quiche

Kitchen Adventures: Quiche Tartlets

/ SallyJBrz / 4 Comments

I am the definition of a breakfast person.

I could eat it three times a day – eggs for breakfast, cereal for lunch, crepes for dinner.  Bring me to a diner at any hour and I am 99.9% likely to order hash and poached eggs.  I simply can’t live without a good meal to start off my day.  But when I combine my love for breakfast with my tendency to hit snooze a million times (right family?), it gets to be an expensive habit that ends up with me stopped in at Dunks on my way to work.

Luckily, I saw this pin the other day and decided to whip up some planned-ahead breakfasts so I could save some money and time in the morning.  These tartlets came out great, and in 45 minutes, I was able to pack up 6 healthy breakfasts to eat and freeze for the week ahead.

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Quiche Breakfast Tartlets

  • 5-8 oz of baby spinach
  • 1 cup baby portobello mushrooms, sliced
  • 2 links chicken sausage (optional)
  • 1 cup cheddar cheese, grated (low-fat preferred, or another kind of shredded cheese works too!)
  • 3 eggs and 6 egg whites (I use them from the carton) (alternatively, you can use 5 eggs)
  • Dash skim milk
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.  In a frying pan, heat up 1 tsp olive oil and cook the mushrooms.  Cut the chicken sausage into small pieces (1/2 dime sized or so) and add to mushrooms, browning lightly.  Remove from pan.  Wilt spinach in frying pan. add to mushrooms and sausage.
  2. Mix all ingredients in a bowl.  Pour into lightly greased muffin tins, making sure that each section has all types of filling as well as some liquid.
  3. Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes, until edges are browned and tops are solid.  Remove from tins and let sit before freezing/storing.

By the end, you should have 12 muffin-sized crustless quiches (mine actually made 5 mini muffins as well – use it all up!) which are each worth 2 PointsPlus each (I recommend two as one serving).  In one travel-sized bite, you have cheese, eggs, meat, and veggies, or as I like to call it “perfection.”

These quiches are super versatile to whatever you have in your kitchen – asparagus and red pepper, cheese and more cheese, garlic and onion, you name it.  My recommendation: go light on the fat, especially in the cheese.  I only had full fat cheddar around, and these were a little more oily than I would usually eat, but they’re still quite healthy and definitely delicious.

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What’s your go-to breakfast food?

Kitchen Adventures: Crustless Quiche

/ SallyJBrz / 1 Comment

Yes, you read that right.

Pie crust is the latest casualty in my quest to get healthy and still enjoy delicious food.  Especially since I don’t have the patience to make my crust from scratch, it’s hardly ever worth the extra calories and I would rather have my pie/quiche/pudding naked than have half the slice I could if it included crust.  This week, I decided to reinvent my go-to food of quiche in this mindset, and the result was AMAZING.  The roomie and I will be enjoying it all week with more to freeze!  Here’s how this magical dish came together:

Crustless Cauliflower Quiche

Base – can be adapted for any crustless quiche!

  • 6 eggs
  • 6 egg whites (separated or from a carton)
  • 1/2 cup skim milk
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  • 8 oz Gruyère cheese, grated
  • 1 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated
  • 1 cup part-skim mozzarella cheese, shredded

Filling

  • 1 head of cauliflower, cut and steamed (about 2-3 cups)
  • 2 large onions, diced
  • 1 1/2 – 2 cups sliced white mushrooms
  • 1 cup cubed butternut squash, cooked (I used frozen pieces, so easy!)
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  1. Get the cauliflower steaming and oven preheating to 375 degrees (F), then prep the rest of the vegetables.  Sauté the onion and mushrooms in a pan with olive oil – when cooked/brown, add the cauliflower, garlic, and butternut squash.  Stir in some salt and pepper as you go, to taste.
  2. In a bowl, beat eggs and egg whites.  Add milk, nutmeg, and then grated cheese, stirring well.
  3. Remove the vegetables from the heat and add them to the egg/milk mixture, stirring gently.  Pour into lightly greased pans (for me, this took one casserole dish and one medium-sized pie plate), top with extra cheese as desired, and cook for 35-40 minutes, until set.
  4. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly – then eat or freeze!

For me, this made 16 servings, each with a PointsPlus value of 4.  See what I mean about amazing?  This is going to be a delicious breakfast/lunch/snack for this week, a new standard meal in our little apartment, and a good option when I want to cook for my gluten-free friends.  Furthermore, it’s proof that you CAN enjoy good food without all the carbs – just kick them off the plate!

What do you like to put in your quiche?

Cooking Adventures: Classic Quiche

/ SallyJBrz / 1 Comment

Quiche qualifies as my favorite meal for three important reasons:

  1. It’s perfect for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
  2. It’s a full meal in itself, no need for a side of veggies, etc.
  3. It’s easy to mix up the ingredients to suit your current mood or pantry.

Classic Quiche

Ingredients:

  • premade pie crust, thawed
  • 5 eggs
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 1/2 cup shredded cheese (Italian mix works well, but a mix of cheddar, mozzarella, and Parmesan is also tasty)
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pepper
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/8 tsp cinnamon

The fillings below can be swapped out for whatever else you have on hand, though onions and garlic are a good base.

  • 2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 tomato, three slices set aside, the rest chopped into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 1/2 cups baby spinach
  • 1/4 lb ham cut into small cubes
  1. Preheat the oven to 375.  Press the pie crust into a pie plate, crimping the edges with a fork, and let sit while you make the rest.
  2. Chop up those veggies.  Warm up some oil in a frying pan and brown the garlic and onion with half of each of the spices.
  3. When the onion and garlic is almost browned, throw the spinach in just for a few seconds until slightly wilted.   Remove the mixture from heat and add in the ham and tomatoes, keeping a few slices of tomato out.
  4. Mix together the eggs, milk, 1 cup of cheese, and the remaining spices. Don’t over-mix the eggs, just mix lightly until all the ingredients are combined.
  5. Spoon the veggie mixture into the pie crust.  Pour the egg/cheese mix on top, stirring together slightly to blend the layers.
  6. Arrange the remaining slices of tomato on top, and sprinkle with the rest of the cheese.
  7. Cook for 35 minutes, or until the egg/cheese mixture has firmed up.
  8. Let rest for five minutes (or you will burn yourself – trust me on this one).

Now slice up that pie, share it with your roommate, and enjoy! C’est delish!

Really any mixture of fillings can work here, but I recommend trying these ones:

  • Onion, garlic, and broccoli – add some Dijon mustard to the egg mixture for an extra kick
  • Red pepper, mushrooms, zucchini, and tomato with a dash of curry powder
  • Prosciutto and asparagus
  • Egg whites and extra veggies for a healthier mix

Do you have any special combinations you use when making a quiche?