Dairy-free Crustless Quiche

Breakfasts are one of the hardest meals for me. First off, I'm usually not very hungry in the morning. And second, when I am hungry, I don't have a lot of time to cook something (typically because I'm too lazy to get out of bed in time to do so). In an effort to simplify my mornings, I made a quiche during my Sunday cooking whirlwind and divided it into six aluminum foil-wrapped portions for an quick grab-and-go breakfast. All I have to do in the morning is pop it in the microwave when I get to work, at which time I typically am hungry, especially if I worked at the gym that morning.

What's also great about this recipe is that you can play around with the fillers and have pretty much any kind of quiche you want. The first one I made had spinach, sausage and mushrooms in it. This time, since I was out of spinach, I just increased the amount of my other fillers.

Ingredients:

9 oz turkey sausage

8 oz mushrooms

10 eggs

1 can coconut milk

Directions:

Brown sausage and saute mushrooms. (This time around I sauteed my mushrooms in bacon fat and it added a great flavor! Be sure to drain any excess fat still remaining in the pan after cooking though. Otherwise, your quiche is going to leak excess liquid and let me tell you, it's messy!) Mix sausage and mushrooms and set aside. Whisk eggs and coconut milk, and then pour into baking dish. Add meat/veggie mixture and bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown and cooked all the way through.

Don't be alarmed: The quiche will rise a little in the middle during cooking, but will shrink back down as it cools.

Zone breakdown:

16P - 1/3C - 21F ... This is for the whole recipe. To get the breakdown for individual servings, obviously, divide it by the number of servings.

Also, the fat content will vary based on the type of coconut milk you're using. To determine how many blocks are in your can of coconut milk, divide the total fat grams by 7 (the number of grams in a block). Mine contains 147 grams of fat, which divided by 7 gives me 21 blocks.

Ratatouille

This weekend I tried a recipe I found on Off-Camera Chronicles for ratatouille with bonus protein via cheese (which you dairy-haters can leave off) and eggs. I used my brand new, super cool food processor to chop up all the veggies and it was a Godsend! I can't imagine having to cut up all this stuff by hand!

Ingredients:

4 tomatoes

2 eggplants

2 capsicums (I had to

look this one up. It's just a fancy term for pepper, go figure.)

2 zucchinis

1 large red onion

3 cl

oves of garlic

5 Tbsp. evoo

2 tsp. ground cumin

grated cheese (I used

mozzarella)1 tsp. paprika

sea salt & pepper, to taste

5 eggs

Directions:

Dice all your veggies and cook them in a large pan with evoo, cumin, paprika, and however much salt and pepper you want to use for flavor. Cook the mixture over high heat for 10 minutes, stirring regularly.

Then transfer everything into a casserole dish and bake for one hour at 390F. The original recipe said to cover your dish with aluminum foil for baking, but I forgot this step and it didn't seem to have any negative effects. Next time I'll try it with the foil to see if it makes any sort of difference though.

Once done, remove from oven and sprinkle with grated cheese (or not - boo!) and break eggs on top. Bake for another 10 to 20 minutes at 350F until the eggs are at desired consistency.

Since I'm just cooking for me, I had tons of leftovers! I divided it up into tupperware and it was enough for

approximately four

full meals and a smaller portion that can serve as a side dish. This is clutch for me during the week when I'm tired after being at the office/gym and just want to veg out. Instead of being tempted by the convenience of fast food, I can just pop one of these suckers in the microwave et viola, still on track with healthy eating!