Quick Meals: One Pan Lunch

I love breakfast foods, but I very rarely eat breakfast, so what I really love is breakfast for dinner. Or lunch. You know, I think I'm in love with lunch. At lunch, you can eat breakfast or dinner or whatever you please and nobody judges you. Roast beef for lunch? Cool. Waffles with whip cream? Okay. Peanut butter sandwich? Awesome. See? Nobody cares. Lunch is the best meal of the day.

However, most people don't have a lot of time for lunch. I know I'm lucky by being able to go home every day for lunch, but I still have a limited time to prepare and consume lunch.

When you combine the love of breakfast with the lack of time, you end up with bacon. Bacon and eggs. Neither take very long to cook, and they're whole, real and a part of most clean-eating diets. I add in a potato patty because I'm still a little old-school and I like to see carbs as a part of my meals. Amazingly, I discovered that one egg, one potato patty and two slices of bacon all fits in one pan.

I add the bacon to a dry, heated pan, and let some of the fat come out, and then add the egg and patty so that they cook in bacon grease. Oh, so healthy, hmm? I like to cook my egg sunny side up or over easy and then soak up the yolk with my potato patty.

I like this meal because it's about limits. I can only cook two slices of bacon and one egg, even though my brain says I want two eggs and three slices of bacon. Also, without any added oil, salt or sugar (besides whatever the potato patty was processed with...), it is very nearly a clean eating meal! (Most clean-eating or paleo diets restrict potatoes, which is why I haven't managed a paleo diet yet.)

The Hollows in Saskatoon

The Hollows is this little gem of a restaurant, buried in an iffy area of Saskatoon. Driving by, it looks like a run-down Chinese restaurant. A out-dated neon sign reads The Golden Dragon. Underneath, broken neon lights list typical Chinese dishes this restaurant once served. The large window nearest the door has a new, white window decal that reads The Hollows.

Day 61: Breakfast Casserole

I made breakfast for dinner. Like many a human being, that was one of my favorite things growing up. My mom would make big stacks of fluffy waffles, and I'd painstakingly fill every single square hole with syrup. Or she'd have a big plate full of soft pancakes, and we'd cover them with sliced bananas, strawberries, whipped cream, and syrup. Waffles were more common. Either way, she'd freeze all of the leftovers and we would heat them up for breakfast in the weeks to come. Way better than freezer waffles.

I haven't actually tried either pancakes or waffles, yet, but I do have some gluten free waffles in the freezer that my mom bought for me.

Now that I'm an adult, I don't have breakfast for dinner much. Hubby isn't as big a fan as waffles or pancakes, and I'm not as big a fan as bacon. We would often (once a month or so) go for dinner somewhere that served all day breakfast because I wanted breakfast, and he didn't. But I wanted eggs and hashbrowns and toast and all of that.

Guess I can't do that now... Well, maybe I could. It'll be awhile before I do.

Anyways, we needed to have dinner tonight, and the only thawed meat in the house was bacon. I didn't really want bacon and eggs. I found hashbrowns in the freezer, so I searched for "hashbrown bacon" on Pinterest, hoping for something that used both, not literally hashbrown bacon.

I read a couple recipes and then came up with my own.

So here it is, my Breakfast Casserole. Or my Hashbrown-Bacon-Egg Casserole. Or my yummy food.


12 ounces (or so) frozen hashbrowns
1/4 cup butter, melted
6-10 slices of bacon
1 cup shredded cheese
3 eggs
1/4 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons Lowry's seasoning salt


You need enough hashbrowns to cover the bottom of your 8x8 pan. I measured out 12 ounces, but then added a few more to make it perfect.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Pour the melted butter over the hashbrowns and put them in the oven for about 25 minutes. You really just want them to be warm. I stuck them in (still frozen) while the oven preheated, and checked them every few minutes.

While the hashbrowns warm up, cook the bacon. You want it crisp enough to chop, but don't burn it.

Chop the bacon into small pieces, and set aside

Beat the eggs with a heaping spoonful of sour cream. I'd guess it was about 1/4 cup, but I just stuck a spoon in and mixed it into the egg. Add the seasoning salt now too.

This is my egg beater. Sadistic or no?

When the hashbrowns are warm, sprinkle the bacon on top evenly.

Add the cheese, and then evenly pour egg mixture all over dish. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a knife comes out clean.

Also fantastic with ketchup. Or at least my husband thinks so.

Day 56: Loaded Mashed Potato Casserole

There are three things I want from the dinners we make.

1. Gluten Free, obviously
2. Delicious, or at least enjoyed by my husband
3. Healthy

Guess which one usually gets left by the wayside? Yeah... We're not so healthy all the time.

