fry some onions. Cut the sourdough into nice thick slices. Spread butter on one side of each slice of bread. Place one slice butter side down in a frying pan. Spread a generous amount of dressing on the bread. Place a slice of cheese on top of the dressing, add the grilled/fried patty, then the fried onions and then another slice of cheese. Finally, add more dressing to the second slice of bread. Place the slice, dressing side down & butter side up, to the burger. Cook the sandwich at a med-low heat for about 7 minutes, carefully flip it and cook for another 7 minutes.

Enjoy!

Grilled Honey Mustard Turkey Sandwich

The more I dive into this amateur chef gig, the more I learn how easy it is to make things from scratch. Homemade is SO much better than store bought. 

I love sandwiches full of messy goodness. My first thought was to make a turkey sandwich with chipotle mayo, but then I decided I was in the mood for honey mustard. I’m female… I change my mind, it’s totally acceptable. 

First, I headed to Allrecipes and found a base honey mustard. Again, I’m kind of a rebel and don’t always like to follow directions. The recipe I found called for mayo, Dijon mustard and honey. Boring! But it was a great recipe to get me started.

Personally, the mayo this recipe calls for is overwhelming, you may want to reduce it if you are making a smaller batch. I started out using just Dijon mustard, but quickly decided I needed to add yellow mustard too. I slowly increased the amount of mustards until it reached MY mustard standards. Depending on how much of a mustard taste you want, you may want to add more mustard or even take some away. The mustard this recipe calls for isn’t overwhelming by any means.
Experiment a bit.

Homemade Honey Mustard

• ½ cup Mayonnaise
• 1 ½ tsp. Honey
• 1 ½ tbsp. Dijon Mustard (Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?)
• 1 ½ tbsp. Yellow Mustard
• ½ tsp. Cheyenne Pepper
• ¼ tsp. Ground Cumin
• ½ tsp. Black Pepper

Stir together mayo, honey, Dijon mustard and yellow mustard. Add spices and stir. Uh… can you say easy?

Makes about 2/3 cup of honey mustard. 

Let’s add this delicious honey mustard to a kick tush grilled turkey sandwich!

Grilled Honey Mustard Turkey Sandwich

• Deli Turkey
• Choice of cheese (provolone melts nicely)
• Italian Bread Loaf (cut to the thickness you desire)
• Onions, green or red peppers, mushrooms (add or take whatever veggie you’d like)
• Honey Mustard from scratch
• A bit of butter (to butter the bread)

Saute the veggies in 1/2 tbsp of olive oil or sprinkle water on them from time to time. While the veggies cook, prepare 2 slices of bread by spreading a light layer of butter on one side of each slice. This side will be the outside of the sandwich and will go directly onto the skillet. 

On the opposite side of one slice, spread a fairly generous amount of the homemade honey mustard. 

Add turkey, cheese, sauteed veggies, turkey and cheese (in this order) on top of the honey mustard. On the other slice of bread, spread some more honey mustard and add it, honey mustard side down, to the sandwich. 

Turn burner to medium-low and put the sandwich into the skillet, buttered sides should be on the outside. We want the insides to get warm, but we don’t want to burn the bread so don’t cook it too fast. After 4-5 minutes, slowly and ever so carefully flip the sandwich. It will require both hands. One hand using the spatula and other hand guiding the sandwich as you flip it. Cook for another 4-5 minutes. 

It’s a big sandwich and we want the insides to be warm and the cheese to be melty. You may want to cover the sandwich and turn the burner to simmer or possibly turn the burner off. The heat from the pan might be enough to keep warming the sandwich.

This sandwich was everything I thought it would be. The honey mustard gave it some zing and added a really great flavor. It was cheesy, creamy and very satisfying. So much in fact, I couldn’t finish. I did my best though.