Make Ahead Breakfast

I tried this easy recipe out on my friend Susan this morning. We thought it was a success. It was a bit damp, but it got better with standing. I served it with orange juice, tea and a platter of fresh fruit.

Ingredients

• 6 slices bread in cubes: I used Texas toast and thought it would have been better with day old, Sue suggested croutons with be an easy alternative.
• 2 cups grated cheddar cheese: I used pre-grated double cheddar
• 1 cup cooked, cubed ham
• ¹/4 cup finely chopped green pepper
• ¹/2 cup finely chopped onion
• 6 eggs
• 3 cups milk

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. 

Mix the bread ham, green pepper, onion and cheese together and put into a pre-greased 13 x9x2 baking pan.

Whisk the eggs and add in the milk. Pour over the mixture in the baking pan and cook until done.  It will be very slightly browned, puffed a bit, and the eggs cooked. It took about 30 minutes.  We would suggest letting it sit for a while before slicing.

To prepare ahead cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.  If you want, you can freeze it ahead of time. It would then be thawed and baked uncovered until done.

It should make 10 servings but I think 6 to 8 is more realistic.

 

Thanksgiving Menu

Thanksgiving 2011

~~~
Turkey

Stuffing  ~ Celery, Onion and Crasins

Cranberry Sauce 

Carrots 

Corn on the Cob

Potato Casserole 
Sweet Potato with Butter & Maple Syrup
 

Pickles

Rolls  & Butter

Pumpkin Cheese Cake
Alicia's Apple Strudel  

Coffee ~ Tea ~ Wine ~ Soft Drinks

~~~

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Buttercream Icing

It is August and I needed to make some butter-cream icing, but I couldn't remember how to do it even though I have made it a 1000 times. I found it with my Christmas recipes.

 

Buttercream Icing

1 cup Shortening

1/4 teaspoon Salt

1 teaspoon Vanilla

1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons Milk

1 KG bag of Icing Sugar

Heat the milk to scalding in the microwave. In the mixer add shortening, salt and vanilla. Mix untill the shortening is softened. Alternately add the milk and the icing sugar. You need to mix it for about 15 minutes to get the right consistency.

Note that if you really want pure white icing there is a clear colored vanilla in the cake stores.

This is a great decorator icing that keeps it's shape well.

Cover the icing immediately to avoid it crusting over and store the icing in the fridge in a sealed container. It freezes well.

Paper Cranes

This crane was a project from my occupational therapist in December 2009. It was just before Christmas and my therapist thought this would be a nice change. She handed me my choice of some origami paper and an illustrated page with directions for how to make a crane. This was incredibly hard to do at that time. I have made hundreds and hundreds of these cranes in the past both with my own kids and with my Girl Guide Groups, but do you think I could do it easily even with directions?     Nope. 

The points of this exercise will have been decision making to start with  by picking the paper, following ordered directions, and some fine motors skills for my hand. I got really good at doing a lot of things one handed but paper folding wasn't one of them at that point; I needed that second hand to make sharp folds.  I presevered and managed to produce this little guy and I took him home and we hung him on our tree.
 This little crane represents so much to me. It stands for peace and it is a reminder  of a positive changing point in my recovery.

Photographer Madeline Bea is joining in a movement to show signs of hope and prayers for the people of Japan.

I am joining her and linking up with her weekly creative challenge this week "The Sunday Creative"


Madeline choose this topic in support of the people of Japan. She wrote:

You can submit your images to the 1000 Cranes for Japan Flickr group. Also, I’ve decided to make this week’s Sunday Creative prompt Crane as well to try and get even more participation, even more cranes, even more hope, and even more prayers.  The Miya Company is offering to donate $5 for each of the first 1000 crane images they receive to the Save the Children for Japan’s relief and recovery.

The Miya Company page is a nice informative page with a good goal. It includes a PDF with directions to make a crane. Check it out.

Gingerbread Man Cake

Our friends Ann and  Tom came over for dinner one evening and we had a lovely visit. Ann brought us an adorable red tin of gingerbread man cookies. I had not finished icing the cake we were having for desert yet, so I quickly changed my plans and incorporated Ann's little guys into my cake plans.

 The look of surprise on their faces was priceless once they realized what was on the cake.