You Want Me to Cook?: Bacon-Egg Breakfast Bites

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I confess. I love bite-size breakfast. The funny thing is that I never eat on the run. I just like bite sized food.

I’m sure there is a therapist somewhere that read that and said, “She needs help.”

I do not deny that fact.

One difficult thing about bite size breakfast foods is that they can kind of be a pain to make. Like a GIGANTIC PAIN. I’ve done recipes like these Bacon-Egg Breakfast Bites from Pillsbury before and sworn that I would never make anything like that ever again. Yet as I am flipping through April’s issue of Bake Off winners, I immediately gravitated to this recipe.

As I look at this picture, I remember why. I get to eat bacon and tater tots… for breakfast. Of course, there is no guarantee that my breakfast bites are going to turn out the same way.

But they did! Well at least they were very close. Mine don’t seem to have the same lovely golden color of the ones Pillsbury produced.

They did make me reaffirm that I don’t want to make anything like this again, though.

Assessment:

For more details about what my ratings mean, go to Gretchen’s Rating System

Mess: SIGH – There really isn’t any prep to make a mess and in reality there isn’t a lot of equipment. Although, I practically needed a chisel to get the egg off the pan, so there’s that. The real mess comes with making the bites. I knew pouring the eggs into a crammed full mini-round was going to be a disaster. I tried to minimize the amount of egg on my counter and pan in just about every way possible… with absolutely no luck. If it hadn’t been for this, the mess would have been NADA.

Start-to-Finish Time: LITTLE LESS THAN AN HOUR – For as much trouble as I had filling the pan with egg, I was really surprised that it didn’t take me a lot longer. This could be considered something that you could throw together in a jiffy. Around 30 minutes of it is hands on and the rest is for baking.

Servings: I made the entire pan like the recipe stated, so I got the same number of servings – 12 (2 bites each). However, I had a lot of egg left, 3 extra pieces of bacon and plenty of potato nuggets, so I could have probably gotten at least another 6 out of the ingredient list. I didn’t have another mini-muffin pan, so I just threw out the egg and kept the bacon and nuggets for another meal.

Prep Work: ALL FINGERS STILL HERE – All I had to do was count out the ingredients for prep work.

Ease of Recipe: MORE THAN I BARGAINED FOR – I don’t know if my pan is too small or what, but I always seem to have the same problem of the ingredients not fitting properly. I actually bought another pan and the muffins were bigger, so I’m thinking it was my pan, but this was the main reason I had to give this recipe my rating.

Overall: YUMMY – We ate them consistently for breakfast every morning until they were gone, but the mess makes me wonder if it’s not worth it. Of course, now I have a new pan, so I might be persuaded if my husband asked.

Nutritional Information:

I am not a doctor or dietician. I make my nutritional assessments with the aid of Spark Recipes. I run the original recipe and my altered recipe through their calorie counter and then compute the differences I find. My numbers are to be used as a guideline. Anyone who is under dietary medical supervision should follow the advice of their medical professional if their opinion differs from mine. PLEASE!

Serving Size = 2 breakfast bites:

Calories 180
Total Fat 11g
Saturated Fat 3 1/2g
Trans Fat 1 1/2g
Cholesterol 95mg
Sodium 440mg
Total Carbohydrate 12g
Dietary Fiber 0g
Sugars 2g
Protein 7g

The fat content was a little unsettling considering the size of a serving. Actually, the sodium and calories are a little unsettling as well. However, I didn’t use all of the egg. I’m guessing at least one less, so to be fair, I reran the numbers again with my ingredients and one less egg. Here’s what I came up with:

Calories 138.7
Total Fat 8.7 g
Saturated Fat 3.1 g
Cholesterol 65.4 mg
Sodium 374.3 mg
Total Carbohydrate 11.3 g
Sugars 2.2 g
Protein 4.4 g

It’s slightly better, but the fat content still makes my face contort when I think about it. Unfortunately, there isn’t any other boost in vitamins either. So what you see is exactly what you’re getting.

