Fruity Breakfast Roll Ups

I will be honest, none of the Herdlings liked this concoction.

Not a single one.

I don't think The Hubster did either!

But I rather enjoyed them- and I would make them again (for myself)  

The are super easy to make, are a good use of that last sprinkling of fruit that isn't quite enough to eat as a side to a meal, nutritious, WHOLESOME and you can totally control what goes in them!

The wrap :

            

We love these things! We've used them for sandwich roll ups and pizzas too!

Filling:

Cream cheese, a little vanilla sugar

  

Toppings:

Whatever you have on hand! We used strawberries, blueberries, bananas and sliced almonds

I found that putting the fruit in rows rather than scattering made for easier rolling and you still got a little of each kind in every bite!

Roll:

 Cut and plate:

It would be REALLY easy to sneak in some wheat germ or flax seed to boost nutrition with out anyone knowing!

Breakfast "Corn Dogs"

We love to have breakfast for dinner. And by we I mean the kids and myself. The Hubster doesn't get all that excited about breakfast (I don't understand it! Besides dessert, breakfast is my favorite meal of the day!)

Miss Ella requested breakfast for dinner this week. And since all of my other planned dinners were "yucky", I agreed to her request. But in order for it to work, I had to find a way to appeal to dad's tastes too. This could be tricky since my husband is a traditional carnivore and his favorite breakfast food is sausage... which was the worst pregnancy aversion I have ever had and has not been allowed in our house since.

My grand solution was to make the breakfast corn dogs I watched Ree make on an episode of Pioneer Woman on Food Network.

I can hear it now.... "wait- those have sausage in them, don't they?" Yes- but the pancake batter is rustic enough and I used sausage links that were skinny enough that it was actually okay! (and you do not even know how happy this made Mike!)

Ingredients

• 16 breakfast sausage links (we used a honey & brown sugar one)
• 3 cups pancake mix
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• Sprinkle of cinnamon
• 1 whole egg, slightly beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 cups water
• Canola oil, for frying
• Warm pancake syrup, for serving

The recipe calls for making these on a stick- but I cut the links in half and made them "nugget style"

My Sous Chef: Jack

Here is the process:

Cook the sausage

after THIS, I baked the rest in the oven!

Heat the oil.

Mix the dry stuffs 

Mix the wet stuffs

Mix the dry and wet stuffs together

Dip the precooked sausage into the batter

Drop into the hot oil

(I tested a bit of batter first. You want it to sizzle right away...if not, your batter will just soak up oil instead of getting crispy. Be mindful of the heat- you do not want your batter to brown too quickly because the insides will still be gooey. My stove knobs go from 1-10, 4 seemed to work well for me)

(sorry for the blurry picture... I was trying not to give myself 3rd degree burns. I am not the most careful cook out there! The important thing is being able to see the sizzle- can ya see it?!)

let them brown, taking care to move the nuggets around so the color is even

I only did 2 or 3 at a time since this is only my second time frying anything.

Remove (with tongs) and place on a paper towel. You can also put them on a wire rack and keep them in the warmed oven

Yum, right?!

RIGHT!!

This is a process...not a difficult one, but rather messy (but I am finding that the BEST meals are!), so I recommend making a bunch and freezing the extras for another day's breakfast. I thought I was doing this but ended up with only 12 left over nuggets. That is breakfast for three people.

We served with warm maple syrup, sliced kiwi fruit and home made cinnamon apples.

EVERYONE loved this meal. Dad, all five kids and even me... the worlds number one hater of breakfast sausage!

If you happen to have left over batter, you can make other tasty things too, like pancake fritters and fried oreos!