Friday, May 2, 2008

Prepare to Cook…

When I started eating more whole foods and less carbs and almost no grains, I realized there were things I would have to give up eating. One of the foods I thought I wouldn't be able to eat again was quiche since it's in a pie crust. Then blogger Norma mentioned crustless quiche (this had never occurred to me). She was kind enough to share her trick with me, so there's a crustless quiche in the oven as I'm typing. And just to make it even better, reader Ginger gave me a 1/2 dozen fresh eggs from her backyard chickens. Yum!



Well. The quiche was a success! Recipe below.



1 cup shredded monterey jack cheese
(pepper jack might be good, too, for a little more kick)
1 cup shredded swiss cheese
8 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled or 1 cup or so of diced ham
3 scallions, thinly sliced
1 cup heavy cream or half-n-half
1/2 cup milk
4 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. dry mustard

Preheat oven to 375°F. Mix the cheese, bacon and scallions in a pie plate. Throw everything else in a blender and process until smooth. Pour over the ingredients in the pie plate. Bake for 45 minutes. A knife stuck in the center should come out clean. Remove from the oven and let it sit for another 10 minutes to finish cooking. (If you're vegetarian, you can leave the meat out and put in some veggies that will stand up to the baking—asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, caramelized onions, etc.) You can adjust your favorite quiche recipe to go crustless by adding an extra egg and a little extra cheese. Add a salad full of veggies and you've got a great dinner.

Another challenge I've been having is what to eat for breakfast when the weather turns warm since I don't eat cereal anymore and eating oatmeal in the summer is just not an option. And as much as I like eggs, I can't eat them first thing in the morning. So this weekend I experimented with protein powder, fruit and milk. I came up with something that tastes pretty good and has 24g of protein to offset the carbs in it. You can use any type of frozen fruit and syrup flavor. The sugar-free syrup I used is made by DaVinci. Torani also makes a similar product. I use Designer Whey for the protein powder. I honestly haven't tried any other brands since this one tastes so good and it only has 2g of carbs per serving.

Breakfast Smoothie
1 cup milk
1.5 scoops Designer Whey protein powder, French Vanilla
3/4 cup frozen peaches
Sugar-free Peach Syrup, to taste

Throw it all in a blender and blend until slightly lumpy or smooth—whichever you prefer. Since the fruit is frozen, you don't need ice cubes, so the smoothie doesn't get watery. (Next on the list to try will be strawberries with chocolate protein powder.)

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

From someone who was the beneficiary of all the experimenting, trust me when I say that the quiche the day of was great, but one day later, after all the flavors had had a chance to meld and mellow, it was even more faboo.

Also, it was nice for a carb-fiend like me (TMK and I are almost like a cross-cultural marriage at this point, when it comes to that), I didn't miss the crust or the lack of accompanying bread or anything.

Anonymous said...

I'm such a genius, aren't I? Hee. Yesterday I threw together some marinated honey-glazed chicken legs that you might be interested in, too. But the recipe is rather freeform. Still, with ingredients like fresh ginger, fresh garlic, tamari, apple cider vinegar, and a touch of honey (don't worry -- not too much) -- there, that was basically the recipe -- you can't go wrong. Marinate those legs for an hour and a half or so, then bake them in a 375-degree oven for about an hour. The marinade turns into an awesome glaze, the skin mostly melts off the chicken, and they're tender and lovely. Great following a tough workout at the gym (which I had yesterday). I served them with roasted carrots and steamed broccoli.

Marianne said...

Mmmmm, looks and sounds wonderful, as do the marinated honey-glazed chicken legs, thank you Norma!

During the hotter months I'll make smoothies but instead of using milk I use 'cranwater' which is simply pure cranberry juice diluted with water, tart and tangy but adds just a tiny punch to a smoothie, and peaches happen to be my favourite to go in the smoothie.

Unknown said...

Have Ryan try some of the frozen food at Trader Joe's. Food with real, pronouncable ingredients! and not usually overloaded with salt.

Anonymous said...

