Monte Cristo Recipe

Brunch is one of my favorite meals of the day.  Sausage and Cheese Casserole, cinnamon and nutmeg pancakes, or a yummy Monte Cristo sandwich.  Today I'm going to share our recipe for the delicious Monte Cristo!

It's really the epitome of "brunch" - it's a ham and cheese sandwich, dipped in egg and cooked like french toast.  Perfect.  We especially love to make these when using up leftover ham. Use honey mustard to kick the dish up a notch!

Ingredients

Oatmeal bread
Ham
Swiss cheese
Honey mustard
Eggs
Milk
Maple syrup
Powdered sugar (optional)
Jam (optional)


Directions

Make your sandwich: ham, Swiss cheese and honey mustard.  (You could even add a little mayo if you wanted!)

Whisk together eggs and milk (1 egg per sandwich + generous splash of milk).

Spray frying pan with Pam cooking spray and turn burner on low/medium.

Dip each side of sandwich in egg/milk mixture and place in frying pan.

Cook for 4-6 minutes (or until side is browned) on each side.

Serve immediately with maple syrup, powdered sugar and fruit or jam.

Enjoy!

A twin baby shower

This weekend, I hosted a baby shower for my friend Barb, who is having twin girls in 6 weeks (or sooner!).  I love cooking and making things, so I was excited to spend my last bit of maternity leave working on a special day for a good friend!

The shower was at 10:30, so I decided to serve brunch.  I made sausage and cheese breakfast casseroles, banana bread, yogurt parfaits, fruit salad, mini chocolate cupcakes and chocolate dipped pretzels.  (Check back for future blogs about how I made the diaper cake and chocolate covered giraffe pretzels!)

I also had a "Cravings Corner" full of all the foods Barb has been craving.  Some of her cravings over the last 7 months have been...

Honey Bunches of Oats with raisins and 2% milk
Strawberries
Diet Caffeine Free Coke
Cheeseburgers
Donuts
Chips with Ranch Dip

It was a huge hit with Barb and the rest of the guests.  Who knew burgers went so well with brunch?

Since the party consisted of groups of people from lots of different "friend circles", I decided to make name tags.  Sticky-backed "My Name Is..." name tags wouldn't do, so I decided to make some tiny onesie tags for everyone to wear.

I drew a onesie on a piece of paper, cut it out, and traced the template onto three shades of pink paper.  Then I traced a slightly smaller version of the onesie on white paper and taped them on each other.  All that was left was writing names on them and hanging them on the clothesline!

I hung a line beside the cravings corner table with two newborn onesies and the name tags (held by clothespins) so everyone could find their tag as they came in.  They attached them to their tops using the clothespin!  Super cute.

We had a great time chatting, eating, opening presents, and making the soon-to-be family of four a "wish tree".  We made one of these at my friend Laci's baby shower, and I loved the idea.  Everyone writes things they're excited for the girls to experience as they grow up and/or wishes for them on leaves.  After they share with the group, we put them on a tree to go in their nursery!  We left a lot of room for other family members and friends to add experiences and wishes as well.

Check back for a later blog on how to make this!

Barb and Dave already hung it in their nursery!  Doesn't it look great?

The girls and their mamma were thoroughly celebrated and Barb even got to practice holding two babies, Owen and Alice (my friend Robyn's little girl, who was born 3 weeks after Owen).

Dave's mom made two beautiful blankets for the girls!

Who knew the belly would be a great baby holder?

Practicing a baby in each arm!  We just couldn't figure out how she'd put one of them down...

Everyone went home with a chocolate-dipped marshmallow rattle at the end of the shower!  (Again...check back for the how-to.)

I can't wait to meet these little girls!

Sausage and Cheese Breakfast Casserole

Most days I end up eating Cheerios from a plastic bag at work for breakfast.  Eating the same thing every day can get pretty boring and really makes me appreciate hot breakfasts even more.  One of my favorite things to make is a Sausage and Cheese Breakfast Casserole.  In addition to being really easy to whip up, you can make it the night before and refrigerate, so there's no need to get up extra early to prep!

When I heard we were having a "Breakfast with Oscar" party this past Sunday, I knew exactly what I was going to bring.  This recipe came from my fabulous mother-in-law's arsenal of go-to breakfasts, but I'm not sure of its origins before that.  Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients

6 slices of bread
1 pound sausage (I used Jimmy Dean)
6 eggs
1 can Carnation Evaporated Milk
Salt & Pepper
Shredded cheddar cheese (about 2.5 cups)
Large Pyrex dish

Directions

Cut slices of bread into cubes and cover the bottom of your Pyrex dish.

Brown and drain sausage, then sprinkle over the bread.

Mix eggs, evaporated milk, salt and pepper in a medium bowl.  Then pour evenly over bread and sausage.

Then give the entire dish a generous sprinkle of cheese - I used about 2.5 cups.

Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour (or overnight).  Bake at 375 F for 25-30 minutes, then let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

You can also make this weeks in advance and freeze (before cooking) for later!  You're gonna love it!

Mass MoCA and cute New England towns

Friday was the first rainy day of the week, but also marked the arrival of others in the house!  Travis' parents drove up from NC to spend the weekend with us (got in late Thursday night), and our friends Laura and Elizabeth came in late Friday afternoon.

We started the day with brunch at Ozzie's, a restaurant recommended by the people we rented the house from.  Their breakfast was SO good that we went back on Saturday!  My favorite was one of their October specials, the pumpkin pancakes.  Jenny LOVED her apple bread french toast...as you'll see below.

After breakfast, we decided to make our way to Alford, MA - being only 30 minutes away, it was obviously a must.  It was a tiny little "town" - not much to see...no stoplights...only a few buildings in one area - but I'm glad we went.

I'm so happy I'm an Alford.  :)

Travis was on umbrella duty so we could take pictures without ruining our cameras.

 Saturday was much nicer.  The trees were beautiful!

We spent most of Saturday at Mass MoCA (The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art), which was fantastic.

Can you find Laura, Elizabeth and I in the pic?

As we came in, we saw that there were some giant swings under one of the underpasses by the museum.  After wandering the property for a little while, we found them!

I found a FIVE  leaf clover!

The other side of that underpass had funny animals painted on the columns.  Jenny and I found our favorites.

We finished out the week by visiting Lee and Stockbridge - two cute towns south of where we'd been staying.  There were cute shops, a few antique stores (I love antiquing) and a great little creperie called the "Starving Artist Cafe".  I assume it's because they are so close to Tanglewood - funny!  There's a beautiful church in the middle of Lee's downtown whose wooden frame steeple is the tallest in New England.

Travis' "Stockbridge must" shows his music dorkiness.  (Love my musician hubby.)  One of the three places in composer Charles Ives' "Three Places in New England" is the Housatonic River at Stockbridge.  It was beautiful - easy to see how it could influence him!

Now we're back home.  Not ready for work tomorrow!

Want to check out what else we did on this vacation?  Check out the other blogs:

The Mohawk Trail
Check out where we stayed, Edith Wharton's House, and Lenox Mass
Mount Greylock and the Hancock Shaker Village