More accurately this is probably called an egg casserole, however my family calls it an egg soufflé.  Soufflé just sounds fancier and frankly a little more delicious.

I was first introduced to this recipe by my mother.  Her friend, Kathy, had given it to her (which I have since slightly modified).  We were hosting a Thanksgiving weekend brunch and needed something that was relatively easy to make.  The egg soufflé was a HUGE hit with my family as well as our guests.

As someone who loves and I mean LOVES brunch, the egg soufflé dish quickly became a staple item at almost all of the brunches I’ve hosted.  At birthday parties, holiday gatherings, baby showers and bridal showers alike this recipe has never failed to impress the guests!!

{Recipe} Egg Soufflé | easy and perfect brunch | Life's Tidbits

Ingredients 

2.5 cups 2% Milk
8 oz shredded sharp cheddar cheese
5 Eggs (lightly beaten)
1 tsp salt
1 loaf French bread, crust removed and sliced
1/2 stick Butter

Instructions
Makes 6-8 Servings

Butter bread then cut into 1 inch cubes.  Combine milk, cheese, eggs and salt in a bowl.

Spray pan with nonstick spray.  Place buttered bread in pan.  Pour milk, cheese, salt and egg mixture over bread.  Place in the refrigerator over night.

Bake at 300* for 1 hour or until the souffle isn’t runny.  Note:  I’ve found sometimes it takes 1.5 hours.

Cut into 8 slices and serve immediately!

{Recipe} Egg Soufflé | Life's Tidbits

I also recommend serving your egg souffle with a delicious Bloody Mary … or two :)

Recipe Egg Soufflé Perfect for Brunch pair with a bloody mary | Life's Tidbits

Black Striped Paper Straws
What’s your go to brunch recipe?

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Being part of a ‘New Mamas’ group on Facebook has been such a blessing.  It has allowed me to get answers to questions I didn’t even know I had, share some of my own experiences as well as hear a variety of opinions on caring for a baby.  I only actually know (like talk to in person or hang out with) a couple of the women and yet I value everyone’s take on being a mom.

One of the topics discussed when I was anxiously awaiting JB’s arrival was when to introduce solids. I followed along with the conversation.  Some were introducing food at 4 months while others waited until 6 months.  At the time I made a mental note and thought to myself we would wait until 6 months.

Ha. So AMATEUR of me to make ‘decisions’ such as these when I had NO idea what caring for a baby would be like. At Jellybean’s 4 month checkup we got the go ahead from our pediatrician to being solids. She recommended starting with oatmeal cereal (skipping rice cereal).

Jellybean has always been a good eater and it seemed as though she was always hungry!  I often said to my husband “Should couldn’t possibly be hungry again” and then baby girl would demolish her bottle in record time.  We really couldn’t make it very long during the day between feedings.  As a result the husband and I decided we would go ahead and start solids at 4 months old since the doctor gave the A-OK.

I was so excited as we strapped JB into the highchair and mixed some formula with the oatmeal cereal.  She looked kind of confused as we moved the spoon to her mouth.  The oatmeal dribbled out of her mouth and down her chin.  Throughout the entire first solid food feeding Jellybean was breaking out some seriously hilarious facial expressions.  They were absolutely priceless!

Fortunately the husband and I were pretty well prepared and broke out the camera prior to giving her the food.  She went from looking pissed off to completely clam {see pictures below} in the amount of time it took to snap two photos!

JBFirstFood_FunnyFace

JBFirstFood

Guess she was adjusting to the spoon, new tastes, and the expressions on her parent’s faces.  See Sophi in the lower left hand corner of the picture?  She wasn’t going to miss out on all the attention Jellybean was getting.  :)

It took about two weeks for Jellybean to get the whole eating thing down. I was a little concerned after a week that we introduced solids for the first time too early.  So we took a little break.  When we re-introduced the oatmeal with applesauce, per a friend’s recommendation, a few days later we were in business!

We made such a big deal of saying “yum yum” and praising her that she developed an amusing association to being placed in the high chair.  As soon as we put her in the high chair the legs start going a million miles an hour, a huge smile emerges on her face, which is followed by shrieks and babbling.  I get the biggest kick of out it!

For the most part I am homemaking the food – I mean – purees.  Jellybean is a fan of apples, pears, sweet potatoes and prunes.  I decided to purchase pre-made prunes, because I just wasn’t interested in figuring out how to make them into baby food.  :)

We attempted to introduce peas – it was a total fail.  Jellybean gagged in disgust and then acted like she was chocking … which she wasn’t (thank goodness!), but it got my adrenaline going nonetheless.  We thought it was a texture issue so we offered her the pre-made kind and she still refused to swallow it.  Kid already has sweet tooth … not shocking considering how many sweets I ate during my pregnancy.

Next up on the list is cauliflower, butternut squash and maybe carrots. Though, I’m kind of afraid of carrots. Our friends told us the WORST diaper they ever changed was after introducing carrots. Oh my, the joys of parenthood. =)

Once baby girl is a little bit older I plan to have her try broccoli, zucchini and mango.  I’m really excited for her to acquire a taste for a variety of foods!!  How to keep up with the cooking and storage of all this baby puree is a little bit daunting.  Recommendations??

My favorite and must have items for baby girl eating ‘solids’ … I really think we should call it introducing purees.  The kiddo won’t be having a ‘real’ solids for a few more months, but I digress.  Favorite items for eating solids (so far) includes …

Introducing Solids Must Haves Items | Life's Tidbits

OXO Tot Feeding Spoon  /  OXO Tot Roll Up Bib  /  Fisher-Price Space Saver High Chair / OXO Tot Baby Blocks Freezer Storage Containers / Baby Bullet Complete Baby Care System / Earth’s Best Oatmeal Cereal

And all of these, with the exception of the oatmeal, would be perfect items to put on the baby registry!

