White Basalmic Egg Salad

Day three of my Gestational Diabetes log didn't start as well as I'd hoped, my fasting numbers were close - at 95, they wanted to see them under 90, but my after breakfast (felt icky so I grabbed a bowl of cereal rather than a protein packed breakfast) my sugars skyrocketed to 182.  My highest number yet!

So terrified I brainstormed and came up with a high protein, low-carb (only 6 carbs in all) solution.

The White Balsamic Egg Salad
      (Single Serving)

3 Hard Boiled Eggs
1.5 T McCormick Mayo, with Lime
.5 T (2 t.) White Balsamic Vinegar
1/4 t. each of Salt, Pepper, and Garlic Powder

If you've never made an egg salad before, its incredibly simple, boil the eggs for 15 minutes, let cool, peel, mash up with a fork, and throw all the ingredients in.

The reason this one makes my list of "extreme yummies" is the white balsamic vinegar, I found myself out of pickle juice one day and swapped in some balsamic, the white just makes it that much more flavorful.  The consistency of it is salad is divine, creamy and rich, but still chunky (If you like smoother eggs feel free to mash more!)  The other fun thing with this Egg Salad is the versatility of eating, I put mine as a lettuce wrap because I didn't want the extra carbs from bread, but its also great to use as a dip for carrots, celery, and peppers too!

Nutritional Notes: Total meal for all 3 eggs in 3 lettuce wraps 429 calories, 6 carbs, 33 g of fat, 20 g of protein. Use light mayo, or 2 egg whites and one whole egg to reduce fat!

The Key to Good Mission-Style Breakfast Burritos

In looking over our budget food is where we spend a good deal of our money each month.  Most of our budget goes to utilities, mortgage, gas, or debt (yay school loans...yes that is sarcasm.)  What is left goes to food, and in truth we really don't have money for much.  But being a stay at home mom is its own blessing and I wouldn't trade it for all the money in the world.

One of the ways my husband and I have discovered saves us some good bucks is to make him breakfast and lunches.  On average if he eats breakfast and lunch out he can spend $5-10 a day, that's $150-300 a month, $250 is our goal for our entire grocery bill (as of yet we haven't quite made it though we've come close twice.)

Neither of us are morning people - when my daughter wakes up at 7 am I usually spend at least an hour of that day in tears, and that means getting up a half hour to an hour early every morning to make breakfasts and lunches really doesn't help my mental state, and Scottie doesn't relish the idea of adding a good deal more time to cook a nice breakfast either.  So what to do?  Freezer breakfasts!

We have done mission style breakfast burritos many times, and every time we do it we love them all the more.  And I'm prepared to share with you our secrets.

The key to good mission style burritos are well-seasoned hash browns...unless of course you don't like or have hash browns, you like fresh breakfast potatoes, or prefer them baked or fried in oil.  I use shredded frozen hash browns (some of the time) pan-fried with a tiny pat of butter (not really enough to even coat the bottom of the pan) and seasoned with Le's Classic Seasonings: salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder (didn't I say last blog I season everything with these?) and a little bit of sage.  Sometimes I'll add a bit of cumin or thyme or rosemary.  I experiment with these and it adds a slight variation, and is fun.  Cook your hash browns and set them aside, and you're on to your next step.

Cook up your hash browns. 

The key to good mission style burritos is good crispy bacon...unless of course you are vegetarian, or are in the mood for sausage, pork, or ham.  I have used it all, today I oven baked my bacon while preparing my other ingredients.  Line a cookie sheet (or something with at least an inch lip to catch the oil) with aluminum foil and lay out your bacon in a flat sheet over the top.  Stick it in the oven and turn your oven on to 425 degrees (don't preheat it!) Set your timer for 24 minutes for crispy bacon, and 20 minutes for chewy bacon.

Pan "bake" bacon.

Be careful when you're removing to not spill the oil, place on a plate with paper-towels and when cool crumble it up.  (If you do sausage make sure to remove any casings!)

Nice Crispy Bacon...Yum!

The key to good mission style burritos is nice sauteed mushrooms...unless of course you like peppers, tomatoes, onions or some other vegetable in your breakfast burritos!  Since these are mostly for my husband and he loves him some mushrooms, I gave them a nice big chop and pan fried them with a smidgen of butter.  Saute up your veggies to soften them up.  Sometimes I add my veggies directly to my eggs and sometimes I sprinkle them on top.

