Fruit Salad (Ambrosia)

This is a recipe given to me by my (crazy) Aunt Karen. It's relatively easy to make and serves as an excellent addition to a big breakfast. Or it functions nicely as its own light breakfast. I often use it for breakfast potlucks since it make quite a lot!

Aunt Karen Fruit Salad

Ingredients:
1 can peaches, cut up
1 can pineapple tidbits
1 can mandarin oranges
handful of red grapes, halved
handful of marachino cherries, halved
2 bananas, sliced
1 box tapioca pudding (cooked variety)
1 box coconut pudding (cooked variety)

Directions:
1. Drain all canned fruit, reserving liquid to 3 cups (add water if needed).
2. Mix pudding with reserved liquid and whisk thoroughly.
3. Heat in microwave on HIGH for 3 minutes. Stir well. Repeat once more and again if needs thickening. Stir frequently.
4. Cool pudding mix in refrigerator.
5. Combine all fruit but cherries and bananas with cool pudding. Fold in with spatula.
6. Refrigerate for a couple of hours. Mix in remaining fruit just before serving.

Optional add-ins:
Handful of strawberries, sliced
Handful of dried coconut
Whatever else sounds good!


Notes: I will sometimes use vanilla pudding instead of coconut if I'm serving this to folks who aren't fans of coconut. It still comes out good!

Also, if you're going to add red fruits like cherries and strawberries (which I recommend), make sure you thoroughly rinse/wash and dry them off before adding to the rest of the mix. The red has a tendency to 'bleed' into the rest of the salad!

Breakfast Burritos

I can't remember which cookbook I originally found this recipe in, but these burritos were a godsend while I was in school. Just toss one into the microwave and it's off to that early morning class! Note that this recipe makes quite a few burritos!


Breakfast Burritos

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 (2lb) bag frozen O'Brien potatoes
1 dozen eggs, beaten
1/2 cup skim milk
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 (7oz) can diced green chilis
1 1/4 cups reduced-fat cheddar cheese, shredded
1 1/4 cups salsa
20 whole-wheat flour tortillas, warmed


Directions:
- In a large nonstick skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat.
- Add onion and saute for 3-4 minutes.
- Add potatoes; continue to cook until potatoes begin to brown, stirring frequently.
- In a large bowl, combine beaten eggs, milk, cayenne pepper and green chiles.
- Pour egg mixture over browned potatoes and scramble until eggs are cooked.
- Assemble burritos by spooning about 1/3 cup egg mixture onto a warm tortilla.
- Add 1 tablespoon each of cheese and salsa on top of egg mixture, then roll into a burrito.
- Allow extra burritos to cool then wrap tightly in plastic wrap and place in a zip-top freezer bag and freeze for future use.
- For a quick breakfast on the go, discard plastic wrap and cover with a paper towel then microwave for 3 minutes.

Makes 20 burritos.