Orange-Cheese Danish

Soooo easy. And soooo good.

What you'll need:

2 (3 oz. ea.) pkgs cream cheese, softened
2 Tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons milk
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 can refrigerated Orange rolls (house brand or Pillsbury)
reserved icing from rolls
2 to 4 Tablespoons sliced or slivered almonds (optional)

What you'll do:

Mix the softened cream cheese, sugar, milk, and almond extract in a smallish bowl. Separate the dough into strips and place on a lightly greased or sprayed cookie sheet. Put the strips side-by-side, with the cinnamon mostly facing up. Spread the cream cheese mixture across the center of the dough strips, leaving a few inches on each side bare. Now, bring the ends of the dough strips to almost meet each other over the cream cheese. Just fold them over gently. Don't press down. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 - 30 minutes until golden brown. Allow the dough to cool for 5 or 6 minutes, then drizzle with the orange frosting. Sprinkle with almonds, if desired. Serve warm.

"Southwestern" Hash

This really shouldn't be called a recipe, but I make it (or some variant of it) often enough it's worth mentioning.

1/2 pound sliced mushrooms

1/4 medium onion, sliced

1 bag of Simply Potatoes "Southwestern" hash browns (You could certainly improvise another shredded potato product. I've never used frozen potatoes, but you could probably make it work. You could also, if you're that sort of person, shred your own potatoes, in which case you'd need 4.5 C, plus some chopped peppers.)

about 4 oz cheese (I like swiss), shredded

5-6 slices soy bacon, cooked and crumbled (Or real bacon, if you prefer pork products.)

4 eggs

2 T spicy brown mustard

Salt and pepper to taste

Butter and olive oil for cooking

Heat about 1 T of butter and 1 T of olive oil in a big skillet. Add the sliced mushrooms and onions, and cook until the mushrooms start to brown. Then, add a bit more oil and dump in the potatoes. Stir it all together, then let it rest a minute or so before stirring again. (Do this repeatedly - you don't want actual hashbrowns, so you want to stir, but you don't want to stir too often or things don't brown well.)

While the potatoes cook, combine the eggs, mustard, shredded cheese and bacon in a bowl. Whisk everything together until well combined and slightly foamy (like you're making an omelete).

When the potato shreds are done (meaning they no longer have the taste/texture of raw potato), pour the egg mixture into the skillet and stir, stir, stir! The egg and melted cheese binds everything together. It's ready when you no longer see raw egg. Serve as you see fit - sour cream, salsa, extra cheese, etc.

Oatmeal Pancakes

These pancakes are amazing. Seriously. They only have one drawback and that's remembering to prepare the batter the night before. But they're so good that you'll probably be thinking about them all the time anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups quick oats
• 2 cups buttermilk (fake it by using a tbsp of lemon juice for each cup of normal milk)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon (or more)
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

Combine the oats and buttermilk in a large mixing bowl and let them soak all night (or at least two hours, but preparing breakfast two hours in advance? Doesn't usually work out). This is where the incredible texture comes from. It also creates a mixture that resembles dough far more closely than it resembles batter, but no worries, the other ingredients will loosen it up.

When you're ready for your pancakes, preheat the skillet and add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl. Add some chocolate chips if you're gourmand like me. They cook up like normal pancakes, except for the incredible scent of oatmeal and honey and cinnamon that permeates the room.

Goes great with raspberry syrup. Or a spoonful of maple syrup and a couple tablespoons of raspberry jam, if you're cheap and don't have the real thing.