Ingredients:

You’re going to find everything you need at your local grocery store.

12 slices precooked bacon (from 2.1-oz package)

1 can Pillsbury® Place 'n Bake® refrigerated crescent rounds

24 frozen potato nuggets (from 2-lb bag)

5 Eggs

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon Ground Black Pepper

Chopped fresh parsley, if desired

Fit Wash

Cooking Spray

Crescent Rounds – As I read through the comments on Pillsbury’s recipe board, some people were buying regular crescents and trying to figure out how to make the recipe as per the instructions. Make sure you get the rounds or any spiral pastry that you can unroll.

Eggs – The original recipe called for a specific brand of eggs. As far as I can tell, they aren’t associated with Pillsbury, so I’m not quite sure why they called for that brand. I used a generic store-brand egg and it turned out just fine.

Black Pepper – The original recipe called for a specific brand of pepper, and again I used a store-brand. Not really a change, but a variation.

Parsley – If I would have had some parsley, I may have chopped a little up for the recipe. I didn’t and decided since it was optional to leave it off.

Fit Wash – If I was going to use the parsley, I would have used the Fit Wash to clean it.

Cooking Spray – The recipe called for a Pillsbury brand, but I used a generic one as a substitute.

Equipment:

Salad Spinner

Mini-Muffin Cups (24)

Cutting Board
Sharp Knife

Medium Bowl

Fork

Spoon – mixing

Serving Platter

Salad Spinner – I recently bought a salad spinner to clean my lettuce. The instructions said that it could also be used to clean herbs, so I gave it a try. I LOVE IT, so if you’re planning on using the parsley and have one handy, use it!

Directions:

(1) Heat oven to 350°F. Generously spray 24 mini muffin cups with Cooking Spray.

Spray the tops of the pan as well since you may spill some of the egg. Once it cooks on there, it is really hard to get off of it.

(2) Cut each bacon slice in half crosswise.

(3) Unroll one crescent round; cut into thirds, forming strips of dough.

If you’re not using the Pillsbury Crescent Rounds, you will need enough dough to go around a tater tot with a little overlap.

(4) Place half slice of bacon on 1 dough strip; top with potato nugget and roll up, stretching dough and pinching ends to seal.

(5) Place in mini muffin cup, spiral side up. Repeat with remaining crescent rounds, bacon and potato nuggets.

(6) In medium bowl, beat eggs, salt and pepper until well blended.

(7) Very carefully spoon scant tablespoon egg mixture around each dough-wrapped potato nugget.

Don’t try to pour a tablespoon in all at once, until you know how much is going to actually fit in there. I tried pouring a scant teaspoon and ended up with egg all over the pan and counter. Go slow until you see how much will actually fit into each cup.

(8) Bake 13 to 20 minutes or until light brown on top and egg mixture is set. Remove from muffin cups to serving platter. Garnish with parsley. Serve warm.

My bites were browned at 17 minutes, but looking at the picture, I’m not sure I shouldn’t have left them in a little longer.

These were tasty little bites that could have worked as breakfast or as a side dish to brunch. There were a lot of great ideas in the comment boards for this recipe as well. One reader said they made batches of these and popped them in the microwave for a quick breakfast.

If I were going to make any changes:

I’d use my new mini-muffin pan which seems to be slightly bigger. I’m hoping that it will hold more egg mixture and not cause such a mess.
I might add a little garlic or onion to the egg mixture – give it a little more spice.
The comments held some great ideas to make these better on the health side:
Sub out a couple of the eggs for egg whites
Cook your own low sodium bacon
Another commenter lightly grated cheese on them right out of the oven. That sounds delicious!

So there are a lot of great ideas with these interesting breakfast bites. Now I’m thinking I may have to try them again.

Until next time… happy cooking!

You Want Me to Cook?

Friday, July 27, 2012

Bacon-Egg Breakfast Bites

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