Breakfast Spinach Egg Cups

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I have two different breakfast moods.  Sometimes my body just craves something really light and healthy feeling, like yogurt with granola and a sliced banana, or Raisin Bran with walnuts and almond milk.  This is about half the time.  The other half, I finish Workday #1 (enjoying my coffee while I transcribe for a couple of hours before Workday #2) really craving some serious protein, like eggs or cottage cheese or something like that.

And I do let myself indulge in that when I need to, because usually my body tells me these things for a reason.  But making and eating an egg in the morning adds like at least 10 minutes to my routine (plus a dirty pan that I’ll have to clean later…for a single egg?).  Whenever I hear myself say that out loud I always have to stop and be like, really?  You can’t spare an extra 10 minutes from anywhere else to make this happen?  But the answer is, seriously, no.  I run 3 businesses, write two blogs, send out 4 newsletters a week to a cumulative 5,000+ customers, bike for transportation, work out three times a week, have social engagements almost every night, and am in a relationship with someone I don’t live with.  So no, there really is not an extra 10 minutes to spare.

So, here’s one of my newfound favorite quickie breakfasts, which has entered my life by way of the ramekin, a recent addition to my kitchen.

Frying an egg to put on toast is time consuming and needs more of a watchful eye than I can afford while I’m getting ready (though, admittedly, I am fortunate that my bedroom is nearly in the kitchen and I really can multi-task these two parts of my morning); add some sort of vegetable into this and it’s turned into a full-fledged cooking endeavor.  But baking an egg?  Whoa…things just got efficient.

I start with a handful of spinach, and toss it with a little bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Put this into the bottom of a ramekin (no worries if it seems like it’s filled to the brim; this will cook down easily), and crack an egg over top.  Grate a little bit of sharp cheddar on top…

And put it in the oven at 350 along with two slices of homemade bread (this week: rosemary jalapeno!).

How long does it take to bake?  Exactly as long as it takes me to shower and put on clothes (14 minutes).  That way, I pull it out of the oven, and it feels like someone else just made breakfast for me.  Plus, because I can get fresh local eggs for less than $3/dozen, and make my bread from scratch each week, the total cost of this meal probably amounts to somewhere around 75 cents!


This Week’s Groceries

Trader Joe’s 5/14

  • 1/2 gallon milk: $3.29
  • Mayonnaise: $3.99
  • Whole wheat fusilli pasta: $1.39
  • Red pepper spread: $2.29
  • Sharp cheddar cheese: $3.13
  • Cottage cheese: $1.99
  • Olive oil: $5.99
  • Crumbled feta: $2.99
  • Pear champagne salad dressing: $2.99 — I usually am a die-hard homemade dressing advocate, but this is going to be so great to keep in my fridge at work so in the mornings all I have to do is put all the salad ingredients together in a Tupperware with some sort of protein for a easy healthy work lunch

TOTAL: $28.05

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $31.21

 

New Seasons 5/15

  • Whole wheat couscous: $4.31
  • Pinto beans: $2.33
  • Chickpeas: $2.30
  • Granola: $2.63
  • Cucumber: $0.99
  • Celery: $3.22
  • Garnet yams: $1.31
  • Corn: $0.99
  • Sweet onion: $0.97
  • Shallot: $0.72
  • Radish bunch: $1.49
  • Salad greens: $3.15
  • Roma tomatoes: $0.86

TOTAL: $25.17

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $6.04


Vegan Breakfast Smoothie

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This is what I eat just about every morning for breakfast while I’m doing this cleanse.   It’s filling, proteinalicious, provides a ton of fruit which I end up craving more during these two weeks than at any other point in the year, takes like three minutes to make, and can be easily transported in a jar and tossed in my bike basket if I’m running late, which is almost always, to be enjoyed once I get to work.

I buy my frozen fruit at Trader Joe’s because it’s cheap cheap cheap, and I consume a vast quantity of it when I’m cleansing.  Normally bananas don’t get to be on my grocery list — not because I don’t love them (and honestly I think it’s genius that something this starchy gets to be called a fruit. Loopholes FTW!), but because they don’t make the Washington/Oregon/California locality cut.  But in the spirit of not being insanely restrictive, I let them back in during the cleanse.

Into the blender goes:
  • 1 banana
  • a handful of frozen mixed berries
  • a small handful of frozen mango
  • a handful of whole raw almonds
  • enough almond milk to get the blender to puree everything smoothly, but not so much that you’d be able to drink this through a straw