Breakfast time on the homeschool range...

This family is a family of breakfast eaters. My husband is of the firm opinion that if a man doesn't eat breakfast it's because a female in the family trained him out of it. He (and almost all our children) wake up with food on their mind.

During the summer no one is sitting at the table ready to eat at 8:00 a.m. However, once school starts I wants breakfast cleaned up and forgotten by 8:30 a.m. so we can get the business of the day in full swing.

Some of the menu ideas we like are:

• Ham, Sausage or Bacon with fried eggs and bread of some kind. (toast, pancakes, waffles, muffins, sweet rolls or biscuits.


• Sausage gravy and biscuits


• English muffins with egg, meat of some kind and cheese made into a sandwich


• A big skillet of scrambled eggs topped with cheese and served with Cinnamon Raisin Biscuits


• Omelettes made to order


• Quiche


• Overnight Breakfast casserole


• French toast

If you make breakfast you know how long it takes to make waffles or muffins or coffee cake in the morning. Here are a few of the things I do to make shortcuts and not have to get up at 4:00 a.m. :) to have a good breakfast for the family.

• Keep ziplock bags full of diced peppers in your freezer and a ziplock bag full of diced onion in the fridge. When you're making omelettes it's just as simple as getting the bags out and sprinkling what you want on each person's omelette.


• Have all the items for quiche ready to go the night before where you just put them in the pie shell and stick it in the oven at the right time.


• Make the cinnamon rolls from Pioneer woman's site (they're wonderful) and keep them in your freezer. The night before set them out to thaw and the next morning warm them in the oven. (It makes 7 round pans of them!)http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/cinammon_rolls_/ Any yeast bread will do fine being frozen ahead of time. (Have I mentioned my all time favorite sweet bread called Cream Cheese Braids?


• When you make biscuits double or triple your recipe and freeze the extra ones. Then use them just like the ones you buy at WalMart and pay too much money for!


• Prefry your sausage for the sausage gravy and stick it in a freezer cup for when you need it. Put it in the fridge the night before and your good to go!


• Make up powdered milk and stick it in the fridge for cooking. I use it for gravies too.


• Make a double batch of waffles (just keep baking them during breakfast) and put the extras in gallon freezer bags. Then on a busy day you can just toast the frozen ones! (and don't forget to do all kinds of varieties with the waffles. Our last ones had banana, nuts and cinnamon in them.....mmmm.

Breakfast is brain food. Starting the day with a good meal is a good habit to get to develop for the family. It also starts the day around the table together. It makes good memories for the children. (Later they'll realize how special this really was.)

With fall coming I'm already pulling out the recipes for Pumpkin Drop Doughnuts, Monkey Bread, Apple Cinnamon Rolls and other fall favorites. Start a breakfast file in your cookbook today!

Asher and Mom's Cheesecake Creation....

Yesterday was our son Asher's 18th birthday. It's almost impossible to believe that it was 18 years ago we brought this tiny baby home from the hospital and now he's a big, strapping young man.

We always let the kids pick what dessert (cake or anything else they want) for their birthday. Asher almost always chooses a cheesecake. He and I both love cheesecake and on other birthdays we have made Reece Cup Cheesecake, Chocolate Truffle Cheesecake, and Turtle Cheesecake. This year he couldn't decide what sounded good so I suggested he "design" his own. We discussed several different ideas and then he decided on my making a cheesecake that was a copy of a Zero candy bar.

So we decided on a cheesecake with a chocolate crust, a nice light chocolate inside and a white chocolate ganache on top with nuts sprinkled on it. I dug out several favorite cheesecake recipes and here's what we ended up with!

The result was absolutely delicious. It didn't last long around here because we had a birthday dinner for Asher last night and everyone ate on the cheesecake after supper.

Our birthday menu was made entirely by Asher. I have to say he did a good job on his dinner choices. We had barbequed chicken, cucumber salads (one creamy and one in vinegar), two different pasta salads, green beans, carrots, and fresh-from-the-garden corn on the cob. For bread I made piping hot biscuits served with butter and homemade jams. For dessert, it was Zero Bar Cheesecake by Asher and mom and watermelon. It was a feast fit for a--birthday boy!

We got Asher a new digital camera for his birthday. He is wanting to document his senior year in high school and make his own yearbook. Sounds fun to me!

I just want to stop right here and thank the Lord for giving us Asher. He's our first adopted child. We named him Asher because it means "how blessed" and we wanted that to stand for our blessing in the Lord giving him to us and us being a blessing to him in raising him.

It has turned out just that way. He received the Lord as his Savior at a very young age and has

always had a tender and sensitive conscience toward the Lord. What a blessing for us as parents.

Well, with all that said, how about my giving you the recipe for Asher's Zero Bar Cheesecake!

Crust:

2 cups chocolate cookie crumbs

1/2 cup margarine (melted)

4 Tbsp. light brown sugar

pinch of salt

I use an oreo-type cookie and scrape out the filling and then finely crush (or use your food processor) the cookies till you have 2 cups of crumbs. It takes about two rows of the cookies and then I put all the extra stuffing into the cookies I have left and the kids eat double-or-triple stuffed oreos at their bedtime snack!

Grease your springform pan and then mix the crumbs, melted margarine, brown sugar and pinch of salt and press this mixture evenly in the bottom of your springform pan. Bake until set. Most recipes say 8-10 minutes but I've found this is too long. Bake it at 350 degrees and after you take the crust out of the oven turn your oven down to 325 degrees.

Filling:

1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup whipping cream

3 pkgs. (8 oz.) cream cheese

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup baking cocoa

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

In a saucepan, melt chocolate chips over low heat. Stir them till smooth and then remove from heat and add the whipping cream. Set this aside.

In your mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese and sugar until blended well. Add the cocoa and beat well. Now add the eggs, (with mixer on low) one at a time. Blend just until combined. Stir in the vanilla and the reserved chocolate mixture. Stir just until blended. Pour this over the crust and bake for 45-50 minutes or just until the center is almost set.

Topping:

1 bag of white chocolate chips (divided)

1/4 cup whipping cream

1 tsp. vanilla

2 oz. chopped nuts

For topping, melt 1 1/2 cups of the white chocolate chips in saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly and until smooth. Remove from heat and stir in the whipping cream and vanilla. Spread over baked filling, then take the rest of the chips and sprinkle over the topping. Sprinkle the chopped nuts over topping too. Refrigerate overnight. Carefully run a knife around the edge when ready to take sides off. (I dip the knife in hot water!) Just before serving you can put whipped cream on it for decoration if you want.

Enjoy!

Our son Asher on his 18th birthday!