Meal Prep Thursday (belated)- Breakfast on the Go & Southern Specialties
I know I haven’t done one of these double meal prep blogs in a while so I wanted to make it up to you by doing another one! This would’ve been a Tuesday meal prep blog but that was my cooking day this week 👩🍳
This time, I decided to do a breakfast on-the-go and a lunch/dinner meal prep. I absolutely love breakfast foods so I figured I would make my life a little easier in the morning and do a breakfast meal prep for a change that I could just grab out of the fridge and warm up once I got to work . I also made a semi-homemade Southern style meal prep, using some pre-made ingredients and making a good chunk of the food homemade, saving me a couple steps.
In the meantime, I’ve been prepping and planning for one of my best friends since elementary school who is visiting this weekend! Cleaning, planning, prepping, and making reservations have been my life this week.
I was also challenged by a friend to work a haiku into this blog so bonus points if you can find it later on in here….The blog is called Pimento & Prose after all 😋
This is one of two versions of this recipe I’ve made in the past. One version with shredded hash brown potatoes (usually called Egg Nest Cups), and the version I used this time used a potato hash with veggies, so it had a little more substance to it.
The ingredients are pretty simple. The fundamentals are potatoes, eggs, cheese, and some kind of meat.
Start with a hash brown potato mix (shredded or otherwise), and if saving some time and using a frozen version, follow the stove-top sauteing directions to soften 1/2 – 3/4 of a bag and give a little softness and crunch (no more than 2-3 mins on medium-high heat to take the cold off). Season the potatoes with salt, pepper, and any seasonings you like – I used about 1- 2 tsp. each (to taste) of salt, garlic pepper seasoning from McCormick, some chili powder, and paprika.
Heat the oven to 425*F and grease 12-24 muffin cups. Divide potatoes in between prepared muffin cups and use your fingers to shape the potato mixture into nests with hollows in the middle. Bake in the oven for 10-15 mins until potatoes are browned around the edges. Remove from oven and reduce oven temperature to 350*F.
In the meantime, cook whatever meat you’d like to add, usually, I use bacon or sausages for their size and crumble-ability! This time I used some maple sausages I had in the freezer, this recipe is a great way to use up some ingredients taking up space in the fridge or freezer.
The next step is the CHEESINESS 🧀🧀🧀 Shred those blocks!! I think I ended up with at least 1 generous cup of cheese, I used 3/4 mozzarella (my favorite Lisanatti Foods Almondmilk Mozzarella Style cheese) and cheddar for flavor (another favorite VioLife Just Like Cheddar Shreds). Whisk about 8-12 eggs together with salt and pepper and set aside for the cups.
Time to put them together!
Once the hash browns come out of the oven, pour enough of the egg mixture into the cups to cover the hash browns to about 1/2 inch above, and place equal amounts of the meat and cheese (about 1 tsp.) on top of the eggs until there are no add-ins left. If you don’t have two muffin tins like I do, but have another metal pan, it’s time to improvise!
*Pro-Tip:
Create a foil pan folded in a shape to make a boat for the eggs.
Make sure the sides are taller than the ingredients you’re adding, remember the eggs will rise a bit.
Bake in the oven at 350* until the eggs are set and a knife in the center of the eggs comes out clean, about 13 to 16 minutes. Let cool in pans and remove by sliding a knife between the potato crust and muffin cup.
This is the baking and finished products! I usually keep them in pairs and warm them up for 1 minute in the microwave in the morning, super helpful if I end up sleeping in 😴
Southern Specialties-
Meat & Three:
Pulled Pork, Chive & Goat Cheese Mashed Potatoes, Coleslaw, & Cornbread
This was me wanting some Southern comfort food and not having the time to put 110% effort into it to make everything. I was channeling my inner Sandra Lee and her “Semi-Homemade Meals” show I used to watch growing up, and the great southern foods I’ve fallen in love with since moving down here. Her take on cooking was using 70% pre-packaged products and 30% fresh items. This meal prep could also probably be considered a “meat and three”, however, I’d like to have my southern friends weigh in to make sure I’ve got the right idea 🤔 🤗
Ingredients to make our Copy Cat Sonny’s BBQ Cornbread*:
- 1 box Jiffy Cornbread Mix
- 1 Egg
- 1/3 cup Milk (we use almond milk)
- 1 8 Oz. Can of Creamed Corn
- 1/4 cup Sugar
- 1 heaping tbs. Flour
Preheat oven to 400*F.
For the official recipe, check out the link here!
*Side Story: One of the first BBQ places my family visited on a trip to Florida was Sonny’s BBQ. Being from the Northeast, we thought BBQ was something on the grill (hot and fast) as opposed to low and slow. The one thing that ended up standing out to my mom and me as people who loved baking was the cornbread! It tasted so familiar to us but it had a little something extra that we had to figure out how to make at home – and this recipe, after many attempts, was created. ❤
Prepare the recipe as the box says (I doubled it, using two Jiffy boxes & upping the recipe from there) adding in the extra ingredients after the usual milk and eggs.
Once all ingredients are combined, make sure there aren’t any dry bits left in the mix, and let it rest for 2-3 mins. I used my cast-iron skillet for this so I added a little olive oil and pre-warmed it in the oven before adding the mix into the skillet. If you don’t have a cast-iron skillet, don’t fret! Alternatives for pan size- Single recipe is a square 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 metal or glass pan, for a double recipe is a 13 x 9 metal or glass pan. Cook for approx. 30-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean in the middle and the edges and top are golden brown.
This was the finished product! ❤ It was super moist, chewy, and crunchy from the sides of the cast iron skillet. It was a little sweet, a little salty, crunchy, and everything you want cornbread to be!
You could also add jalapenos, cheddar, or cheddar jack cheese to jazz it up! 😎
While the cornbread cooks, make the coleslaw dressing! Super simple and probably all stuff you have in your pantry:
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons white sugar
- 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
Toss the whisked dressing ingredients into the coleslaw mix, I think I had about 1/2 a bag left in this picture.
2nd to Last Step- Mashed Potatoes!
I used a bag of mini gold potatoes (about 1 lb.) and washed and quartered them into a pot of boiling, salted water. I let them cook for about 10-15 mins, just until they were fork-tender, and drained them off into a bowl with the mixture below:
- One mini (about 3 inches long) herb and goat cheese log
- 1/3- 1/2 cup of finely chopped fresh chives
- 2 tbls. butter (we used Country Crock’s plant-based stick butter)
- 1/3 cup of milk (I used unsweetened original almond milk)
Sarah SMASH (-ed) the potatoes in this shot!
I used a potato masher but you could use a ricer or electric mixer depending on how you like the consistency of your potatoes.
Finally meal prep time! I got some pre-smoked, pre-sauced pulled pork at one of my favorite local stores (Lowes Foods), which I added to the mashed potatoes and coleslaw. I have enough cornbread to feed an army too!
So what do you think Foodie Friends? Have any restaurant dishes you’d like me to try to copycat? Shout out in the comments below, and as always, feel free to like, share, or leave suggestions on what ingredients I should check out next 🤗 Stay tuned for a Weekend Foodie Warriors later this weekend featuring a Greek Food Festival, Botanical Gardens, and more!
