Easy Recipes: Breakfast sandwich and chocolate

Just because the sun is up
does not mean my brain is, too!

I confess to two morning cravings:  something chocolate, and a hot something which contains meat.  Since I have a McDonald's across the street from work, that means a Sausage McMuffin (370 calories) and a Chocolate Chip Frappe (size depending upon the kind of day I'm expecting--760 calories for the large) for a daily cost of about $5.  My pocketbook and my waistline demand that I do something to reduce both cost and calories.

Let me say that I will NOT get up and cook breakfast.  I might warm it up, but even scrambling eggs is too much for my mental capacity at that hour.  So, I'm going back to an old strategy:  home-made fast food.

The sausage muffin is easy enough.  

Baking sausage allows the grease to drain.

I bake Odom's Tennessee Pride mild sausage patties until done, then pop them into the freezer in an appropriate container.  While the cost of making English muffins is minimal, I usually just buy Thomas' English Muffins on sale for about $0.50 each.

In the morning, I pop the muffin in the toaster, and the sausage in the microwave.  Instead of cheese, I add a dollop of home-made preserves (usually peach) to the toasted muffin before wrapping the warm sandwich to eat on the trip to work.

My chocolate fix

Instead of the frappe, I fill my Thermos travel tumbler with Swiss Miss hot chocolate and it stays HOT until mid-morning.

While the cost of the muffin sandwich is about the same, the cost of the drink is the real savings:  $2-$3 per day.  Over the course of a year, that's a savings of about $720 for 20 workdays per month average.

Calorie-wise, the muffin, sausage, and preserves are about 320 calories, and the chocolate is 220 calories.  That's a saving of 590 calories per day or 1.5 hours of weeding!

A savory start to the day!

Saving time, money, and calories is a great start to any day!  Enjoy your favorite fast food flavors without the fast food cost.

What's cooking in your Savory kitchen?

Nancy