Breakfast Pancake Burger

Yeah, this one is definitely inspired by my adorable carnivore SO. Meat-man loves beef, pretty sure I only trump steak by a few points. Therefore, when we had a grill-out at a park with some friends and came home with some leftover burger patties, he was a happy camper.

As I often do on weekends, I woke up early, checked email and Twitter, blogged a bit, and decided what fancy thing I would make for breakfast. I love weekends because there is so much more time in the morning to make something other than pop-tarts or a smoothie. (Don't get me wrong, I looooooove smoothies.)

I decided on pancakes. 

About this time, meat-man comes stumbling sleepily into the kitchen, and heads straight to the fridge. Upon noticing the nicely browning pancakes, and seeing the leftover picnic food, his eyes light up. I quickly made the connection too, and though it breaks so many nutrition rules, I had to admit I was curious.

Yes, I'll let you have a pancake burger. For science.

It grosses me out personally, and makes my arteries cringe, but if the happy noises and time it took to demolish (about 15 seconds) is any evidence, it's damn good. So if you're feeling brave or want to make a man you know speechless with joy, have at this breakfast beast.

Ingredients:

2 pancakes

2 eggs, scrambled

1 burger patty

Maple syrup

1 slice of cheese

*Not counting this as a less than 5, because individual ingredients (pancake, burger) take several more ingredients to make.

Step 1: Scramble the eggs in a small bowl. Add to a hot, sprayed pan, and cook into a small patty themselves by pushing the sides into the middle with a spatula as it cooks.

Step 2: If you haven't yet, make pancakes, at least 2.

Step 3: Make or reheat your burger patty, and place on top of one pancake.

Step 4: Cover with egg, cheese, and some syrup.

Step 5: Top with the other pancake.

This bad boy was about the size of my face.

Then when you finish it all, you can go right back to bed in a food coma. If ever I have a restaurant (le sigh) this will totally be a food challenge on my menu.

What's your dream breakfast?

How to cook a whole Brisket

Beef brisket is by far one of my favorite cuts of meat. Brisket comes from the chest area of a cow, and is chock full of connective tissue called collagen. This is what can cause meat to be tough and chewy. This is also why brisket requires a loooooooong cooking time. Chefs and home cooks will all have varying opinions on the best rubs, sauces, and ways to cook brisket. In my opinion, there really isn't a wrong way, as long as brisket is being served I'm a happy camper! 

If you're intimidated by trying to cook such a large chunk of meat (since stores usually sell it by the whole brisket, i.e. the entire chest muscle) you can probably ask a store butcher to cut it into smaller sizes. But let me assure you, if I can pull this off in my tiny apartment kitchen, you sure can too! Do be aware that a whole brisket is typically upwards of ten pounds. Though some part of that is the "fat cap", a thick band of fat connected to the meat, and you probably want to cut that off before eating. But leave it on for the cooking part, as it helps keep the meat tender and juicy, and tasting awesome! 

If I had a huge grill, I would use that baby on low and slow all day. Since I don't have that, I made due with baking in the oven. And I'm totally not mad about that. I used mustard as the base for the rub, to get it to stick, and to add flavor. And made the rub from some spices I had around the house. You can change it up to use whatever spices you want, add some BBQ sauce, get creative.


Ingredients:
1 14 pound beef brisket
1 cup yellow mustard
1 cup pork rub spices
1/4 cup dried onion
1/4 cup garlic salt
Ground white pepper
Black pepper
Paprika

This is what the brisket looks like a the store. Quite the hunk of beef.

Ready and waiting to become a masterpiece.

Step 1: Smear a healthy amount of mustard all over the brisket, flip it, and cover the other side too. Use your hands and get all around the edges and in the crevices.

Step 2: In a small bowl, mix together all the spices.

Sprinkle the spice mixture liberally all over the meat. This is very thick, so it's pretty dang difficult to over-season at this stage. Rub it all over so you get a crispy, flavor-filled crust.

Beautiful.

Step 3: Place the brisket in an oven-safe pan with the fat cap upwards, so all the delicious melting fat will drip through your meat and keep it moist. Cover with foil and place into an oven set at 275. Add a cup of water or beef broth to keep it moist.

Now the hard part. Wait. This baby needs to cook for about 6-8 hours, low and slow.

When there is no longer any pink, or if you have a meat thermometer make sure it reads 150 or more, your brisket is ready to be enjoyed!

This. Meat. Is. Amazing.

I served the brisket with roasted whole new potatoes and onion, and steamed broccoli the first night. There were leftovers all week, and no one was upset about that. Made some pulled brisket BBQ sandwiches, brisket salad, just ate chunks of the salty, beefy goodness cold. 

The drippings were delicious too, but had a lot of the melted fat in it.

That didn't stop us from using the drippings as a gravy!
Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow was this good. Makes me consider changing careers to be a cattle farmer, just so I can have this once a month. Then I'd probably also have a heart attack within a decade... Worth.

Have you ever made brisket? How do you cook it?

Faster breakfast skillet: Corned beef hash & eggs

This is the short-cut version of my breakfast skillet recipe. Because sometimes we have an extra 10 minutes in the morning, but not 30. By using canned beef & potatoes you eliminate the time needed to dice up and pre-cook the potato.

Ingredients:
1 can corned beef hash
2 eggs

sprinkle shredded cheese

 Step 1: Open the can and put it in a frying pan. Doesn't that look tempting? Haha... but we will eat it anyways!

 Cook the beef and potatoes about 5 minutes, until the potatoes start to crisp and turn brown. Put half the mixture into a bowl and save the other half.

 Step 2: In the same pan, spray with cooking spray and crack 2 eggs. Cook a minute until the whites harden. Flip the eggs and cook on the other side. If you like runny yolks, you can cook just a minute and place on top of your beef hash. I like my yolks cooked through so I left it in the pan about 5 minutes total.

