Keep It Organized - Egg Muffin Sandwiches

Care to gander a guess what I did the other day? Huh, huh? Anyone, anyone? All in the name of organization, I decided to sort out my backlog email messages, both the read and unread varieties. Of course, I was multitasking at the time (that’s your first foreshadowing clue) in the hopes of barreling through my to-do list. In my divided-attention haste, I ended up deleting the entire que of messages. Every. Message. The read ones. The un-read ones. From family. From school. With pictures. With due dates. UGH! The sad thing is that the computer even asked me to verify that I did, in fact, want to do such an idiotic procedure, and I blindly clicked yes. As soon my finger released off the key, I realized what I had done. Guess I get the village idiot award.To make matters worse, when I turned on the “main” computer that houses my actual email account, it wouldn’t work. My son ever so casually mentioned that he saw light wafts of smoke coming out of it. G.R.R.R.E.A.T. Do I live in a cartoon, now? Is Wiley Coyote going to pop up with his Acme kit?

On the bright side, I’m able to access my incoming messages, so I’ve not gone completely mad. I can even send messages, but I don’t have the addresses because my address book is in the computer doing its toaster imitation. Can you feel my pain? Hubbyman, being the computer genius that he is, said that he might be able to salvage the hard drive and retrieve my info, but won’t be able to get to it until this weekend. My cup of joy overfloweth.

Whenever I get hammered like this, it’s usually because I’m not following my own advice of how to tackle a to-do list. The law of attraction definitely plays prominent in my life. Anyway, if I slow down just a bit and use the organizational skills lurking in the deep recesses of my brain cells, all tends to go well. Time to think positive. Forge ahead. Look for the good. Yeah, I'm sappy that way.

Take, for example, planning breakfasts. My morning routine is greatly smoothed out by just a little forethought. I like to give my girls a hot breakfast before shipping them off to school. Being that I also prepare hot lunches for them to take as well, the stove and microwave are at full throttle at 6:30 am. Now, now ... don’t judge me. I’m well aware that my kids are capable of pulling together nourishment to feed their sleepy faces, but geez, I like cooking, like providing for them, my youngest has gluten issues, and I’m making breakfast anyway. Plus, the little most-of-the-time darlings always say, “thanks, mom” both before and after they eat. I know it sounds hokey, but my grandma and mom took such pride in feeding the family, that I feel like I’m honoring their memory by doing this, too. Plus, I prefer our mornings to be calm. Well, relatively calm anyway, and me at the kitchen wheel tends to be the path with least resistance.

Anyway, my oldest daughter discovered that she, too, likes eggs for breakfast. In the past, she's tended to be a sleepy eater. Therefore, I like to have her breakfast ready super quick. To help facilitate that, I tend to cook up a bunch of hash browns or sausage patties on Sunday, and then reheat them during the week. Eggs are made fresh. My gal usually prefers her food to not touch; however, lately she’s been trying nibbles of mingled food. An example of this is her beloved breakfast sandwich, my homemade version of a McMuffin.On Sunday, I fry up a pounds worth of sausage patties. I like to use ground Italian sausage, as it has such great flavor. Of course, regular breakfast style sausage is great too.Once they are cool, I place all of them in a Ziploc bag, and into the fridge they go. To reheat, simply remove a patty, sprinkle a little water on it (I just place it under the faucet for a millionth of a second), and then heat on high for 30 seconds. Done! Great sausage for breakfast in 30 seconds instead of 20 minutes.

To make my daughter’s favorite breakfast Sammie, start off by slicing some super thin slices of cheese (I also slice these up in batches, too). Over medium/low heat, fry up an egg (or scramble it) taking care to cook the yolk all the way through ... you don’t want to drip yoke on your school uniform. When the egg is almost done, split and toast an English muffin.

Assembly time!Place half of the toasted English muffin on a plate, cut side up.Top with yummy cheese, then savory sausage that you've reheated,Next comes the egg,and top with the other half of the muffin. Now here’s the tip for the day: squash the sandwich.Yep, just put your weight into it and press down. I put a papertowel on it first. Consider it your morning exercise routine. For you see, if you don’t squish it, the sandwich will, in fact, fall apart. However, once squished, all the ingredients adhere to themselves.How's this for keepin' it organized? This entire meal, with some prep work namely the sausage preparation, took under 5 minutes. Clean up is a snap! (envision me snapping my fingers.) Way better, cheaper, and more convenient than its drive through counterpart, these sandwiches are actually quite delish. You can use whatever cheese you like. I used co-jack here, but cheddar and munster have also graced our plates with much success. I like to put sliced tomato or roasted red peppers on mine, but there’s no way my girl will entertain that ... at least not yet.

Oh, and for you gluten free eaters, you can easily create this using those gluten free “cream biscuits” that Whole Foods sells (or make your biscuits using g/f mix). One word of caution, make sure that the sausage you buy is gluten free ... you’d be surprised at how many brands actually put wheat in their sausage. When in doubt, simply substitute a slice of baked ham, Canadian bacon, or bacon!

So ... how do you keep your weekday morning breakfast routine organized?