The Sonshine Digest

Breakfasts at my house are pretty much routine.  Each day of every week is pretty much the same which can help to make things simple and frugal!   I have been diligently working at collecting some new recipes to work at adding to our breakfast repertoire.  I decided to share a couple of family favorites.  I am going to share my breakfast sandwiches recipe. Around my house we called them "Mom's McBiscuits" or "Mom's McMuffins"! " Mom's McBiscuits or McMuffins" 1 tube of Grands Biscuits, baked 1 dozen eggs, cooked 6 slices bacon, cut in half and then cook 5 slices American cheese 2 sausage patties I made these this morning here is how I put them together. I baked two tubes of biscuits last night for dinner. We ate one for dinner, the rest I cooled and put in a ziploc bag. I also went ahead and cooked a pound of bacon and a package of 8 sausage patties. Before I cook the pound of bacon, I cut the bacon strips in half. Before I cooked ...

What is one of the most healthiest foods ? Carrots!! They are rich in Vitamin A. Carrots are one of my kids' favorite foods. They love to take them out of the fridge and snack on them hence my love for going to Aldi's and getting a 1# bag of the baby carrots for 69 cents! Yesterday I was in the kitchen most of the day fixing a spaghetti dinner for my family and my hubby's work team. I got thinking about those little orange veggies as used them. Did you know that you can use carrots as sweetener instead of adding sugar to your foods? Since my kids love them it is easy for me to add them to different dishes. Although I have a few that would rather eat them raw than cooked!  I have not gotten them to drink them in smoothies or juice yet! I love to add shredded carrots to my tomato based dishes. I could just chop the carrots up but I have several who don't like seeing chunks of veggies, especially in their spaghetti sauce. To add the extra vitamins along with sw...

We are not much of a salad family. I don't make many pasta salads or green leafy type salads on a regular basis. Usually our "salad" consists of a plate filled with raw carrots and a bowl of ranch dressing! However, my favorite salad is my homemade chicken taco salad! When I make my Taco Bar night I always try to make more chicken taco meat than what we will need so that I can use it for a leftover lunch or two during the following days. I love the fact that making this salad I am using leftovers and it doesn't require much in the way of heating up! This salad tastes great cold or warm. Chicken Taco Salad 3 boneless/skinless chicken breast, cooked & cubed 2 TBSP taco seasoning 1/4-1/3 cup mild taco sauce Combine altogether. The taco sauce I use instead of water so that the chicken doesn't taste dried out. To make the salad: Layer the following on a plate: tortilla chips or crushed taco shells chicken meat shredded cheddar...

I love this simple, colorful, and flavorful side dish of zucchini and summer(crookneck) squash. Zucchini season would not be complete without having this side dish along with a burger off the grill or a piece of marinaded grilled chicken. And the best part but rather unhealthy side of this dish is that it tastes soooo much better cooked in bacon grease(I keep a jar of grease in my fridge during the summer months just for using in cooking!). My mom steps it up a notch in color and adds shredded or julienned carrots to the dish. The directions for this dish are easy... Cut up into quarters some zucchini and summer squash. You want chunks over slices because the squash will cook down. Cut up some onion. The amount of onion that you use is based on the amount of squash you cut up. If you only cut up one summer squash and 1 zucchini, only do 1/4 of an onion. OR if you are like me and don't have fresh onion on hand, use 2 TSBP. of dried minced onions for the 2 sq...

One of my newly found favorite meals is chicken pot pie and homemade bread ! Aside from chocolate, I classify it as a comfort food! I love taking the bits and pieces of leftover veggies and chicken and using them to make something so comforting. There has been times though where I just make up chicken pot pie from scratch because there is no leftovers to be found to make up the pot pie. I know how to make pie crust from scratch but sometimes it is just nice to be able to take a box of ready made out of the freezer to put this dish together. It just can make life so much easier especially when you find them on discount for $1 per box and you have a coupon making them 50¢ a box! It is quicker to use a bag of frozen mixed veggies when making this dish, however, I usually do not have any on hand so I use fresh carrots and potatoes that I dice up and cook together in a pot until tender. I drain them but reserved the water just in case I need more liquid for the pot pie. ...

I picked up the 30 Day Gourmet Cookbook from the library and have been looking through it and finding yummy recipes.  Even though I haven't taken to freezing any of the main dish recipes yet, I have throughly enjoyed finding new ideas to use with some old favorites. One of the recipes that I have tried is Parmesan Crusted Tilapia .  Not only did I use the seasoned bread crumbs with tilapia but with some shrimp. These were easy to make and yummy! Parmesan Crusted Tilapia 1 lb frozen tilapia filets (or 1 lb shrimp) 1/3 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese 1/2 tsp. garlic powder 1/2 tsp. paprika 1/4 tsp. black pepper 1/4 tsp. dried basil 3 tbsp. butter or margarine, melted 3 tbsp. mayonnaise or Miracle Whip Thaw. Drain any liquids from the fish. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. In a shallow container thoroughly mix butter and mayonnaise until combined. Stir in seasoning mix until combined. Pla...