Cooking Big

Welcome to our practical Saturday post for large family living.  This is when and where we share some practical things that have helped us along the way of raising our large family.  These are things I wish I would have known when we were struggling to adjust to a larger family, or at about child #5.  Today, I am posting some of our best breakfast recipes.  These are every day recipes that are economical, not the fancy, expensive sort that you use once or twice a year.

Cooking Big and Cheap Breakfasts

When we became a family of 6, I had to adjust recipes and acquire larger cooking pots.  Now we are  a family of 10, and we have learned to automatically double or triple every recipe.  There are a few very good recipes that we have found to be light on the grocery budget and yummy in our tummies, those we would like to share here.  They are all recipes for feeding 10 people, or a big bunch.  We previously posted our favorite muffins under “Summer Simplicity pt 1”, you can find it in the July archives .
 In the summer, we usually have granola or muffins during the week, most of the time with fruit, fresh or canned( we buy in #10 cans at Costco) and eggs on Sunday.  In the cooler seasons, we alternate Bob’s Red Mill 10 grain  hot cereal or oatmeal, which we buy in 25 # bags, and eggs on Sunday.  Daddy often makes his special pancakes for a uneventful Saturday morning (because it takes a long time to cook 20 pancakes.)

Dutch Baby Breakfast
(our favorite choice for an easy Sunday morning, since it takes about 5 minutes to prepare and then we have just one dish and one mixing bowl to wash, as we eat on paper plates on Sundays)

8 eggs
4 cups flour
4 cups milk
1 cup butter

Preheat oven to 400.  In a large dish, such as my 15x21 lasagna pan, put butter in the pan and place the pan in the oven while you mix up the eggs.
In blender of with mixer, beat together eggs, milk and flour.  Pour in hot pan in which the butter has melted.
Bake at 400 for 25 minutes, or until golden and puffy.

Most of the time, we sprinkle powdered sugar over the top and eat it this way.  But sometimes we put a mixture of ham and cheese with chopped onions on top for the last 5 minutes or so.  But if you are a sugar loving family, you might want to mix up this sauce, which is to die for.
Sauce:
1 ½ cup sugar
¾ cup buttermilk, or milk plus 1 Tbsp lemon juice
½ cup butter
2 Tbsp pancake syrup or corn syrup
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla
Add all ingredients together EXCEPT vanilla.  Boil for 5 to 7 minutes, then remove from heat, stir  in vanilla and serve.

Simple Granola
I usually mix this up in the evening while cleaning the kitchen, so I can watch it and stir.  I like using nuts finely chopped, it adds protein, and the children don’t mind them if they are chopped small.

8 cups oatmeal
 1 ½ cups wheat germ
1 ½ cups oat bran
1 cup sunflower seeds (optional)
1 cup chopped nuts:  pecans, walnuts, almonds.. whatever you have (optional)
Mix these together in a big bowl.

In sauce pan, combine the following:
1 ½ tsp salt
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup maple syrup
1 cup honey
1 cup veg. oil
1 Tbsp. vanilla
Boil for 1 minute, then pour over oat mixture.  Spread in a large baking sheet or two.  Bake @ 325 for 20 minutes, stirring once.  Cool.  Add raisins if desired.  Store in an airtight container.

Best Cinnamon Rolls
These are great for bake sales, since they are inexpensive to make.  We almost always make the rolls the day before, putting them in the frig unbaked but ready to go in the oven.  Then in the morning, they just need to raise out of the frig for 20 minutes, bake and frost for hot fresh rolls.  These, too, would be an excellent choice for a Sunday morning, because there would only be the baking sheets to wash if you were eating on paper plates, as we do on Sunday.  I prefer the protein of eggs to keep the little ones from being hungry before we get home, it really doesn’t work though, they are still hungry before church is out. J

1 cup sugar
1 cup milk
2 tsp salt
 2 tbsp yeast
Mix in bowl, add:
3 cups warm water
1 cup oil
4 eggs
Stir well and let sit, to sponge, for 10 minutes.  Then add:
6 cups flour
Stir well.  Continue to add ½ cup flour until the dough doesn’t stick to the bowl.  You may have to mix it in by hand.(if you do, do not use water to wash the dough off your hand, use flour instead).
Let rise in bowl until double, 40 minutes.  Punch dough down, and roll out into two long rectangles.
Spread 1 cube butter on each rectangle, sprinkle heavily with cinnamon and brown sugar.  Roll up from farthest edge away toward you.  Cut into 1 ½ slices and place on  cookie sheets, with space in between. 
Either place them in the frig until morning, covered in plastic wrap, or let rise 30 minutes and bake at 375 for 20 minutes with foil over the top loosely.  Then 5 to 10 min with the foil removed.  Do not overbake, you want them lightly done, almost underdone.
Cool and frost.  Should make about 48 rolls. 2 each for today and two each for tomorrow, unless you can’t stay out of them and eat five, but who ever does that??? J

Daddy’s Pancakes

4 ½ cups flour (we like to use Kamut, but any flour is fine)
3 tsp salt
2/3 cup sugar
4 ½ cups milk
2 ½ Tbsp baking powder
4 eggs
2/3 cup oil
Combine ingredients in a bowl.  Stir until most lumps have been removed.  Using a well oiled pan over medium heat, pour enough batter for desired size pancake.  When lightly browned on the bottom side, carefully turn the pancake over.  Serve with butter and syrup, applesauce, or butter and brown sugar. This makes a big batch(more than enough for us).