Saute your veggies.

The key to good mission style burritos is cheesy scrambled eggs...unless of course you don't like cheese.  I have done all sorts of things with my eggs, adding veggies, adding cheese, adding chunks of meat.  I always season them with my Le's Classic Seasonings, and sometimes I'll add sage or cumin or Italian seasoning.  (Taste it a few times to make sure you're adding enough!)  Today I used about a quarter lb of swiss and quarter a lb of cheddar cheese.  I mixed half in with my eggs and used half as a "sprinkle."  It is important to get a nice firm set to your eggs because you don't want them to get your tortillas soft.  A good key to getting the right amount of eggs is to double your tortillas and add 1-3 more.  I did 17 eggs and got 8 burritos.

Notice the cheese outside the pan as a sacrifice to the "Good Breakfast Burrito Gods." (My pan was almost too small for 17 eggs! lol.)

The key to good mission style burritos is the medium pork green chili sauce...unless of course you prefer hot or mild, or salsa...verde or regular, or sausage gravy.  Today I didn't have my "standard" pork green chili sauce, I used a simple diced green chili salsa that we enjoy.  If you want to make a quick'n'dirty easy sausage gravy: brown sausage, add a can of cream of mushroom soup, a blurp (less than 1/4 c. but more than a couple T.) of sour cream, and some Le's Classic and sage.  If you're using a green chili sauce you need to make up, follow the directions on the can, if you're just using a salsa you can either add it to your eggs or add it before you fold up the burrito.  I have done both and its good either way.

The key to good mission style burritos is the layering...unless you throw it all in with the eggs, which works too.  Today I did my hash browns, then eggs, then veggies, then cheese, then bacon, then green chili salsa.  I will say this, it is important to draw a single line in the center of the tortilla with it.

Notice the line right in the center?  Make sure to leave at least an inch on the top and bottom and 2 inches on each side. 

Tear off several pieces of aluminum foil (one each) and put a tortilla in the center.  Fill it with your layers right down the center, leaving an inch on top and bottom and 2 inches on each side.  Then fold it.

Fold the Top Down and the Bottom Up. 

Fold over one side.

Then roll it over again so you're at the edge of the foil. Then roll the foil the way you rolled up the tortilla. 

Remember to date your burritos and add a quick label (in case you decide to add a different kind before they're all gone).  And stick them in the freezer.  When you're ready to use them you can either stick them in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes or you can nuke them (without the foil please!) for 3-5 minutes.  Scott says if he's left the frozen burrito on his desk for most of the day and its defrosted some he can cook it faster.

I did get 8 burritos out of this, but I had one to eat with my 2 year old for breakfast hehe.

The Recipe I used today: (Prices are very rough estimates)

1/8 a bag of shredded hashbrowns ($.50)
17 Eggs ($1.50)
1/2 - 1 lb Cheese (1/2 cheddar 1/2 swiss) ($1.25-2.50)
1 lb Zaycon Bacon ($3)
7 Mushrooms ($.75)
1/4 jar of Medium Green Chili Salsa ($.87)
Seasonings ($.15)
8 Tortillas ($2)

Total Spent: Guessing about $10.  ($10.02 adding my guest-imates there) Which means each Breakfast burrito is roughly $1.25 - $1.40.

Today's Mission-Style Breakfast Burritos

The truth is the real key to good Mission-Style Breakfast Burritos is to make them!  They can be done in a huge variety of ways, and adjusted to whatever you and your family likes, and they'll always be tasty, and they'll almost always be around $1 - $1.50 a burrito.  It took me about 45 minutes from start to finish to knock these out, and I fed my husband breakfast while I did them, and it will feed him breakfast 7 more times.    

Budget Lunches - Pint Jar Meals

So I've seen these meals going around called Pint Jar Meals on Pinterest, I'm intrigued because frankly when you wake up in the morning who wants to bag a lunch of the same peanut butter and jam sandwich, and Hot Pockets - while great - get old and still aren't the cheapest option.

