♣ Hearty Breakfast "Egg-Muffins"

About six months ago I joined a start-up company, and while the work is engaging, the hours are long and sometimes I feel like it there is never enough time. So many things to do but never enough time and then there are so may video games to play BLAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHH

I very rarely eat out, so that means I cook a lot at home. With my new job though, I find it difficult to cook every night, so lately I've had to find ways to cook at home more efficiently and feed myself properly and wholesomely throughout the week. 

I'm not a toast-and-coffee kinda gal - I need to have some serious protein in the morning or else I have trouble curbing my appetite for the rest of the day. So I thought, what can I make a large quantity of that will keep in the fridge, is quick to pack in the morning before work, will reheat relatively well, and will taste good? I then though about one of my favorite breakfasts: egg and veggie scramble with some kind of meat. And then I thought about a way to make it more portable. I eyed my muffin pan and remembered seeing some paleo recipes where people would take a bunch of stuff like eggs, bacon, etc. and bake little "egg muffins" in their muffin pans. Not a bad idea! 

First, I sauteed a bunch of my favorite vegetables with a little bit of olive oil: red onions, red/yellow/orange bell peppers, mushrooms, and zucchini, with a dash of salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper for some kick. Whenever I can, I try to make at least 50% of the meals I eat consist of vegetables. If you like, you can actually skip this step and just put your fresh veggies directly into the eggs and bake them. I wanted to soften my vegetables a little bit, so I decided to sautee for about 1-2 minutes. 

Next, I sprayed my muffin pan with some cooking spray, and rolled a piece of turkey bacon into rings and placed them into the pan. I imagine you can use regular bacon here if you like!

Next, I take 2 eggs and 1 generous cup of Eggbeaters and whisk them together in a bowl. After whipping up the eggs, I toss in my sauteed vegetables.

Using a small ladle, I carefully scoop the egg and vegetable mixture into the muffin pan. Keep an eye on the egg vs. veggie ratio for each cup - chances are the vegetables have sunk to the bottom of your bowl, so unless you mix before every scoop, you may end up with some egg-muffins that are mostly egg and others that are mostly vegetables. Remember also that eggs will inflate during cooking and then deflate, so you don't want to fill the pan all the way to the top (though the bacon rings do give you some additional leeway!)

And of course, top off with a little bit of reduced-fat cheese - I think the one I used here was the Kraft "Mexican" blend or some-such.

Since I'm not following a recipe, I had to guess as to how long and at what temperature to bake my egg-muffins. I decided to go for 350 degrees for about 10 minutes to start, and kept an eye on the muffins every 2 minutes to make sure they didn't get too crispy. I also wanted the cheese on the top to crust over a little bit.

Conclusion: DEEEEEELICIOUS. What's great about these is that they are nice little portions, and you can eat them with your hands if you wanted (not that I did, but you know, just sayin'.)

For your versions, you can modify any of the ingredients. Maybe some fancy egg-muffins with olives, spinach, and feta cheese. Or meatier egg-muffins, which bacon, chorizo, and sausage (though I would recommend that you cook any raw meat in a skillet for a little bit prior to baking, to make sure that it is cooked fully through.)

12 of these egg-muffins provided a solid breakfast for me for 5 days, paired with some fruit or a green smoothie! A great time-saver in the mornings, when I literally had to roll out of bed and head to work while stopping by the fridge for a second to pack 2 of these in some tupperware. In fact, I think I will make another batch tomorrow, with different ingredients.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

♣ Matcha White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Earlier last year, I told myself that if I ever craved desserts, that I would have to make them myself rather than buying them from the store (with the exception of ice cream, though I guess "I don't have an ice cream maker" is maybe not the best excuse...?) 

I figured this rule would be beneficial in two ways:

1. I can control all of the ingredients going in (and sometimes even being able to substitute healthier ingredients in the process.)

2. That there would be times when I was too lazy to go and make something from scratch, and therefore may end up making a better choice instead (ex: that Fuji apple I spied in the fridge earlier.)

For the most part, both have happened, and I sincerely believe that I am better for it. Though... the one unfortunate side effect of making your own desserts is that most of the time there is more than one serving, and sometimes it's hard to stop just after one cookie. :P 

A few weeks ago I had the worst craving for cookies. Not just any cookie, either - I wanted matcha in it. Recently I discovered how to make green tea vanilla lattes at home, after coincidentally trying the drink at Peet's Coffee. Hooked instantly, but unwilling to pay $4.50 per drink, I immediately turned to the internet and found several similar recipes and eventually adapted them to something I like. Anyway, point being is that I have been on a matcha kick for a few weeks now.

After looking at several different recipes online, I settled on the one that had the most similarities to my favorite standard chocolate chip cookie recipe. The one notable change that I did make to this recipe though, was adding 1 tsp of good quality pure vanilla extract. Why? Because it's delicious. (By the way, I recently bought a 32 oz. jug of the stuff on Amazon.com. It'll probably take me like 5 years to work through it, but sometimes I just want to drink that stuff straight.) 

All things good start with sugar and butter.

The matcha batch I'm currently burning through is stuff I bought from nuts.com. Not having tried many different brands, I can't really say if it's the best, but I like the flavor - it is robust and clean.

Next: Ghirardelli white chocolate chips. Not due to any particular preference, I just happened to have them on hand. Though in general I do prefer Ghirardelli chocolate to say, Nestle or Hershey. I used to be able to eat Hershey's chocolate on its own when I was younger, but I think maybe I've grown to like the more higher-grade chocolates as of late?

Since these are all for me, I tend to be a little looser with my cookie dough. Looks like delectable green gobs of frosting. Yumm.

After I had finished setting my cookie dough mounds on the pan, I suddenly thought about my Silpat baking mat, which makes baking cookies a breeze, especially if the dough is particularly sticky.

One of the best features of the Silpat baking mat - the bottoms virtually never get burned!

My cookies didn't come out as green as those in the original recipe, and I wonder if that's a good or bad thing. I stopped wondering for the most part though after I bit into that first fresh, warm cookie right out of the oven.

Awwww yeah. And the white chocolate chips were slightly melted and goopy too. Green tea flavor was strong and did a nice job of offsetting the sweetness of the sugar. All of that wrapped up in delectable butter flavor.

A few days later though...

To my utter horror... I realized that after eating about 3 of these cookies, that I didn't want them anymore. Any other cookies (chocolate chip, sugar, etc.) that I make, I want to eat them all the time until they're gone. But not these. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT that my month-long green tea kick would end here so abruptly.

I'm not really sure if it was the matcha + cookie combination, or whether it was fated for my green tea kick to end at this particular time. Or maybe I've just had enough green tea altogether. I'm glad though, that I tried these out before the end.