Breakfast For One

Good morning!  I have been wanting to share my tips and tricks for Breakfast For One for a while.  I truly wanted someone else to take the pictures, mainly because I'm kind of busy during this process.  But alas, today is the day and it's up to me.  So here goes.

This Breakfast For One, as I call it, isn't because I'm single, because I'm not, but only because I cook breakfast for Shaun on the daily and I eat something else.  He needs a more "stick to your ribs" kind of start to his day.  So, I am sharing one of many breakfasts that I cook for him.  

This is for scrambled eggs, toast, and sausage gravy which today also features onions and mushrooms.

First... a tip.  It makes more sense to me to cook the eggs first.  Mainly because your pan is pretty full after the gravy.  So, I first get a bowl, pour some water in it and heat it on two minutes in the microwave.  When my eggs are cooked I pour the water out and put the eggs to rest in their warm bowl inside the microwave while I cook the sausage and gravy.

  Well thank goodness my microwave is semi clean.

Next I go ahead and chop up my onion and mushrooms while my pan is heating with a little butter in the bottom.  Even though I use a copper skillet I have little faith in "nothing" sticking, especially when I cook eggs.

And on to my next tip... I use a rubber spatula for this whole process.  It is so much easier to scrape around the sides of the pan.  And since I'm not flipping anything over it just makes more sense.

I always whisk my eggs with a little water in a measuring cup or bowl and pour them in when the pan it decently heated.  The spatula also helps to scrape around the sides of the eggs.  To scramble well I gently pull from the center while also working around the edges and turn over when necessary.  It truly only takes a couple of minutes to cook eggs.

 Look Ma!  I love my birthday mug from Cracker Barrel!!

When they're done, pour your water in the sink and place them in the bowl in the micro until you're ready to serve.

Now... on to the good stuff... gravy for one.

I precooked my mushrooms and onions in butter for just a minute then added my sausage.  I find it easier to twist the bottom of the tube of sausage and pinch off how much I need.  Let it cook until lightly browned.

You can see it really doesn't make a whole lot of grease if you use a decent quality sausage.

Here's what I use for my gravy, plus milk.

Toss in a tablespoon or a little more of flour right onto your sausage.

I like to throw in a pinch of chicken bullion and black pepper.  Toss it around with your spatula until you can't really see the flour anymore.

Then add your milk.

If I had to guess how much it's probably about a cup of milk.  Let it come to a boil.

Scrape around the sides.  I tried to get a picture of this next step.  Did not work.  When my gravy has begun to change colors to more of a tan than white and feels like it is thickening I like to take my spatula and drag it from the side inward.  When the gravy comes together slow then it's done.

Put your piece of toast on your plate next to your warm eggs and pour the sausage and gravy over the toast.  And WaaLaa!  Breakfast for one!

Kiss Kiss Hugs Hugs Have a good day!!

weekend shots

What a busy weekend it twas!  Yard sailing Friday morning before picking Katie bug up at the vet from being spade, working outside at home, library, grocery, then topping it off with a birthday party for my Mom and sister Tracy... who have the same birth date.  Beautiful weather... funny how the cold isn't bothering me anymore.  Mainly because I know it's not staying.  I love it!

Yard sale quilt.  I like the red bandana parts.  $3

New to me wagon.  I already used it trimming my rose bushes.

Kate and her cone.  She was NOT happy about it.  We took it off Saturday afternoon and she didn't bother her stitches once.

I was redoing decor on the porch, went in and through the basement to bring up a coffee table and couldn't find Cotton.  I walked around the house and looked everywhere but inside the house.  Then here she came out the front door.  Guess that's what I get for leaving it open listening to Bill Monroe.

Shaun, making a heavy duty bumper for his work truck.... pretty slick.

My kitchen window hangings

Good pic of my boy.

Silly chicken... she pooped right there on her way out.

Birthday girls!

We got my Mom tickets to Wicked!

a recipe for rabbit

There have been two very successful rounds of rabbit hunting around here in the last month.  Enough so that the first hunt brought (I wanted to say brang right then) home six and the second hunt, two weekends later, brought home thirteen!  Granny cooked a batch for us at her house one night and after the second hunt I asked Shaun to keep a couple of fresh ones out for me to cook.  I used a recipe from a new cookbook I have called Living Naturally from some local gals from Living Naturally Group of Middle Tennessee.  The recipe I found is from Gina Cooper who says it is a family favorite.  Well guess what... it's a family favorite in our house now too!  I made a few changes from the original recipe like adding the mushrooms.  Enjoy!

You seriously have no idea how wonderful this recipe is.  Wine sauce can make anything good!  Not to mention the heavenly aroma left hanging in the house for two days.  I could drink this sauce with a straw!

Scenes from Christmas Eve

We have a tradition with Shaun's side of the family of cooking the meat for Christmas day on Christmas Eve.  Shaun fires up the big smoker in the barn next door, I always include a couple of chickens for future use and most of the time have sweet potatoes to cook, and a few friends also bring their holiday meats to cook.  Since smoking meat takes several hours we get in some really good fellowship with each other and friends stopping by.  There's always lots of laughs.  Uncle Randy brings shrimp for all of us and this year Jeff brought chicken wings with homemade sauce for us to enjoy.  So we eat good during the whole cooking process.  It has turned out to be a tradition that I really look forward to.  I think this was our sixth year.  It was pretty cold out and the wind was cutting in from the north so Shaun and Gary hung tarps on both entrances to the old tobacco barn which cut the cold considerably in the old airish barn.  I really enjoy it and am thankful I have good family.