So I decided to test some of the Pint Jar Meals on my hubby this weekend.  While I made dinner tonight I "beefed it up" and knocked out 5 jars (enough to get him through the rest of the week).  In truth it really wasn't much more strenuous then making a good meal, and took almost the same amount of time.  If my husband likes them and they heat well / are as convenient as I hope, I'll attempt to make them every Monday.

I made 3 classics: Shepherd's Pie, Spaghetti, and Enchiladas. Which made 5 jars because we ate the spaghetti for dinner tonight.

I started by browning up 2 pounds of meat (roughly 1 for our dinner and roughly 1 for his lunches).  I used Elk and Hamburger because we like the flavor of Elk but I want to stretch it out.  You can use any sort of ground meat you like (turkey, beef, pork, venison, etc.)

I added some "always" seasonings to my meat: salt, pepper, garlic powder and dried onion flakes or onion powder.  It is rare that I'll do a meal without at least a touch of each of these five, they're our Go-Tos, and add flavor without a lot of added bad stuff.  The salt is the only real one you want to watch out for.

I divvied it up into 3 pans - one for each recipe, my spaghetti pan got the majority because that was dinner tonight.

Then I added my sauce and basic seasonings to each pan.

To my spaghetti pan a 6 oz can of Tomato Paste and a jar of home-canned tomatoes. (Or diced tomatoes from a jar is good, too.)  About a tablespoon of brown sugar, a generous shake or two of Italian seasoning, (oregano, basil, rosemary and thyme) usually a bit more salt and a pepper go in my "basic spaghetti" seasonings.

To my shepherd's pie pan a can of cream of mushroom soup, about 2 T of sour cream (more or less to taste) and a blurp (a little less than 1/4 c.) of milk.  For a bit of added flavor add some Worcestershire and some liquid smoke.  Usually I'll add extra garlic powder and onion powder.  I have been known to throw a dusting of sage, thyme, oregano, rosemary, or cumin, but then I like to spice things up differently most of the time depending on my mood - experiment!  

To my enchilada pan a can of medium enchilada sauce, and about half a packet of taco seasoning.  If it isn't "enough" I'll add a few red pepper flakes (Sparingly its spicy!) and cumin.

Mix each of the pans and let the sauce come together a few minutes.  Taste it and see if it needs anything, tweak as needed.

Add your veggies.  Here is where you can get creative, add what you like.  All three can take mushrooms, diced tomatoes, and onions or green onions.  Shepherd's pie can have green beans, enchilada's can have corn, spaghetti I've heard is great with some diced zucchini.  The point is sneak in some veggies when your family or hubby isn't looking.  Since my whole family likes mushrooms, especially Scottie-who these are for, I did a large slice on them and tossed them in with the enchiladas and shepherd's pie (we ran out before I could put them in the spaghetti!)

Let the veggies break down and your sauces come together stirring often.

Do your starch (if it requires doing!) I boiled a thing of water and did my noodles, then while we were eating I boiled my potatoes.

Mash your potatoes (I did 3 small-medium russets and they topped 2 pint jars perfectly).  I like to add another blurp of milk (remember a little less than 1/4 c.) and dollop of sour cream.  Sometimes I'll go the whole nine yards and dice and saute up a few cloves of garlic to go in it.

Do your finishing work then put your jars together.  Remember the sturdier stuff goes on the bottom, stuff that will get soggy or crushed goes on the top.

Enchilada meat sauce with diced cheese on top and 3 folded tortillas in a ziplock bag.

Spaghetti meat sauce on the bottom noodles on the top.  (I would have preferred to have more meat sauce on the bottom but we ate more than I'd thought during dinner! hehe.)  If I had bread or rolls I would have made garlic bread and stuck it on top in a ziplock.  

Shepherd's Pie - I put a slice of cheese on the top to melt when he heats it. 

So like I said, these are an experiment for us, and I have no way of knowing yet if they worked or not - but I will be sure to give everyone my husband's review of them at the end of the day.  (Including whether or not it warmed quickly or if he spent half his lunch stirring and dumping out on plates.)

Have you ever done Pint Jar Meals?  These seem like a great idea for the working adult, or for a single adult.  I've heard they freeze well too, we have a pint jar in the freezer now with Scott's "famous" chili.  If it works then I'll let you know!  Feel free to let me know what works for you in the comments below!