Scrambled Egg Hack

One of my favorite quick and easy hacks for making amazing scrambled eggs every time: mayonnaise.

I said what I said. Add mayo. You know what mayo is made of right? It’s eggs and oil, with some seasoning, mixed into a creamy emulsion. So adding that to eggs makes them extra creamy and adds seasoning and flavor.

I usually do at least 6 - 12 eggs at a time because I’m always cooking for a crowd so I add a couple tablespoons of mayo. Experiment for yourself and decided how much you like.

Homemade superfood breakfast cereal.

Do you need a boost of healthy energy in the morning?

A way to get your day going with a super healthy start? This is what I've been having for breakfast every day and I am loving it. 

This is my quick and easy recipe for a homemade superfood breakfast. 

I was buying some pre-made superfood cereals, until I read the ingredients and realized it was all things I had in my pantry and I could throw it together myself for a LOT less than I was paying to buy it already made for me. 

As with most of what I make and share - this "recipe" is more of a guideline. This will give you a basic framework for a healthy cereal to get your morning off to a great start. 

You are basically just combining rolled oats with a variety of nuts, seeds, and dried fruits.

For mine I try to shop at Trader Joe's - they have a great selection of nuts, seeds, and dried fruits, and they have a good rice on organic oats. You could also grab your ingredients from the bulk foods section of your grocery store or natural market. 

Ingredients:

• Rolled oats: NOT steel cut, and not quick cooking. Just old fashioned rolled oats. 1 regular size container - probably about a pound. 

• Nuts: I like a combination of sliced almonds and chopped walnuts. Use any kind you like, just make sure they are in bite sized pieces.

• Seeds: Sunflower seeds, chia seeds, hemp seeds, flax seeds (or ground flax).

• Dried fruits: raisins, blueberries, cherries...

A few notes about the ingredients:

Nuts: Don't buy salted ones. They are going to be way too salty for this kind of recipe. I personally prefer to buy roasted nuts, I find that I digest them better. But if you like raw then go for raw nuts. I like to buy the nuts that are already sliced or chopped. That makes it super easy to throw this together.

Seeds: I buy roasted unsalted sunflower seeds - again, my system handles the roasted ones better. But many folks prefer raw. In addition to the sunflower seeds, add whatever combination of other seeds you can get your hands on - chia, hemp, flax - there's no limit!

Fruits: Trader Joe's has a great bag of mixed dried fruit, so that's what I've been using. It's got raisins, cranberries, blueberries, and cherries - so it's everything I need and it's easy. 

Feel free to add other stuff - ground flax is great, wheat germ if you're into that.

Quantities:

My personal preference is to have the mix be about half oats and half other stuff. Of the half "other stuff", I tend to go for about equal parts of fruit, nuts, and seeds - slightly more fruit & nuts vs. seeds. 

The container I'm using is about 8 cups. So that breaks down to about:

• 4 cups rolled oats

• 1 1/2 cups dried fruits

• 1 1/2 cups chopped nuts

• 1 cup mixed seeds

Instructions:

Literally - dump it all in and mix together. 

Store in an airtight container.

Serving:

My container comes with a 1 cup measuring scoop, so I use 1 cup as the serving. Add enough of your favorite milk to cover, and let sit for a few minutes to let the oats & fruit soften a bit. I use almond milk, but you can use any kind you like. 

I top it with whatever fresh fruit I've got around - blueberries, strawberries, etc. 

The Best Easy Scone Recipe

I actually don’t like scones. At least I don’t like any store bought or bakery scones that I’ve ever tried. They are all dry and crumbly and I don’t really get the point of them. But certain members of my family like them, so I try to find ways to cook things at home that they like.

I’ve tried a number of scone recipes over the decades that seemed to me basically like the crumbly bakery scones I don’t like - but then I found this recipe. These are not your crumbly commercial scones! They are really buttery, and flakey, and moist. They are more like a sweet buttery biscuit than a scone really, and I think they are just right.

These are huge hit with my family. For years I made them for Christmas morning, you can easily make the dough ahead of time and refrigerate or freeze, and then bake them when you are ready for a fresh warm treat. I had actually forgotten about this recipe for a few years, until a child recently asked me if we could make some vanilla scones like the ones she loves at Starbucks.

Scroll down for the recipe. This is my adaptation from a decades old bed & breakfast cookbook that I acquired somewhere along the line.

Below is the recipe. If you click the image you will get a printable version.

Click the image for printable recipe

Starbucks Petite Vanilla Scone copycat

One of my kids loves the little vanilla scones that you can get at Starbucks. They are mini scones with a nice vanilla bean icing.

You can copycat those using this recipe!

We make a vanilla version of these scones without any nuts or fruit, and divide the dough into 8 pieces instead of four so that they nice and small.

Roll each piece out into a circle and cut into wedges for the petite scone size.

They’ll take a few minutes less to bake.

Then scrape a vanilla bean into a simple icing to drizzle over the top. Just like the ones at Starbucks, only fresher. My kids love them this way.