Homemade Freezer Breakfast Burritos

Since I’ve been working toward a healthy lifestyle, I’ve been eating a lot of frozen breakfast sandwiches or wraps for breakfast (although I’m not doing Weight Watchers, I really like their Smart Ones frozen breakfast options). However, those meals aren’t the cheapest breakfast option, and the variety of the sandwiches or wraps are limited. I had seen several recipes (methods) for making homemade freezer breakfast burritos on Pinterest, so I decided to give it a whirl. I used this method as a starting point, but made it my own. My goal was to make these breakfast burritos low calorie – mine ended up being about 190 calories per burrito.  Calories will vary based on filling choices as well as the tortillas used. Oh, and these burritos cost about $0.44 per burrito, not bad!

Ingredients (will vary based on desired fillings):

12 large eggs

20 tortillas (depending on tortilla size you may need more or less)

20 tablespoons of shredded cheese (I used mozzarella). Note – the burritos I made are not very cheesy. I’m not that big on cheese, plus I was trying to keep the calories down.

1 package turkey sausage (or other breakfast meat)

1 bell pepper

1 onion

Start by chopping the onion and bell pepper. Cook the sausage, onion and bell pepper (I cooked this in the pan after removing the sausage), and scramble the eggs. The onion and bell pepper add a nice bit of freshness to the burritos. I think next time I might add some jalapeño for a little extra kick.

Once everything is cooked, it is time to assemble the burritos. I started by adding the cheese, then adding the onion and bell pepper, sausage, and finally eggs. I would then do a slight “mix” of the fillings before wrapping the burritos up (I didn’t do this, and I wish I had).

Fold the burritos up and place seam side down in a dish that you can transfer to the freezer. Place the pan(s) of burritos in the freezer for one hour. After one hour, remove, and individually wrap each burrito in plastic wrap or press n’ seal wrap. Store the burritos in a freezer bag or container.

Although heating times will vary, I reheat my burritos by unwrapping from the plastic wrap, wrapping in a paper towel, and heating for approximately 2 1/2 minutes at 50% power in the microwave.

Happy 16 Months Troy!

Happy 16 Months Troy!

Ah, every month bring lots of changes, but this month you seem so much more grown-up! You are finally walking! You started taking steps early on in the month, but didn’t really take many steps in a row until about halfway through the month. You got fairly sick in the middle of the month, and after being sick didn’t seem interested in walking again for a little while, but once you were feeling better started taking steps again.

You love playing with Ella, and y’all generally do enjoy each others’ company. I love listening to you playing and laughing at each other!

You are stubborn. Really stubborn. You consistently get into things you know you aren’t supposed to get into (like the dogs’ water bowl or their food dishes). You demonstrate that you know you aren’t supposed to do things because oftentimes when I see you getting in the dogs’ water, for example, you’ll start crawling away really fast! You also keep on doing whatever it is you are doing after we tell you no (several times) like throw your food or touch my computer. This is new territory for us . . . when Ella was your age we usually only had to tell her a few times not to do something and she steered clear of the activity.

You also finally quit taking a bottle this month! We had intended on weaning you earlier on, but after a couple of bouts of sickness and travel, the timing just never worked out. We (along with our wallet) are glad that you are finally weaned! You have also been eating a ton lately, I feel like I can’t feed you enough! There have been days in the past couple of weeks where pretty much anytime you are awake you are crawling/walking around saying “bite! bite! bite!” (in a Chinese accent no less).

 

You continue to love being the center of attention. You’ve started clapping at yourself if we tell you that you’ve done a good job. You are such a cheese ball! You are also a huge chatterbox. You constantly talk even though we don’t know what you are always saying (most of the time we don’t know, ha!). The pediatrician kept commenting on how much you were talking when we were at your 15 month well check.

You love, love, love throwing balls. You are really good (especially considering your age) at throwing a football (or other things). You can get good distance and are pretty accurate too. You got a basketball goal for Christmas, and you’ve been having a lot of fun playing with it, and shooting baskets. Just recently you have been able to pick up the basketball, walk to the goal, shoot, and (sometimes) make a basket.

Signs you do: more, finished, milk, hungry, thank you, please (although only once, maybe twice), thirsty, sleepy (although thirsty, sleepy, and please all look a lot alike when you do them . . .)

