Switching it up a bit this time. Instead of showing our dinner like usual, we are going to show our breakfast this time. We love breakfast, it is one of our favorite meals. So on the weekends, since we have time – we always do something a little bit special for breakfast. We used to go hit IHOP and spend 25 bucks on something the size of a small country – then walk around all day cursing IHOP about how fat we felt (and were)… or we would go and they would totally undercook our eggs or burn the toast. Still we would pay the money… hate our life… and ruin our bank account. Smart huh? Yeah, we loved it. One of our favorite past-times.
So instead of paying “the man” for a breakfast that we could top at home… we cut out “the man” and do it ourselves now. The funny thing is, we use to do this all the time. It really was one of favorite things, being in the kitchen together – spending some time with some good music, some good conversation and eventually some stellar food. Why had we been outsourcing this the last year or so? Crazy talk.
Just a quick rundown of what that is… to those that have never had breakfast I suppose (who wouldn’t know what this is right?). Honestly I’m doing this for the search engines… it has nothing to do with you. I know your smart. Your already here. I gotta grab those people searching for “bacon breakfast” or “what does a hashbrown look like?” Don’t judge. We will build our empire, you build yours. 😉
Bacon
Sausage
Hashbrown
Eggs (your way)
Biscuits
Breakfast is one of those meals that you get to sorta choose how you want to eat things & the amount. So it can obviously vary on what your tastes are, or your family’s taste rather. Someone wants scrambled – so be it. Sausage links, instead of patties… make it so. The bottomline in this thing is price right? So let’s keep an eye on that instead of what exactly is being eaten.
Anyhow – did somebody say bacon? Yup, bacon in the house. We have a flattop griddle (electric) that we use for breakfast. Have had one for probably the better part of 4-5 years (at least). Actually had 2 would be more like it. We wore the first one out. Imagine cooking a complete slab of bacon at once time. Pluse some sausage. Sign me up. Cheap too, you usually can pick one up for 30 bucks @ Target or something. Here’s one on Amazon, for 50-ish
If you cook bacon in the microwave, so be it. With this latest “ready made” bacon crazy going on at the moment – I can’t say we blame you for doing it that way. It’s sorta cheap (for not having to actually fry it), healthier… so thats cool if you want to do that. Turkey bacon is good, a healthy substitute in some cases. So whatever you please on bacon, that is fine with us. We went old school, old school on sale – $2.49 for one package of bacon @ HEB. One thing I would like to mention is the fact that we always cook the whole package and then save whatever is left for dog treats & for sandwiches or something. Stretch it a lil further.
We had some sausage already in the freezer that we thawed – so we are calling it free. But you know you can pick up sausage on the cheap sometimes, and we just ate 3 total sausage patties out of it. So even if we counted it – it is probably some cents worth per patty. And let us explain something. We are doing this to get our costs on things. We bought things at the store this time that we counted against our total but know that they are long-term items (like ketchup or seasonings). Things that will cost up front but be used for a long time… so if we count them – we think that things we already have in our pantry or freezer is fair game at a discount. So when figuring yours, you should try the same thing. It’s only fair.
Next we put together a quick hashbrown with 1 small potato. Now we had these leftover from a while back and it was the last in the bag. We always get really happy when we finish a product down to nothing. Hate to be wasteful, so this was a great item to use for this meal. Even if you figured cost on this… probably looking at 20 cents or something to that effect. Just grated it straight onto the griddle. Salt & pepper or whatever you like to season. Maybe add some onion if your into that sort of thing. Done. Simple eh?
We did some over medium eggs, of course you can do them however you like. Scrambled (we did this last weekend), omelette maybe? Whatever you like, just make some damn eggs already. We use free-range, organic eggs. Hoping we can get to the Farmer’s Market earlier this next week and get some local eggs. We put them in our composter (the shells) and also the carton goes in when we are done with the whole thing. Cost of eggs – 40 cents total.
Biscuits are a staple around our place too. We do the smaller (5 biscuit) cans of biscuits. We know we could make our own, but it is so easy this way right? We will just say a buck for this can – we did the “layer” biscuits this morning, once again your preference – could do fluffy. Hell you could do toast or pancakes or no bread at all. Maybe a bagel? You choose your bread & cost.
Then your done. Maybe some milk or coffee to wash it all down.
So what is the grand total of this breakfast?
Total for this meal: $3.89
You can’t even walk in the door at IHOP (by the time you buy a paper & coffee) for that price. And, we tend to eat breakfast a lil later on the weekends and it is more like a brunch. Then eat a late dinner/lunch thing and it is only 2 meals instead of 3. Cheap cheap!
What have you been eating? Anyone used any of our recipes or ideas yet? Give us some of yours. This was Saturday’s breakfast, we had chicken nuggets & french fries for dinner (yup frozen… hence no pics). Nothing fancy… just livin’. Today (Day 13), Shala is doing a roast w/ carrots, potatoes & onions. Slow cooking it in the crock pot all day – then we will have the leftovers until they are gone. MmmmMmmm. Roast beef sandwiches. So you can likely gear up for a picture of that today or tomorrow. Then we have a pseudo plan for the week including: Chicken & Rice, P.F. Changs Chicken Lettuce Wraps (yup, we so stole their recipe), Pepper Steak w/ rice & eggrolls and probably Pork Chops. We are going to hit the store today for some fill-in items, but no worries – we are keeping track of the money we spend.
Almost at the 2 week mark! Half way there! Kinda.
I’ve always liked the idea of trotting off to IHOP for breakfast on the weekend, but now more than ever, getting out of the house before 10 a.m. on the weekend is extremely tough. So since becoming parents last year, we’ve forged a new weekend tradition.
Dede doesn’t cook often – she’s a bit intimidated by it – but each Saturday & Sunday, she whips up whole wheat pancakes while I grind & brew some coffee, nuke the aforementioned “ready made” bacon, and prep the table. Then we relax at the table, eating flapjacks, sipping coffee, reading the paper, and generally being lazy.
It reminds me very much of when i was a little kid and weekend breakfasts were usually Dad’s domain. Seeing Dad in the kitchen was such an odd thing that those weekend brunches were something special.
My husband is the one in our house that always wants to go out to breakfast; the kids and I don’t. Today we had chocolate chip pancakes and turkey bacon. Much less cost than the four of us going out! Another plus is that I doulbe the recipe for pancakes so we have some for during the week.
I am the queen of breakfast, for dinner. We love it over here. I picked up my skills making breakfast with my Dad every weekend.
Up until Christmas I had been making those pancakes one at a time on one of those square stove top griddles. Crazy right?
Justin Finally got the hint and got me one foe Christmas. I think I only had to say things like “there’s got to be a better way, and wouldn’t it be nice to get one of those…” a million times before he got it.
I Use it all the time. Now that I have it we have been getting real creative on pancakes. I should post some of those Ihop inspired pancake recipes.
@Rob O. – I definitely can understand the “takes me back to being young” thing. I remember reading the paper with my Grandpa in the mornings over coffee & breakfast.
@Laura – “much less cost than the four of us going out!” – yeah… I can believe that. Probably cost less than 10 bucks. And it was better for you, and portioned how you like it.
@anita – griddles rock the house. When we go see family and they are burning bacon in a pan… I think – how did we live without our griddle? Geeze. Not to mention… burgers on there are awesome, pancakes of course & anything else griddle worthy. Definitely worth the money.