Dr. Seuss Baby Shower Part 1

Dr. Seuss Baby Shower Part 1

Each month for our staff meeting a different group of teachers is responsible for bringing the food.  March was our month.  A few weeks ago we were called upon to turn our staff meeting into a ‘Granny Shower’ for our boss.  Oh sure, not a problem!  I love parties, figuring out the food, planning the decorations etc.  My problem with planning parties is I tend to wait til the last minute.  What can I say?  I thrive on the pressure I guess!!  Anyway, I went to my favorite party planning resource – Pinterest!  I have a board for Party Plans, take a minute to look if you want!  I pinned a bunch of baby shower ideas before I decided on a Dr. Seuss theme.  Since there are so many incredible ideas for Dr. Suess parties out there, I decided to start a Dr. Seuss Party board.

With all of those ideas floating around in my head, I went to work first on figuring out the food.  The trick was that this was a breakfast, so a lot of the typical baby shower food would not really work.  Also, I was only responsible for part of the food.  I decided to make a couple of things from my Pinterest board, Yummy Nummy, Mini Cinnamon Rolls and Hash Brown Muffins.

Both of these were scrumptious!  The cinnamon rolls were the bigger hit, and they are oh so easy!!  Love those kind of recipes!  I mentioned that I thrive on last-minute pressure, right?  Ok, so it was the night before the breakfast about 7:00 or so when I started the hash brown muffins, which I cleverly re-named Hash Brown Nests (to go along with Horton Hears a Who, which I will explain more later)  Anyway, the nests required two steps to make them.  First you have to mix some seasoning and cheese with the hash browns and smash some of the mixture into the mini-muffin pan, create a well with them and bake.  Then the second step involves adding egg, more cheese and bacon and baking again.  A bit tedious, especially when I needed to make about 80!  Todd came in after I had been working on them for a while and innocently asked if he could help.  Well, yes, yes I think you can!!  I put him to work starting the mini cinnamon rolls.  Those really were easy, but that’s not the reason I gave him that task!  He is really quite brilliant in the kitchen!  Anyway, the cinnamon rolls started with tubes of crescent rolls.  The directions said to smooth the crescent roll dough together to form rectangles of dough, brush with butter, and spread on brown sugar and cinnamon.  That was the easy part…….next step was to roll the dough up into a log and then cut into little pinwheels.  That was a bit harder than I thought it would be!  Anyway, he got them all cut and into the mini-muffin pans and into the oven.  Hooray!  Then without me realizing what he was doing, he cleaned his mess up and put away all the ingredients and asked how he could help with the hash brown nests that I was still laboring over.  I looked at him with a quizzical look and said well, we will need more than 18 mini cinnamon rolls!!  He said really?  how many??  Oh, I don’t know maybe 80-90 or so?!?!?  There are about 40 teachers after all, and they are bite sized!  Uh-oh, he just shook his head and went back to the pantry to get the ingredients again.  Several hours later, almost midnight, we finished the last of the cinnamon rolls and hash brown nests.  Hurray!    Here are the recipes if you’d like to try these recipes yourself.

cinnamonrollsMini Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Icing

Makes 16 mini cinnamon rolls

Ingredients:

  • 1-8oz tube crescent roll dough
  • 2 Tablespoons butter
  • cinnamon
  • brown sugar

For the maple icing:

  • 1 teaspoon maple syrup
  • 1 Tablespoon skim milk
  • 3/4 cup powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven according to crescent roll dough package directions. Layout half the dough (4 triangles) and pinch all the seams together. Flip over and pinch the seams on the back side together too.

2. Using a rolling pin, smooth the seams and roll the dough into a square about 1/4? thick. Brush with half the butter, and sprinkle with as much cinnamon and brown sugar as you want. Roll into a log and cut into 8 pieces.

3. Place mini cinnamon rolls into a non-stick sprayed mini muffin tin. Repeat steps 1 and 2 with the other half of the crescent roll dough. Bake according to package directions.

4. Meanwhile whisk together maple syrup and milk in a bowl. Add in powdered sugar until desired consistency is reached. Drizzle over warm cinnamon rolls.

hashbrownmuffinsHash Brown Nests

  • (24oz) bag of thawed hash browns
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
  • 2 tbs oil
  • 1/3 c shredded cheddar cheese
  • 6-8 eggs
  • Bacon bits
  • Cheese, to taste

Mix together the hash browns, salt, pepper, oil and cheese.  Put a spoonful of the mixture in each cup of a well greased muffin tin, and make a well in the center.

Bake at 425°F for 15-18 minutes, cover with foil if the edges appear to be getting too brown.

Now, lower the oven to 350°F. Meanwhile, beat eggs and then pour a bit of the egg onto the cooked hashbrowns.  Sprinkle some cheese and bacon bits on top.

Bake for about 13-16 minutes.  Gently slide a knife along the edges, and pull up with a fork.



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