When breakfast and dessert are done before dinner....

Confession time - I have a flaw. Ok, I probably have several flaws, but the one I am sharing today is my desire to multi task too much when it comes to cooking and baking. Instead of making one dessert, I am notorious for making three.  Tonight was one of those nights.  At exactly the same time I started the water to boil pasta for our spaghetti dinner, I also started making overnight blueberry french toast, knock you naked brownies, and a spinach salad.  The inevitable happened and I had to postpone dinner so I could finish the brownies (who were half baked waiting on melted carmel) and beg my husband to help me with the overnight french toast.  Finally the brownies were back in the oven, french toast in the fridge, and spaghetti back on again.  (Aka: breakfast and dessert were done before dinner.)

Lucky for me, dinner was amazing.  It was simple spaghetti (made with my husband's homemade sausage), garlic bread, and Jennifer Steven's spinach salad recipe.  This salad is to die for!  My husband hates spinach with a passion but he tried it and even got a little more for seconds.  The kids even had seconds.  The best part about the salad is that it is easy to make: spinach (get the plastic box full from Costco), hard boiled eggs, big chuncked bacon bits, and green onions. It's the dressing that really makes it though - one of those sweet oil and sugar kind of dressings.

Dressing:

1 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup white vinegar
approx 1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce.  (can put extra)

Here is her comment about the sugar:   I have also made the dressing with truvia or splenda and it turns out great as the sugar content is pretty high in this dressing. If you omit one of these products for the sugar, just make sure you dissolve the vinegar and sugar substitute together before adding any other ingredients...I also throw in some green onion or dried onion for a little extra kick!

My additional advice is to go special on the bacon bits. Not the old all red small stuff we ate as kids.  Here is what I used: 

Now I am patiently waiting on the brownies.  Unfortunately they recommend cooling them, and then putting them in the fridge for several hours so the carmel can set. Soon I will be able to let you know how they turn out. (Tick tock tick tock.)  If you want the recipe and step by step directions then click here.  (Courtesy of thepioneerwoman.com site.)  One of the reviewers said they microwaved the carmels instead of using a double boiler. I tried that and it was a pain so next time I'm going to go with the double boiler method.  I love her idea of forming the square ahead of time for the second layer, instead of trying to make the layer on top of the hot carmel. Definitely a trick I will use more often. 

UPDATE: I just tried the brownies - and they worked. 

They straight up knocked me naked - mainly because I had to run and put on a larger pair of pants - ha ha.  These brownies are VERY sweet and LOADED with carmel - so definitely feed them to a crowd that likes the ooey gooey goodness of carmel!  Also make sure you use a big girl knife to cut them - they were thick and a wimpy knife would not cut it!

As for the overnight blueberry french toast - you will have to wait until tomorrow for my review because they are still in the fridge waiting to be cooked.  You can click here for the recipe and photos. Courtesy of chef-in-training blog.

UPDATE: Breakfast was amazing - and a real treat because I went and ran a 10K this morning and came home to them ready to eat. Very good!!!  I've made over night stuff before that never turned out so I was pleasantly surprised that this recipe worked. The sauce was especially tasty!!

Let me know if you try any of these. :)