Tonight though, I won on the first two. I usually aim for easy too, and this was easy, but time-consuming. I found it on Pinterest, of course, and my hubby agreed to make it for his turn to make dinner, mostly because bacon was involved.

It's really easy, you mash potatoes, mix them with some cream cheese, other stuff and spices, put that in a casserole pan, and then sprinkle cooked bacon and cheese on top. I threw the potato mix in my KitchenAid, so they were whipped and creamy without any elbow grease at all.


5 1/2 cups mashed potatoes (I used 3 large baker's potatoes, and got 4 cups)
1/2 cup milk
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
8 slices bacon crispy cooked and crumbled

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Peel, quarter and boil potatoes for 15-20 minutes, or until soft. Drain potatoes and beat with a mixer until smooth.. Add milk, cream cheese, sour cream, parsley, garlic salt, and nutmeg. Beat at a medium-high speed until nice and creamy.
Spoon into a 9x13 baking dish (I used an 8x8 because I had less potatoes) that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Top with cheese and bacon. Cover and back for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 10 minutes or until cheese melts.
Serves 12 people.


So yeah. I meant to halve it, which is why I bought three potatoes, but I had close enough to the right amount that I just added the same amount of other ingredients. It came out very very creamy, and made a ton. Hopefully we'll actually eat the leftovers...

Day Six: The Potluck

I am so sick of this rollercoaster of feeling better and worse.

Actually, it would be a pretty lame rollercoaster, because I usually wake up feeling okay, feel good by coffee, feel a tiny bit worse by lunch, and then about an hour after lunch I just start declining until five o'clock.

Then, I either pump myself up enough to be in a good mood for my husband, or am feeling so cruddy that I'm just plain grumpy and can't handle the idea of dinner. After dinner, I usually balance out at an average "not so great" until bed.

It seems related to eating. When I don't eat, I feel okay. But I'm not eating gluten. Well, maybe today I did... But that's just today! The last few days, I'm completely sure I didn't consume a tiny drop of it at all. I know that it's going to take some time to feel okay again, and my digestive system will take awhile to recover, but I just want to not be sick anymore.

So, the potluck at work was today. I really only signed up to go because I haven't met most of the people I work with. My job doesn't effect anyone else's (except one) and their jobs don't really effect me, so I only meet people outside of my specific office space intermittently. And I decided a department-wide potluck would be a great idea. Mind you, that was before I got "dx'ed". 

All morning, I just sat at my desk, with these peanut buttery oatmeal bar things just smelling amazing, and me worrying about lunch. I brought a little container of gluten-free crackers, and a rice cake, in case there was cracker food and/or there wasn't much I could eat.

At noon, I wandered downstairs with my pan of dessert looking for a room of people I didn't know. Sounds like a great idea, huh? Well, I followed my nose and found it. And sure enough, I didn't know anybody. Haha.

Overall, it was actually pretty fun. One person asked me if I worked in IT, and what my name was, and then the lady who organized it admitted to not having any idea who I was when I emailed her to tell her I was coming. I've worked there since last May.

Everyone loved my dish, and most asked for my recipe, which is a sure sign of a potluck hit.

I really should have cancelled, or poked my head in and left or something. I shouldn't have eaten there. I avoided all the dishes with noodles, bread crumbs, and croutons, or any obvious gluten, but you know how many things have secret gluten in them. So eating a bunch of homemade unknown dishes is really not a great idea.

I had some coleslaw, some salads, some shrimp dip, some of a cheese ball, a bit of ham, and some spicy little meatballs. Honestly though, any of them could have been bad.

So, the lesson learned today is potlucks are bad. Except maybe a "gluten-free potluck". Wouldn't that be fun? Anybody up to planning one? Then I could find yummy safe dishes. Hmm...

It makes me sad. I've always loved potlucks; I even have a cookbook meant for potluck dishes. Ah well, just one more sacrifice, right?

I actually haven't felt any worse today than yesterday, though. So maybe I was safe. I felt a little groggy this afternoon, and had a hard time focusing on my computer screen, but I might blame that on my job being so boring my mind is going numb. 

For dinner, my lovely husband made bacon-wrapped sausage and fried mini potatoes. So my second lesson from today is that just because I can't have gluten, doesn't mean I have to eat healthy. ;)

I planned on making my potluck dish again, and taking pictures this time, so I can give you the recipe, but I felt pretty wiped after dinner. So, when I get around to it / when my hubby begs me to make it, I will share it with you.

Unhealthy, and gluten-free. Mmmmm....