Words you say: bye, ball, Bible, bottle, bite, book, blue, mama, dada, Ella, “eeses” (Reeses, our dog), “ah-ee” (Ali, our other dog), Lucy (grandparent’s dog),  “anks” (thanks), “ank oo” (thank you), “ish” (fish), “inished” (finished), duck, “ootball” (football), RhuRhu (grandma), Gigi (grandma), hey, hi, down, up, uh-uh, “eese” (please"), play. I also think you say something that sounds like “what’s that?”

Animal noises you make: chicken

Favorite foods: banana, and then I don’t know what else. You eat a ton of different stuff, but half the time something you gobbled up the day before, you won’t touch the next day. It can make it very tough figuring out what to feed you!

Favorite activities: crawling/walking and exploring everything, especially following Ella or chasing a dog; dancing (you love to turn on the music that plays on toys and dance to it); reading books; watching Blue’s Clues; taking baths; playing with balls (you love to throw any kind of ball); trying get any electronics or drinks you can spot.

Troy at 15 months

I Heart Faces: Oh So Silly!

I told Ella to hug Troy. This is what I ended up with, ha!

I Heart Faces: By the Book

Ella has been so precious and funny lately when she reads books by herself. Sometimes the stories have something to do with the pictures on the pages, and sometimes not. When she was reading the book in the photo, almost every page began with her reading something to the effect of “When I was a baby . . .” followed by a bunch of made up words.

 

Drafting Dinner: Weekly Menu Planning

This week is going to be a week of leftovers with a few new items thrown in.

• Chicken spaghetti
• Chicken enchilada casserole (using leftover chicken from my slow cooker salsa chicken). I’m also going to attempt to freeze one of these casseroles (I had enough chicken left over for two casseroles).
• Pasta with meat sauce (I had a lot of meat left over after making these petite lasagnas last week. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly for the lasagnas, but we were not impressed – we will not be making them again. The wonton wrappers were dry/overcooked on the top, and undercooked on the bottom).
• Steak with grilled veggies
• Baked crusted chicken (not sure what I’ll coat it in yet) maybe with sautéed green beans

Speaking of new recipes I tried out last week, my husband loved the jalapeño coleslaw.  I didn’t dress it nearly as heavily as the original recipe called, but I think he preferred it that way. My husband said it was the best coleslaw he’d ever had in his life! It turned out to be too spicy for my taste, but I think I might have liked it on something like a sandwich (which is what it was used for in the original recipe anyway).

Encouraging Independence

For a while now Ella has been wanting to do everything by herself. This transition is kind of a strange for me – going from having to do everything for my tiny baby to allowing my toddler to do things by herself. Sometimes these changes are liberating to me as a mother: it is helpful at times that Ella can put her shoes on by herself or that she can pick up her toys or that she can buckle one of the buckles on her car seat. Sometimes, however, I struggle with allowing her to do these things herself. If we are in a hurry or running late (which seems to happen all too often), it usually is much faster for me to do those things for her, which is only discouraging to her. At times she can get quite upset when I “take over” her responsibilities. And, really, I do understand her desire to want to do these things by herself.

Sure, there are going to be times that I need to do these tasks for her for whatever reason. And she needs to understand that’s not a reason to throw a fit. BUT, I need to understand that I need to encourage her and help her to learn to do all these different things. I need to exhibit patience with her because she is only 2 (well, almost 3), and she doesn’t know how to do a lot of these things. Part of my role as her mama is to teach her these things, and to NOT get frustrated when she doesn’t do it right the first time or takes a long time to complete a task. When I let my impatience rule I’m only exhibiting a selfish attitude; very far from the attitude I ought to be exhibiting.

I’m amazed at the patience my husband displays with Ella (that I know I don’t always have!). He’s so good about letting her help him with special tasks – often things that he could get done more quickly by himself. Her eyes light up when he asks her to go help him get the trash together before the trash pickup comes or when he asks her to help him crush the cans for recycling (she picks up the ones he crushes and puts them away). I’ve also been trying to embrace giving Ella tasks such as putting clothes in the washing machine or taking the clean laundry to the appropriate bedroom. Yes, when Ella helps me out, these tasks take longer. BUT I need to train her to learn to do these things and much more, and I must have patience in the process!

I really do love watching her learn new things (I’m really amazed at what she picks up on!), and I don’t ever want to discourage her from learning. I need to encourage her independence without allowing my impatience to rule those situations.  I love Ella so much: watching her grow and learn new things are great blessings in my life!