What was giving your baby solids for the first time like? Any suggestions for keeping up with homemade baby food?

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I might be 9 months pregnant and extremely tired, however I can’t seem to turn off the planner in me.  I’m pretty much “done” planning for the baby.  There are a few things left to do at this point, but if they don’t get done before she arrives it will be okay.  For example I still haven’t booked a newborn photographer, there are picture frames in the nursery that don’t have anything in them and I haven’t had my car cleaned {yet}.  These are not big ticket items so I’m not worrying about them too much.  I also haven’t washed any of the baby’s clothes, towels or sheets.  Lucky for me, my mom is going to take care of the laundry once Jellybean arrives so for all intensive purposes I consider that “to do” done.

I have tried to prepare myself and the husband for the baby’s arrival.  We have the hospital bag mostly packed, I’ve gotten a hair cut and have plans to get my nails done on Saturday (super important details … I swear!).  One of the last things on my list is meal prepping.  A lot of new parents laugh at how they are living off PB&Js and/or takeout.  I’m certainly not one to turn my nose up at takeout, however it does get old pretty fast … not to mention expensive.

I have been brainstorming meals that freeze well for about a month.  It was harder than I thought it would be to plan.  My first problem is our freezer really isn’t too big and my second is/was finding the energy to precook these meals.  I did my best to clean out the freezer on Sunday and then I got to cooking.  I made some pretty good progress, but didn’t get through all the recipes I had planned.

Completed: 

  1. Turkey Chili (=6 servings)
  2. Chicken Tortilla Soup (=4 servings – we ate one serving each for dinner the night I made the soup)
  3. Pesto (x2 – we will need to cook the pasta and add tomatoes/chicken, but that’s easy enough)

soup_chili_pesto

Left to Cook/Freeze:

  1. Meatballs
  2. Lasagna

meatballs_lasagna

I am hoping to at least motivate to make the meatballs before JB makes her debut.  But even if I can’t/don’t, it feels good to know we have a few home cooked meals in the freezer to fall back on when we don’t want takeout and we are too tired to cook.

Did you make any meals ahead of your baby’s arrival?  Any recommendations on recipes that are good for freezing?

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Admission – I am a sweetaholic!  Always have been and probably always will be.  I’m starting to believe Jellybean, like her mommy-to-be, has a wicked sweet tooth as well.  Yes, wicked … I am from Massachusetts and wicked is an adjective, promise!  I’ve been tried out a lot of new baked good recipes over the last couple of months.  Two of my favorites are classic brownies from Smitten Kitchen and white chocolate brownies from Bake or Break.

Recently I’ve been looking for new bloggers to follow when I stumbled upon Tin’a Chic Corner.  The chocolate crumb cake recipe immediately grabbed my attention.  Last weekend the husbands were away for a boys “football” weekend so the girls and I decided to do a dinner/game night!  I figured it was the perfect time to give this new recipe a whirl.

chocolatecrumbcake_slice

Ingredients Needed:

  • white sugar
  • dark brown sugar (I used light brown sugar since that’s what I had in the cabinet)
  • ground cinnamon
  • salt
  • butter
  • all-purpose
  • unsweetened cocoa powder
  • baking powder
  • baking soda
  • egg
  • skim milk (I substituted 2%)
  • oil (I think vegetable … at least that’s what I used)
  • vanilla extract
  • boiling water
  • miniature chocolate chips (totally forgot to put these on the cake and it was still delicious!)

Get the recipe and directions from Tina’s Chic Corner here.

chocolatecrumbcake_ingredients

chocolatecrumbcake

chocolatecrumbcake_piece

Although my crumb topping didn’t come our nearly as pretty as Tina’s the cake was absolutely DELISH!  The girls all loved it.  We even had seconds.  The husband, who isn’t a big chocolate fan (seriously, what’s wrong with him?!), really liked the piece he had when he returned from his trip.  I will definitely be making this chocolate crumb cake again … and soon!

Any recipes you’ve tried lately that you’d recommend?

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I was on the search for taco seasoning from scratch when I found the recipe below.  I like the seasoning you can buy at the grocery store in the package, but I felt it had to be easy enough to make from spices we already had in the house.  This recipe is SUPER easy to make and is perfect for dinner as well as lunches!  All in all the recipe is very healthy.  I ate A LOT of taco salads when I was doing the whole wedding / weight watches diet a couple years ago.  Although I got a little taco salad’ed out in 2011 it is still a go to dinner in our house every couple of weeks.

TacoSalad

Ingredients:
Salad
1 can Black Beans
1 pkg Ground Turkey

Taco Seasoning –
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon ground cumin
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (depending on how spicy you want it)

Directions:

This recipe makes about 5 servings.  Here’s all you’ve got to do …

Make your salad.  I use romaine lettuce, red pepper, yellow pepper, red onion and cucumber.

tacosalad_salad

Brown your ground turkey (you can also use ground beef if you want).  Meanwhile combine your spices in a small bowl and put the black beans in a pan to cook/warm on the stove top.  Once the meat is browned add the taco seasoning and about 1/4-1/2 cup of water.  Mix the spices, water and turkey well.  Allow it to simmer until most of the water has evaporated or been absorbed by the meat.  Drain the beans once heated through and add them to the turkey.

tacosalad_meatbeans

I like to portion out the salad first and then scoop the turkey/bean mixer on top.  Serve and enjoy!  I always serve the salad with corn chips.  The husband and I both like to crumble a few of the chips over the salad for a little extra crunch/salt/yumminess.

What are you having for dinner tonight??

Happy Cooking!

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