Breakfast Tostadas

Whenever I need an easy meal that doesn’t seem too bleh like sandwiches or worse chicken nuggets, I make up some breakfast for dinner. Breakfast meals always seem like so much less work than dinners. When we lived in Utah we loved the breakfast burritos from Beto’s … this is our rendition of that delicious meal.
Ingredients:

• 1 large potato (any kind) or two small potatoes, cleaned and diced into thin hash strips
• 6 eggs
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 1 onion, diced
• bacon, as much as you’d like, cooked in the oven as I talk about here
• Oil for cooking
• Salt/pepper to taste
• Corn tortillas
• Garnish with: shredded cheese, hot sauce, salsa

Before you cook the potatoes, bacon and eggs, shred your cheese and get your salsa and/or hot sauce out. The in a skillet warm 2 tbsp. of oil with the diced peppers and onions. Cook until soft. Once soft add 2-3 tsp. of hot sauce. Stir and set aside, covered. If you haven’t cooked the bacon yet you can start it now. It takes about 15 minutes.
Throw diced potatoes on a non-stick skillet coated with a little oil, over medium high heat. Don’t flip until the bottoms are golden brown. You don’t want to flip or mess with them too much. Also I think the non-stick pan is essential for these. When we were first married I tried it with a stainless steel pan and it was a starchy, sticky mess. I always use my non-stick griddle for cooking potatoes now. Once one side is brown flip over, breaking up clumps. Add salt and pepper while cooking. Once cooked turn heat off and let them stay warm on pan.
Whisk eggs with a small amount of water to make them fluffy. Pour them into a pan coated with cooking spray over medium heat. Cook until scrambled.
Assemble tostada with corn tortilla (we like to use 2!) potatoes, eggs, bacon, onion/pepper mixture, cheese, and then more salsa or hot sauce. It is so good with hot sauce! Or if you prefer a little less sizzle salsa tastes great too. Really fresh. Enjoy!

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Pumpkin French Toast made with Cinnamon Bread

When I was making cinnamon rolls last weekend I had a little extra dough. I rolled it up like the other cinnamon rolls, but didn’t cut it into rolls… I put it in a bread pan and let it rise for an extra 30 minutes, then baked it up (350 degrees, 15 mins).
Once it was done baking, I set it aside and after it was cooled wrapped it up in some foil. I set it aside for a couple days, waiting to make some pumpkin french toast with it. It was hard to resist eating the cinnamon bread while it was in our house, but if you’ve ever had french toast with cinnamon bread you know how good it is! The middle part of the cinnamon bread (where the butter and sugar and cinnamon are all gooey) gets carmalized on the outside during the cooking process and stays gooey on the inside of the french toast. Also the homemade bread is a lot more porous than store bought sliced bread so it soaks up the egg/pumpkin mixture much better.
If you don’t want to make cinnamon bread for your french toast try one of these purchased cinnamon breads—they make such a difference for french toast. A favorite of ours is the Great Harvest Cinnamon Chip bread. Also the Kneaders Cinnamon monkey bread or most grocery stores offer a “homemade” style cinnamon bread in their bakery area.
Ingredients:

• Cinnamon bread or monkey bread, sliced
• 3/4 c. pumpkin puree
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• butter for cooking

Heat a griddle or pan (I like to heat my griddle to the highest setting which is 400 F degrees). While it’s heating, whisk together pumpkin, milk, egg, vanilla, and cinnamon. Melt butter on griddle or pan. Dip sliced bread into pumpkin/egg mixture and let soak until covered on each side. Cook on each side until golden brown.
The gooey cinnamon center is so good. Jazz up your family’s french toast! And the pumpkin and cinnamon are the perfect rich ways to make this taste like fall. We used maple syrup this time but I have tried homemade cinnamon syrup and that is always delicious too! And yes, confession we did eat this for dinner. It’s always fun to mix up dinner with a recipe that’s easy for me a crowd pleaser for the fam.

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Sticky Cream Cheese Cinnamon Rolls with Lion House Dough

Over the past 10 years I’ve made a lot of different cinnamon roll recipes. I’ve tried different types of dough, some fillings with nuts, some without, different frostings and glazes… and only in the past year have I really gotten down what I think is the BEST recipe. The dough is so fluffy and light it rises quickly and makes for the softest pull-apart bready portion of the roll. But the filling is gooey enough that while the outside layers of roll are bready and light, the inside is gooey and dripping with melted cinnamon/sugar/butter mixture. Also a cream cheese frosting is a must, but I’ve found it’s best to make it a little differently than a traditional cream cheese buttercream—so it melts better on the top of each roll. Okay now that I’m salivating (!) I’ll get into the recipe.
First off, I start with the Lion House roll recipe for the dough. Of any dough I’ve made this is ALWAYS the best. It has an egg and melted butter and powdered milk in it so the dough is super soft, and I add extra yeast so it rises quickly and softly.
Dough:

• 2 tablespoons dry active yeast (the recipe calls for 2 but I use 4 tablespoons)
• 2 cups warm water
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 2 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup nonfat dry milk
• 1 egg
• 6 cups flour

Filling:

• 1 c. packed brown sugar
• 2 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1/3 c. butter softened

Cream cheese frosting:

• 1/3 c. butter softened
• 1/2 package cream cheese, softened
• 2-3 c. powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 5-8 tablespoons of milk, as needed

Dissolve yeast in water. Add all ingredients except 3-4 cups of flour in a stand mixer, and mix with dough hook until smooth. Gradually add the remaining flour. Turn out onto floured surface and knead gently until dough is soft and incorporated.  Place dough in a greased bowl, cover with a towel or plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled, about an hour. (When you add more yeast the dough rises faster—I find my first rise only takes 30-45 minutes for my dough to double. You should try it!)
After dough has risen, punch down and knead into ball. Roll out onto floured surface. Roll into a large rectangular shape. *In the past I’d seen recipes indicating roll the dough as thin as possible to get as many layers of cinnamon roll as possible, however I’ve found that by leaving the dough a little thicker it rises much better and stays much fluffier throughout the 2nd rise and baking process. The cinnamon rolls don’t have as many layers but they are much much better!
Once the dough is rolled out, use your hands to spread 1/3 c. softened butter over dough. Then mix packed brown sugar with cinnamon. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar mixture evenly over dough. Roll dough into vertical log (notice how loosely I rolled it).
Cut dough at approximately every 1 inch to make 12-18 rolls depending on how big each roll is (I made a pan of 10 and saved the extra dough for some cinnamon bread). Here’s what my rolls looked like just after cutting and placing in a 9x13 pan (sprayed with cooking spray):
Cover and let rise for 15 minutes on top of stove. Meanwhile set stove to 200 degrees F to keep the area around the rolls warm. After they’ve risen, place them in the 200 degree oven for 5 minutes, then turn the temperature up to 350 degrees F and bake for 15-18 more minutes (don’t open the oven door when you raise the temp).
While the rolls are baking, prepare your frosting. In a stand mixer whip butter and cream cheese as hard as the beater will go. Cream cheese is finicky and you have to beat it hard to get the lumps out and make sure it’s fully incorporated into the butter and whipped. Then turn down the speed and add the powdered sugar slowly, alternating with a bit of milk. Add vanilla. Continue adding powdered sugar and milk until you get a smooth consistency, slightly thinner than traditional butter cream. You want the frosting to melt easily on the rolls so it will almost be a mixture of icing and frosting—not too thin but not too thick.
Pull them out and frost immediately! I like to frost each one individually rather than slathering frosting on the whole pan at once.

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