The picture below is my smallest, ugliest one. And I think it looks pretty fabulous. And it tasted even better!
My original plan turned out to be a little more than I could do, but I was determined to make the breakfast pockets. I really want to have more substantial quick breakfasts available to my kids, and I was sure they would love these.
Today was a bit more hectic than I had anticipated, but I worked the different steps into all of the other errands and household tasks that I needed to do.
First, I made the dough using a breadstick recipe from ourbestbites. The most time-consuming part of this recipe is making sure that you plan for rising times. I mixed up the initial yeast mixture and cleaned the kitchen during the 10 minutes it took to bubble up. Then I mixed in the flour and although it was only supposed to rise for 45 minutes, I let it go longer because I needed to clean bathrooms and take a shower. It turned out fine.
I actually made two batches of the dough, but I think I could have just doubled the recipe and there would have been plenty of room in my kitchenaid mixer.
I rolled out the dough and then put the bacon in the oven. If you haven’t cooked bacon in the oven, you MUST. It is so much easier than any other way. My mom told me so, and once I actually took her advice, I decided I’ll never cook it any other way if I can help it. I just lay out the bacon on a cookie sheet with sides. It MUST have sides so the grease doesn’t go all over your oven. I put it in the oven at 350 while I do anything else I need to do for that meal, checking it every once in a while. Take it out when it looks the way you like your bacon to look.
We like it very crispy. Then put it on paper towels just like you would if making it on the stove.
While the bacon was cooking, I cracked 18 large eggs, and added milk and a dash of salt and scrambled them. I made them in a big pot rather than in a skillet, and only cooked them until they were starting to become solid, but were still very liquid-ey. This is important because eggs continue to cook after you remove them from the stove, and then they’ll cook more inside the breakfast pockets so you don’t want them to get rubbery.
I took them off of the stove when they looked like this. I continued to stir for a minute or so after they were removed from heat.
I used a pizza cutter to divide the dough into squares. I put the bacon down first. For the second batch, I crumbled the bacon more than this so that it wouldn’t poke through the dough as much.
Then I added the eggs (still very gooey) and cheese on top.
I tugged at the dough and pulled it up over the top to create the pocket. I then put it on the cookie sheet with the seamed side on the bottom. At this point, if you feel completely inept, know that it isn’t just you. I felt sure than some of my pockets were going to be disasters, as they had holes, and weren’t perfectly sealed. But they all turned out fine!
Bake at 425 for 15 minutes. I rubbed a stick of butter on the top after they came out of the oven to make them prettier.
With two recipes of the dough, one 12 oz package of bacon, 18 eggs, and about 1 cup of grated cheddar cheese, I made 15 pockets and 10 smallish breadsticks for our supper tonight.
Not a huge freezer cooking day, but I think it was good for a busy morning. And now that I know what I’m doing, and that these are so yummy, I may increase the amount for next time or try some new fillings.
EDITED TO ADD:
Now that we’ve been eating these for a while, and I’ve made a second (ugly) batch, I thought I’d add a few tips.
For the heating, we put them on our auto defrost, which asks for the weight. I usually guess, for a small one – .2 lbs. (2/10 of a lb) Yesterday, when I did this, it was warmed through just from the defrosting. But if you needed to, you could just warm it up a little more after this. 20-30 seconds. I think this works better than just heating it from frozen, which makes it pretty chewy.
Also, it’s very important to flour your surface before you roll out the dough. VERY IMPORTANT. VERY VERY IMPORTANT. My most recent batch still tasted great, but were ugly. The dough stuck to the surface and was impossible to pull off without putting lots of holes in it.
Check out more freezer cooking posts at Money Saving Mom.
And I’m also linking this up at TipJunkie’s Tip Me Tuesday.
They look really great! We will be trying your recipe here soon. Thanks for the post.
Okay, so tell me how long does freezer cooking take you? ANd how often do you have to do it?
There are people who cook every single meal for a month in one day, but I just try to do things here and there to make life easier. I pre-cook meats and make double batches of things to make supper prep faster and easier. If you go to the money saving mom link, you'll find lots of different versions that people have done. You really just do what works best for you.
Do you realize how good those look? And I am so excited you twitter. Going to add you right now..I'm bonniesask.
Those would be dangerous to have in my house! They wouldn't last us a weekend. We'd probably eat them for every meal. LOL. Definitely looks like something my son would actually eat, though. Thanks for the idea! Amazing. (coming from Tip Junkie)
These breakfast pockets look great! Thanks for sharing, and for posting lots of pictures.
Those look OH so fabulous!!!
I didn't get to do Freezer Cooking Daze this month because my house has the stomach bug. But these look so good I might have to make them this weekend.
You gave great instructions – thanks!
-Lauren
What a great idea. I am definitely thinking I'm going to need to try these. Do you just microwave it from frozen to eat?
OK, I thought I just published a comment asking about how long to microwave. Not sure where it is. Anyway, we've been putting them in the microwave for 2 minutes from frozen and it seems to work fine. The smaller ones I do a little less.
Do you just put them in their own freezer bag? Can you just use a sandwhich bag?
I put them all together in a gallon size freezer bag. I made sure they were COMPLETELY cooled before I did, so they've done fine, not sticking together.
Also, to Kimberly, my husband this morning microwaved his on defrost for about a minute, and then heated it for just a little bit. It seemed to work well.
These look delicious! I'll definitely try these with whole wheat flour!
I've been using English Muffins, but these look pretty great. I'm going to have to give it a try.
Thanks!
I'm so glad you linked back to this. I read the post the first time around, but didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the how's and why's. However, I have been working on breakfast sandwiches this week similar to these. I have been trying to figure out an easier, less time consuming way of rolling out the dough and creating the breakfast pockets. (I had been cutting mine with a cookie cutter) I am definitely trying them like this tonight. Thanks again!
