Because I don’t care. At all… As I am entirely unobligated to put up with football, instead of working on a big half-time spread, I focused on a yummy brunch with friends AND make-ahead food for the week. It’s Day 4 of No Shopping Month, and I’m not sweating it yet. I still have plenty of leftovers from the meals I made earlier this week, though that’s never stopped me from making new stuff anyway. Brunch was a chance to cheat on Ree with… Ree! I’m nearly out of ideas from Dinnertime that won’t require new ingredients, so from her new book, Come and Get It, I marked a bunch of recipes I could make without having to hit up the store. One such masterpiece was the truly brilliant Waffle Iron Hash Browns. 
I’ve had a couple bags of frozen hash browns for months, but I’ve never managed to make a hash brown… I make hash beiges. So I was up for any idea on how to make the stupid things turn out crispy like I get at IHOP. I guess the trick was to thaw them out the day before, and then squeeze the living daylights out of the potatoes in paper towels to get all the moisture off. Also, as the name indicates, I made it in the waffle iron with no oil. I am at least using up the otherwise inedible stick of vegan “butter” that was hidden in the fridge. So, SO glad I am not vegan… No meat would be bad enough, but take away my butter too and someone is gonna get hurt! This substitute product was at least good enough to grease up the waffle iron, then a layer of potato, a layer of cheddar, and the all important second layer of potato. You know, so the lid doesn’t glue to the cheese! This is a brilliant idea and I highly recommend it. I put this waffle iron through the ringer for brunch, because I also made Eggnog Waffles. You know the real kick in the pants about these waffles?? I saved the last bit of eggnog for weeks specifically to make this recipe, and come to find out there isn’t ANY in it! It was just the spices of eggnog. Disappointing. I didn’t even bother with a picture because this irritated me! I felt cheated… 
I did however take a picture of my Epic Fail at making homemade breakfast sausage patties. I made breakfast sausage… piles. Evidently my pork sausage was a bit on the lean side, because they crumbled to bits when I tried to flip them. On the other hand, I was able to use some fresh sage out of my Aerogarden and made a pretty decently spiced side dish. Next time I’ll just make sure to use much fattier pork!
Did someone say Salted Caramel Cheesecake Squares?? Yes. I did, in my last post! Well, I wasn’t kidding; I made those today for the week’s make-ahead dessert. Or maybe three days, depending on how much I share! You can probably throw these together yourself without going to the store too, because it only called for pretty commonplace ingredients. I made a crust with graham crackers, pecans and butter, and the filling was just cream cheese, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and sour cream. I went a little downhill on the caramel topping… I don’t have patience when it comes to candy-making, and caramel falls into that category. It should have been simple (brown sugar, butter, vanilla, sweetened condensed milk, and dark corn syrup) but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it to hit the 225 degree mark without it scorching. I was “stirring constantly”, I swear! I don’t know why it didn’t work, but I’m calling the brown chunks in the caramel “toffee” and that’s all I’m saying about that…
The kiddos claimed they are the best cheesecakes they have ever eaten. I didn’t even pay them for this endorsement! I finished them off with flaked Cypress White Sea Salt, purchased in that spice store shopping frenzy at the beginning of the year. As pantry clean-out recipes go, you could do worse! 
Have Book, Will Cook 