Breakfast Pizza with Eggs & Bacon: Recipe

Ordinary breakfast ingredients reconfigured and more tempting. One 9-inch pizza serves 2 heartily or 3 more moderately. Fruit and coffee complete the meal.

Thin-Crust Breakfast Pizza with Ham and Bacon

1 9-inch thin-crust pizza shell, unbaked (don't thaw if it's frozen)
1 pat of butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon oil
2 eggs, beaten
3 ounces of cooked ham, chopped into small dice
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese (more if desired)
7 strips of cooked bacon, cut small
jalapeno peppers, sliced (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat the 1/4 teaspoon of oil in small to medium skillet and spread it around. When the skillet is hot, pour in the beaten eggs. Let them sit and cook in the pan without scrambling them, like an omelet. If the eggs stay wet on top, flip them over until they are fully cooked. When done, let the eggs cool on a plate. Then slice them in strips and slice them again crosswise until you have squares of one inch or less.

Brush the pizza shell to the edges with the melted butter. Sprinkle on the pieces of egg and the chopped ham. Dot with jalapeno peppers if desired. Blanket the pizza shell with cheddar cheese. Sprinkle the bacon on top. Bake on a pizza pan for 20 minutes or until the cheese bubbles. Then let the pizza rest for about five minutes before cutting into it, because that will make slicing easier.

Berry Pie in Filo (Phyllo) Crust: Recipe

Crust-making is easy and lower-fat using fillo and cooking spray, and although unconventional, this pie tastes very good and isn't too sweet. How about a scoop of vanilla ice cream on it?

Berry Pie in Filo (Phyllo) Dough Crust

1 box filo dough, thawed
1 12-ounce bag frozen unsweetened strawberries, thawed, with their juice
1 12-ounce bag frozen unsweetened blueberries, thawed, with their juice
2 apples OR 2 pears, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons cornstarch
cooking spray
butter

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Place strawberries, blueberries and apple or pear pieces in a saucepan. Add sugar and cornstarch, mix gently and cook just until the juices thicken. Add cinnamon. Allow the saucepan and contents to cool.

Grease a 9-inch Pyrex pie plate with butter. Lay one sheet of fillo dough down over it. Let the excess fillo dough hang off the edges. Spray this with cooking spray. Continue to lay fillo sheets over the plate, fanning each piece around the pie plate so there's fillo hanging off every edge; spray each sheet. When there are about 20 sheets down, pour in the filling. Lay a few more fillo sheets over the filling and spray them and and butter the top layer. Then lift the excess hanging fillo up toward the center of the pie plate. It will be a wrinkly top crust. Spray this top crust or butter it to make it dark golden. 

Pierce the top of the pie three times with a knife. Place it on a baking sheet to contain any spills, and put the pie in the oven. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes, then lower the oven heat to 350 for another 20 minutes. Allow the pie to cool. Yield: one 9-inch pie. That's 4 Midwestern servings, 8 servings elsewhere.

You will be surprised how the apple or pear pieces enliven this pie!