Breakfast for Dinner
Eggs are cheap. Breakfast meats often cost a lot less than other meats. Biscuit mixes, especially the store brand, are cheap. If you have WIC, the eggs and cheese are free! And breakfast for dinner is like a special treat. If you do it once a shopping period, you will save. (Shopping period is whatever amount of time you grocery shop for, one week, two weeks, longer...)
Biscuit mixes make pancakes or waffles if you have the iron. Add some eggs topped with cheese and a side of sausage or bacon and you have a meal. To make it healthier, scramble the eggs with some peppers and onions or spinach or broccoli.
Biscuit mix also makes... Biscuits! And they are super duper easy! Make a white gravy int he pan you cook the sausage in. 2 tablespoons butter, melt in pan with meat greases (pour some off but leave enough for flavoring), add 2 tablespoons flour to melted butter. Let the flour cook until bubbly then slowly stir in milk. (Milk is free if you have WIC!) I prefer to cook with whole milk but anything but skim will work. Add it slowly and stir in completely as you go. When you get it to a point that there is about one and a half cups of milk added let it come to a bubble and stir often while it reduces to a thick gravy. In the meantime make you eggs and biscuits. The biscuits don't have to be fancy rolled out and cut, just do the "drop biscuit" recipe on the box. Once the gravy is the consistency you want, you can add in the meat or leave it as is. Pour over everything!
Try making your own breakfast sandwiches with rolled out and cut biscuits. Just skip the gravy and make everything else. Build the egg, meat and cheese into a split biscuit. (Even refrigerated biscuits in a can are cheap if you get while on sale or the store brand)!
How about a breakfast casserole. There are about a million recipes out there. The one I like is:
Grease bottom of an 8x8 or 9x9 casserole dish. (Can also be done in a 9x12 just double the amounts.)
Toast 2 (4) pieces of bread - tear/cut toast into wedges
Cook up some meat (sausage, bacon or ham) and cut into small pieces. (I never use a whole package for a small dish)
- To make meat go farther add onions and peppers or broccoli to it while it cooks
Scramble 6 eggs (dozen if doubling) in a bowl with about half a cup of milk (extra if doubling but not a whole cup).
Lay the toast wedges in bottom of dish. Cover with the meat mixture. Pour the egg mixture over the top of the whole thing as evenly as possible. Top with some cheese (however much you like) but reserve some cheese topping for later too.
Bake at 350 about 20-25 minutes or until egg is set.
Once it sets, top with more cheese and bake for less than but almost 5 more minutes.
Top with fresh parsley or diced green onions or chopped tomatoes before serving.
Slice and serve. YUM! And easy. And CHEAP!
Breakfast is my favorite meal. I love to have it for dinner because I rarely have time or energy int he morning for more than cereal and coffee! Plus it really is a cheap dinner to make.