NOM NOM NOM!!! All of that looks spectacular. One question though, and it's one I've been wondering about - is the amount of sugar in yogurt less than that of regular old milk? Your blog has prompted me to start making a few changes, or at least start thinking about the things I eat before I stick them in my mouth. Mark's Daily Apple is a great link, for which I thank you, but the sugars in dairy are confusing me. Any tips?

snappydawg said...

moirae…: 1 cup of whole milk has about 13g of carbs, from naturally-occurring sugar in the form of lactose. Plain greek-style yogurt, unsweetened, has about 5-6g of carbs. You can add splenda if you want it sweetened. If you eat sweetened yogurt it can have up to 30g of carbs (or more) mostly in the form of HFCS. That's all I know about yogurt as it's not something I eat.

Kathleen C. said...

That quiche looks great! DH sure would eat it, but since he's been diagnosed not only diabetic, but high cholesteral as well... I don't know about the eggs and dairy. Wonder if it would work with more egg white than yolk?
Finding recipes that are both low carb and low fat but don't taste like cardboard... it's been tough.
Have you come across any good websites or magazines or cokbooks?
BTW... you made a *very* good point earlier about how the partner of the dabetic can't change the person's choices... they have want to, and do so, themselves. And I realize that. But if I can help in any way I sure want to. If I can cook delicious but healthy I will!
And I had a thought about breakfast... maybe there's some recipe for a good oat and fruit breakfast bar you can make?

Kristen said...

Hmmm, perhaps we can entice you to yogurtland? I make smoothies with plain (or vanilla) low fat yogurt, a bit of milk and frozen fruit. (If I'm feeling extra virtuous I'll use unsweetened soymilk for my dose of isoflavones.) Unfortunately, I have to watch it with "sugar free" stuff as sugar alcohols don't agree with my blood sugar levels. Yogurt is quite good for you, especially if you have any digestive issues, which is not uncommon among diabetics. Just a thought.

Anonymous said...

I keep coming back to Kathleen C.'s comment and I've TRIED to bite my tongue, but I can't any longer. I'm stepping on my soapbox, so here goes: The whole cholesterol thing... that is a Pandora's Box, isn't it? One of the things I learned by sitting (passively?) in medical school this year is that THE seminal paper on a relation between high cholesterol and heart disease has been misquoted and misread since the beginning of time. People misquote it without going back and reading the original, and the error keeps getting compounded. There was NO correlation found. But I'm not here to proselytize. No, I'm not. *(cackle, cackle)*

Anyhoo, low fat? WRONG. Eat good food. Humans were meant to eat fat, not grains. It's the grains that do it (fatten us like it fattens cows, and raises the bad cholesterol levels), not the fat and protein.

Now stepping off soapbox. :P

The Old Man and His Dog said...

Are those green eggs? My cousin used to have a chicken that layed green eggs.

fran said...

I need to chime in on the eggs and cholesterol. There have been good studies done with eggs and it turns out that freerange chicken eggs from grass fed no weird eatin stuff- like antibiotics-chickens, make eggs that are naturally low in the bad cholesterol and high in the good cholesterol.
I know I am late chiming in, but I hate to see good food slammed for not even real reasons.
I love the smoothie. I am switchin over to my summer food as well. It is smoothies. I use yogurt and plain soy milk instead of the milk. My guts can't take the milk anymore. I also add a couple tablespoons of flax seed meal, for my digestion and for my bad brain chemistry. If I need a little more sweet- I will add a bit of cran juice frozen concentrate- teaspoon or so. I am always mixing different frozen fruits. One trick i learned, is to make a full blender full, then put the excess right into a glass and pop it into the freezer. Before I head to bed, I take the frozen glass and put it into the fridge and by morning I have thawed yummie breakfast to go. I have school 3 day a week and have to get up wicked early. I don't have to run the blender if I did it the day before.
Love your blog!

snappydawg said...

Fran: Thanks for your comment. I switched to eating pasture-fed, organic chicken eggs last fall. I'm trying very hard to only eat animals and animal products from animals that lived the lives they were supposed to live, eating the food they were designed to eat, because ultimately when we eat them, we're eating whatever they were fed. (And corn and corn byproducts haven't done a lot for me up to this point.)

The other thing to remember is egg yolks have a lot of omega 3 fatty acids which are really important for your brain function.