 Step 3: Slide the eggs on top of the hash and sprinkle on some cheese if you like.

I'm sure the health level of this is questionable at best, but you can't beat it for a hearty, stick-to-your-ribs breakfast in only 10 minutes!

Picnic favorite: 9-layer Taco Dip

I'm going to a park to play volleyball with some friends, and we will grill and have a picnic afterwards. Everyone brings something to share. I wanted to make something different from your typical hot dogs and chips type food, and anything taco-related is always a hit, so this is what I came up with. Since I already had the majority of ingredients, only needed to buy the lettuce and tomato, this was super cheap. Even if I had to re-buy everything, for a party of 10 or so people this is a cheap side/dip. It is nearly filling enough to count as a meal!

Ingredients.
1 pound ground beef
1/4 cup taco seasoning
8 oz cream cheese
8 oz sour cream
1 can refried beans
1/4 cup salsa
1/2 cup shredded cheese
1/2 ripe tomato
1/4 head of lettuce, shredded (about 1 cup)
1/4 cup sliced black olives

Step 1: Brown the ground beef in a skillet. While cooking, layer the cream cheese on the bottom of an 8x8 pan with a spoon.

 Step 2: Spread the sour cream on top of the cream cheese. Now you have 2 layers of cheesy goodness to build your mexi-masterpiece on top of.

 Step 3: Open the refried beans and mix it up in the can. You can heat this first, I just scooped it right out of the can and layered it on.

 That's 3 if you're counting.

 Step 3: Once beef is cooked, add the taco seasoning and 1/4 cup water and cook until the water boils off. The beef should now smell tangy and reminiscent of Taco Bell. Pour that over the beans and spread evenly.

 Step 4: Add as much salsa as you like on top of the beef. I just put about 1/4 cup since I'm adding real tomato as well.

 Step 5: Add a healthy handful of shredded cheddar or whatever type of cheese you like. We're up to 6 layers now...

 Step 6: Cut the lettuce into small strips and cover the cheese with crunchy green goodness.

 Step 7: Dice up a big fresh red tomato into small chunks and add those on top.

 Step 8: Sprinkle the sliced black olives on top to complete the pretty picture.

And there you have it, 9 layers of tasty chip-read dip! You can of course omit any layers you don't particularly like, and it's also an option to toss this in the oven or microwave for a few minutes after the cheese layer to warm up the meat/beans/cheeses before topping with the fresh veggies if you like it warm.

Sneaky bean & beefy pasta

In an effort to not only be healthier but also use up canned goods, I decided to take the old student standby of pasta with meat sauce and kick it up a notch. I had a half jar of Ragu from a few days ago, so I just used a small can of tomato sauce to round it out, and a can of chickpeas. (You could probably use any bean here, but chickpeas were what I had, plus they blend better than pinto or black) I didn't just want chunks of beans in my sauce, so I blended them. Makes the sauce thicker and adds protein and fiber.

Ingredients:
1/2 jar pasta sauce
1 can tomato sauce
1 can chickpeas
1 box pasta noodles of your choice
1 pound ground beef
Handful spinach

Step 1: Open the can of beans and drain half the liquid. Pour the rest and the tomato sauce into blender and liquefy it. Add extra water if it's too thick.

Step 2: Fill a large pot half full of water, add salt if you want. Bring to a rolling boil, and cook the pasta 5-8 minutes. While cooking, complete step 3. Drain when al dente (aka soft but not mush).

Step 3: Brown the ground beef in a frying pan. You want to make sure it's fully cooked. Then add the handful of spinach and cover. Cook for 3 minutes to wilt the spinach. Pour the sauce on top, mix well and cook on medium, covered, until heated through.

The beans makes the sauce thick and gives it a certain depth of flavor without being too obvious. You could also blend in the spinach once cooked so you don't even know it's there. Mixed with the plain Ragu pasta sauce and ground beef, it isn't too noticeable. This is a good way to sneak extra nutrition past whiny kids and picky hubbys. Those adjectives are probably also interchangeable. Just saying.

Country style breakfast skillet

Weekends are great for me, because I can both sleep in AND have lots of time for cooking awesome breakfasts. I'm not normally a 'breakfast person', but sometimes the mood strikes and I want something big and filling and delicious in the AM. I had plenty of potatoes, that's usually a staple in my breakfast favorites. I also had some frozen turkey bacon (go ahead and groan, any males reading this, but it tastes delicious. As long as you don't expect 'real' bacon taste) and ground beef. Kind of just making it up as I went, I came up with a restaurant-worthy breakfast skillet.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1/2 pound turkey bacon (go ahead and use real if you have it)
1/2 cup corn or other veggie (if you like that kind of thing)
2 potatoes, diced
1/2 onion, diced
4 eggs
Spray on vegetable oil or 2 tbsp oil

Step 1: Dice up the potato and onion, spray the pan with oil. Microwave the potato for 5-8 minutes to soften. Cook on medium heat for at least 10-15 minutes, until the onion and potato chunks are soft.

 Step 2: Cut up the bacon and add it and the ground beef to the pan. Cook until the ground beef is thoroughly browned. Add vegetables if you're using any. Transfer the cooked skillet to another bowl and keep warm.

 Step 3: Spray the pan again and add 2 eggs. Let them cook a few minutes, until the whites thicken. Carefully flip them to cook the other side.

 Step 4: Put about a cup of the skillet mix into a bowl, slide the cooked sunny-side up eggs on top. Viola!

This was amazingly delicious, hearty and filling. If I had the time, I'd make breakfast like this every day! But then I'd also probably weigh 50 pounds more than I do now... Anyways, enjoy!