The recipe looks great! Thanks for posting such a great idea. Can you freeze them before you cook them?
Sorry I selected anonymous. I don't know how to do the other accounts. But my name is Rebekah.
Thanks for commenting Rebekah! If you want have your name show up instead of Anon, I think you can put your name in where it says "Name/URL or something like that. I used to do it that way before I had a blog. I don't know about freezing before cooking. YOu might try it this way but keep out a few to experiment with. I don't know if they would turn out the same or not, and I'd hate to ruin an entire batch.
I make and freeze sandwich pockets and have always wondered how eggs would turn out!! Thanks for sharing this:):)
I love baking my bacon. Put a piece of foil over the cookie sheet and it makes for even quicker clean up time. Just pull the foil with the cooled grease off and toss it. If you cover the cookie sheet well, it shouldn't even get messy.
Oh, man! I followed a link to your blog from The Coupon Project. I went from post to post to post on your blog and stumbled across this one for the bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast pockets. These look FABULOUS! I can't wait to try them.
I also love your blog. I am a slob, too, and have recently (the past month) been trying to get my house in order again. Thank you for your wonderful sense of humor!
We started cooking bacon in the oven when we had a pig butchered and had to cure and cut our own (really not that hard to do.) Since the slices were thicker than store bought, we had trouble getting the inside cooked without the outside getting burned. A person at husband’s work suggested this method, and it has worked well for us: lay the raw bacon on a broiler pan, place in a cold oven, turn the oven to 350. By the time the oven is heated (or maybe a tad longer), the bacon is done. The broiler pan means it drains itself. My mom, who hates grease messes, tried this and loved it. Since my dad is on a low-cholesterol diet, and she is the only one who eats bacon, she bakes a pound at a time and freezes the cooked bacon in zip-lock bags for eating a little bit at a time later.
Question… you know the dough in the freezer section you rise and then bake? Do you think this would work instead of making my own dough? I have extreme issues with yeast…. I might conquer them eventually … Or buy a bread machine.
You could try pizza dough.
So i realize that this commet was from 3 years ago, but yes, you can do it with frozen dough! I’m making them right now and they turned out great! My oven must run hot, though, because my first batch turned out a little darker than I’d like. For the 2nd batch, I turned my temp down to 375 and cooked them a bit longer. I read a more recent post about cheeseburger pockets so I make those first. I used 1 bag of Rhodes rolls, 2 lbs ground beef- cooked and seasoned, and about 1 C shredded cheddar cheese. Right now my first batch of the breakfast version listed above are in the oven. Nony, I mixed my crumbled bacon in with my eggs to avoid tears and to possible allow for more even distribution throughout the whole batch. Thanks so much for posting this! I just discovered your blog within the last week and am reading from the first post on forward. I think you and I are made of the same cloth. I’m hoping to get some good tips and ideas on how to deslobify my own house (that I share with my hubby, and 3 kiddos -11, 8, & 1 1/2).
Oh, so good to know it works with the Rhodes rolls, I love those! Did you thaw and then roll them out?
Yes, I did…well, I thawed, let them rise, and then I just used my hands to flatten and stretch them before putting in the yummy innerds. Do those two words sound wrong together? I ended up making 3 versions. Cheeseburger, Bacon/egg/cheese, and pizza. The pizza ones were an afterthought, after I ran out of my egg&bacon mixture. I used pasta sauce (didn’t have pizza sauce) and mixed it with 1 bell pepper, 1/2 of an onion, and 1/2 lb of cooked ground beef which I had sauteed first. Then I added some mini pepperonis, and chunks of cheese sticks and a pinch or two of shredded cheddar. I toped them with 1 mini-pepperoni and 2-3 shreds of cheddar to more easily differenciate between the other pockets. I’ve been reading your older posts ever since I finished baking the last batch. Golly! I’d better get to bed! Thanks for your blog Nony! I appreciate knowing that I am not the only one with these same issues. 🙂
I blame the late hour for my spelling and gramatical errors. 🙂
Since you used a double breadsticks recipe and ended up with 15 pockets and 10 breadsticks, does that mean a single breadstick recipe + fillings would make about 12 pockets?
I’m trying to figure out the proportions since I’m not sure if I’ll want to make breadsticks with this first batch. Thanks!
Here is a quick tip- my daughter and I make these a lot, at first we used Bisquick, but then I googled a recipe for making a bisquick baking mix and we do that instead. Follow the directions for making buscuits, it is just the mix and milk mixed together. At first we would roll it out and do squares like you did, but then we discovered that we could take a little ball in our palm, squish it flat, stick it in the bottom of a muffin tin, cover it with your eggs, and bacon (and we make a little gravy and mix it all together in a bowl so we just drop a couple tablespoons in each muffin cup) sprinkle with some shredded cheese and bake. We freeze them on a cookie sheet then throw them in gallon ziplocks and reheat them in the microwave when we want breakfast. 1-2 regular sized muffins or 4 mini muffins is perfect for breakfast!
Love this idea! Will definitely be trying this!
Oh and we often use sausage and use a few of the sausages to make the gravy!
I bake my bacon too. Definitely line your pan with foil and if you leave your pan sit long enough for the grease to cool once your done with it you can peel the foil right off and not even have to wash the pan! I also bake my sausage this same way. So easy!
FYI the link you currently have for the dough isn’t working :(. However, I did a smidge of hunting and found this link on the same site that I’m pretty sure is the recipe you’re referencing: http://ourbestbites.com/2008/04/breadsticks-and-pizza-dough/
Thank you!!!
You’re welcome.
You might try heating the bacon in the microwave. And you might mix the scrambled eggs with fine cutted onions and chives and a tiny bit of nutmeg. Yummy.
Love from Germany