Little Ivy Cakes

BREAKFAST AT WORK On FRIDAY (Yipppeee!)

I really love Fridays!
On Friday, I always get a really excited feeling all-over, inside-out.
The feeling like... when I was a kid and school was about to let out for summer break. You know what I mean?
You have the WHOLE weekend ahead of you and there is so much freedom and potential for those two precious days.

A nice breakfast at work on Friday to start the day makes it even better.
Yeah, we started this thing in my department at work where each of us take turns bringing in breakfast on Fridays. I was up first to either set or blow the standard for things to come. Hahahaha!

After thinking long and hard about what I was going to bring, I decided on the following menu:
-Eggs with cream, spinach, and sausage
-Home Fries with fresh dill
-Mini Blueberry Muffins
-Welch's Berry, Pineapple, Passion fruit juice
(I loved this juice! it was very light and not to acidic)
and
-Fresh Fruit


Everything came out really delicious.

1. The egg thing was, in my opinion, out of this word-you have to make this!
2. The Home-Fries were good. I have made them before-a bit greasy but not too bad. My first attempt was to make home fries that were potatoes in little bite size pieces but I ended up cooking them for too long and they turned into mushy mashed potatoes. FRICKER-FRACKER!Why I decided to boil them in water first-I don't know.
I started over with new and did round slices instead skipping the boiling part.
Any creative suggestions on what to do with a whole bunch of seasoned mashed potatoes ? PLEASE, Anyone, anyone out there?
3.The little button-muffins turned out perfectly cute. I liked them because they had this crunchy topping you but on before baking.

Recipes to follow...

EGGS WITH CREAM, SPINACH, AND SAUSAGE
(adapted from a recipe in Gourmet Magazine)
Make 4
Ingredients
4 6oz ramekins
4 large eggs
9 tablespoons heavy cream
3 Jimmy Dean, Classic, already cooked pork sausage thinly sliced
1 1/2 tbs. butter
5 oz baby spinach with stems cut off
1tsp garlic, finely chopped
1 tbs. onion, finely chopped
salt and pepper
dill or pretty herb for garnish

-In a small saucepan simmer heavy cream and sausage slices. Take off heat and let steep 7 minutes.
-Saute onions with 1tbs butter for 2 minutes until soft. Add garlic and cook 1 more minute, sprinkle some salt and pepper and add spinach-gently tossing with tongs until wilted.
take off heat and chop up.
-Preheat oven to 350F
-put ramekins in a shallow baking pan
-Divide spinach mix, and sausage equally among ramekins and spoon 1tbs cream for each ramekin.
-Crack 1 egg into each ramekin and sprinkle with some salt and pepper


-Spoon another tbs. cream over the eggs
-Cook in oven for 10-18 minutes until egg is poached-looking. Don't over cook because the bottom if the egg will hard boil.
-Serve right away while warm.

The cool thing about this recipe is that you change things up by putting little pieces of asparagus/bell-peppers/mushrooms/zucchini instead of the spinach.
Or
Prosciutto, bacon, or turkey meat instead of sausage.
These are full of flavor and rich so you may think you want to make two per person but, you actually may not need to after all.

HOME-FRIES

serves 4
Ingredients
2 cups kinda' thinly sliced mini red potatoes
1/2 cube butter
1 tbs olive oil
1 tablespoon Montreal Steak Seasoning
dash of crushed red pepper
1 tsp unsalted Spike (I found this at Ralph's and is my miracle spice)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

-Heat butter and olive oil with spices until simmering
add potatoes and cook until browned, crunchy yet soft in the middle

BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

Made 28 mini muffins
Ingredients
6 tbs unsalted butter
1/3 cup milk
1 egg yolk
1 egg
1 tbs vanilla
1 1/2 cups four
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup frozen but thawed wild blueberries ( I get mine at Trader Joe's)

-Melt butter in a saucepan, then take off heat and whisk in milk, egg yolk, egg, and vanilla
-In a medium mixing bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt
-Slowly add the butter mix to the flour mixture and stir until just combined
-Add blueberries and swirl lightly a couple times-don't mix too well, you will have swirls that will look pretty.

-Spoon batter into your desired muffin papers and/or pan

-Preheat oven to 375F

MUFFIN TOPPING

-Mix 3 tbs chilled unsalted butter, 1/2 cup flour, and 3 1/2 tbs. sugar until mixed and turns into crumbs.
-Sprinkle topping over muffin batter and bake 10-20 minutes.

I guess that's the end of my blog. :) Now...to the pile of dishes...

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYBODY!