Cooking Thursday

Today's recipe is one I tried over Christmas, for a breakfast dish made in the crockpot. You turn it on before you go to bed and in the morning it's all ready for you!  Hash browns, bacon, cheese, green pepper, onion and eggs - it was very good.

Overnight Breakfast Casserole

6-8 strips of bacon, cooked until crispy and chopped
1 green pepper, diced
1 small onion, diced
1 - 2 pound bag frozen southern style hash browns
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
12 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Spray crock pot with non stick spray.
Saute green pepper and onion for 5 minutes.
Place 1/3 of hash browns in the bottom of the crock pot, then layer 1/3 of bacon, 1/3 of the peppers and onion,  and 1/3 of cheese. 
Repeat layers two more times, ending with the cheese.
Stir together the eggs, milk, salt and pepper and pour over cheese in crock pot.
If making this ahead of time, you can put the crock pot in the refrigerator until bedtime.
Cook on low for 8-10 hours.

Wordless Wednesday

 

A day in my life, January!

Here we are - it's 2026!

Here's how I spent the first day of the month.

We spent New Years Eve with friends.  They left around 10. Bob decided by 11:30 that he didn't need to stay up to see the new year in, but I did stay up and watch the ball drop, then I headed to bed.

I started off the day downstairs, walking 45 minutes on the treadmill.  We still have tables set up down there from our Christmas dinner.  We left them up as we have a group coming for supper soon and it seemed crazy to take them down, and then set them up again.

Here's how things looked from our porch. It's been snowing a lot since Christmas and it's been cold.  It was 15 degrees when I got up.

I got ready and started a load of laundry - getting the sheets washed.

After having breakfast, Bob and I headed out. The roads were snow covered, but not too slippery.  We had initially planned to go out and see the David movie, but it was all sold out.  We'll have to do that another day.

We went to church to get this newsletter put out.  It's something I do and publish every 2 months.  It has an article from the pastor, upcoming events, birthdays, anniversaries, lots of photos of recent events and any other interesting things that have happened in our church life.

This is our mailbox system at church. It's two sided, so the other side has the same set up.  It's so nice to just put cards or info into people's mail slots. We put a newsletter into each slot and were on our way.

We decided to take a little drive in the country and take in the beauty of the snow.

After we got home and had lunch, Bob took care of the driveway and then used the electric shovel to clean off the patio and deck in the back of the house.

I don't know about you, but once January comes and I take my Christmas things down, I get the urge to start cleaning and organizing.  So this afternoon, I did some cleaning out of cabinets.  I cleaned out this little cabinet in the living room that tends to collect odds and ends.

Then I cleaned out a little pantry closet.

I got all my Christmas things taken down and put away.  We do keep the skinny tree up through January to provide a little winter cheer.

While I was working on these things, it started snowing again!  It's kind of a losing battle trying to keep the driveway clear right now.

We had a good supper; ham with mashed red skin potatoes and roasted carrots.

Then after supper, just a quiet evening. Here we are watching Midlife Stockman, a show we really enjoy on Youtube.  He's in Detroit and cleans up properties that are abandoned or that people are unable to do themselves.  He always says it's about "working hard and loving your neighbor".  Good advice to start the year with!

And that's it - the end of a good day and the start of a new year.

Christmas Recap

Hi everyone!  I hope you all had a nice Christmas and New Years. We had a very nice time and I enjoyed my blog break, but am anxious to catch up with all of you again.

We had a lovely Christmas Eve, with a service at our church, which ended with all of us circling the sanctuary with lit candles, singing Silent Night.  When we got home we had a video call with Andy and Nikki in Kentucky and then finished the evening by watching A Christmas Carol.

Christmas morning came with warm temps and sunshine.  It had been in the 40's that week and we thought we may not have a white Christmas.  However, we had gotten enough snow that not all of it melted.  It was nice having clear roads for the travelers.

Heather and Andrew were first to arrive, and Cassie couldn't wait for her cousins to show up.  She got Bob to come with her, watching out the front window for Alaina and Ruby to arrive.

We set up tables in our basement and had a lovely meal.

We usually have a ham dinner for Christmas, but decided to make it a little easier this year.  We had lasagna and white chocolate, peppermint cheesecake.  Laura brought along a yummy big salad and Heather made homemade rolls to go with the meal.

After dinner, I got the girls to pose for me.  Connor didn't sit still so he's not in the picture - maybe next year!

Alaina read the Christmas story to all of us.

There was great fun opening presents!  Cassie is showing off a temporary tattoo she got, Ruby is thrilled with a soft, cozy blanket and Alaina was busy helping the littles open gifts.

Alaina even made some cute gift tags.

Here's Connor modeling a cute hat he got.  I'm afraid he's not going to be very good about keeping it on though!

It was fun, but tiring!

We had a lovely day, it's always good to be together!