Personal Egg and Sausage Pizzas

So much potential, and it just didn't pay off for me...but the family liked it.  I found this recipe in the mymagzine that was mailed to my house from Smith's.

I've recently discovered naan flatbread.  I like to eat it warmed up with a bit of butter.  Or I've used the little rounds of naan bread to make mini pizzas for my kids with spaghetti sauce, mozzarella cheese, and fresh basil.  But this recipe was about Breakfast for Dinner.

The first thing I would say is LINE THE COOKIE SHEETS WITH PARCHMENT.  The flatbread stuck to the pan and the egg mixture baked onto the pan.  Clean up was awful.  The hash browns didn't add a lot of flavor and I wonder if baking them before (or using Alton Brown's recipe) would make a difference.  I bought and cooked sausage links and cut them up instead of pre-cooked sausage patties to crumble.  I think patties would make more sense and be easier to sprinkle across the surface of the pizzas.  I shredded my own cheese instead of buying the finer shredded store bought stuff.  I think a finer shred would act as a barrier to the egg mixture better than what I did.  I didn't dice the tomatoes small enough, but they lost the fresh tomato taste and were really yummy being roasted (yes, this is coming from someone who doesn't like tomatoes).

All these good ingredients ended up for me with a bland taste and not worth the effort.  (A bland quiche is what it reminded me of when I was aiming for Christmas Casserole.)  However, the kids liked it, and Nate ate two full flatbreads.  Maybe with a bit of practice, I can get this one to work.

Black Bean Soup

 It's cold and I want warm food.  That means another soup recipe.  In fact, this whole week's worth of recipes is new.  I hope my family forgives me for subjecting them to so many new recipes in one week.

I received Sara Wells & Kate Jones' recipe book of Our Best Bites several years ago for Christmas, and am still working my way through all of the recipes.  So, this week's stuff all comes from there.  Today I tried their Black Bean Soup.  I was "souper" worried because I don't normally serve black-colored food for dinner (besides chocolate), and while the kids seemed apprehensive, they didn't actually say anything.

The soup itself tasted really good and smelled really good when cooking.  I don't use my immersion blender often, so that was a new experience.  (And took a really long time).  I liked adding taco chips and cheese to the soup.  I would definitely make this recipe again...

...but not as a soup.  At dinner, Nate said, "You made a really good bean dip."  And he was right.  The texture was off for soup, but if I'm ever asked to bring a bean dip, this will be what I make.  Yum!

Chicken Barley Soup

Several years ago, Nate bought a Low-Glycemic cookbook from Deseret Industries (a local thrift store).  I  have been so impressed with the flavors in this book and how full everyone is.  Not everything is a success (I'm looking at you, Sweet Potato, Carrot, and Ginger Soup), but this book has definitely added some fun recipes to my files.  And here's another one.

So, this isn't a new recipe per say because I've cooked it before, but none of my family remembers me serving it in the past, so I'm going to count it.  This is a great recipe for a Sunday because it takes a while to poach the chicken and cook regular barley.  However, I "cheated" this time on a Tuesday with left-over shredded chicken from another meal and "quick barley" which was all I could find at the store.  The chicken was a little dry versus previous time when I've poached and cubed it myself, but it wasn't horrible.

I took a knife cutting class a couple of years ago, so I got to practice my knife skills with the carrots, celery, and onions.  Yay for vegetables.  I left out the mushrooms (eww, gross), but hesitantly added the spinach.  Glad I did.  It was fun to watch it shrivel up and it actually tasted pretty good in the soup.  Even the kids didn't complain, so that's a win.

In the end, this recipe gets 3 stars from us and will remain in my Winter menu rotation.  If you want a copy of the recipe, email me.