Spinach & Red Pepper Frittatas

I'm currently on my second week of the Whole30. I wanted to do a reset after the holidays, but was traveling in January and then ended up getting the stomach flu (and the hubs and kids too...ugh). So, I started February 6th. So far it's going well! I'm not having my kids or husband do it with me, except for dinners, because I'm not making 2 separate dinners! In an effort to not spend hours in the kitchen everyday prepping food for myself, I decided I would have the same breakfast every day during the week, do something different on the weekends, and then just have either leftovers or mason jar salads for lunches. This way, except for dinner, I wouldn't really have to turn on the stove or oven during the day! It worked out well the first week, and hopefully I can keep it up.

I thought I would share part of my weekday breakfast, since it has become my favorite meal of the day. Having these things prepped and ready to go for the whole week has been a HUGE help. These are completely Whole30 compliant (no grains, no legumes, no dairy, no added sugar) but if you aren't on the whole30 you can switch out ingredients for whatever you like!

Spinach & Red Pepper Frittatas
(Makes 12)

What you need:

• 10 large eggs, beaten
• 2 Cups baby spinach, chopped
• 1/2 Cup red bell pepper, diced
• 1/4 Cup green onion, sliced
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• Cooking spray

Directions:

- Preheat oven to 350

- Spray a 12 cup muffin tin with cooking spray and set aside

- Add the salt and pepper to the beaten eggs and set aside

- Divide spinach evenly among the muffin cups

- Add the red pepper and green onions

- Carefully add the beaten eggs, leaving a little room at the top

- Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the eggs have set

- Allow to cool completely, and store in an airtight container in the fridge

- Microwave for 1-2 minutes when ready to eat

This is my favorite vegetable combination, but you can of course change it up to your tastes! Broccoli, mushrooms, tomatoes, kale and meats like bacon & ham would be great too! And of course, cheese if you aren't dairy free! Enjoy!

 

Easy Breakfast Egg Cups

The husband and I are embarking on a new eating plan this week! We are still going to be gluten free but are taking the extra step and cutting out simple and complex carbs and sticking to a high protein / low sugar plan. I have about 10 pounds of baby weight that I want to kick and the husband just wants to get back in a good workout/ healthy eating routine.

So, in order to streamline my cooking efforts a bit I decided to try making a high protein breakfast for the hubs to eat every morning, but didn't require me to wake up with him each morning to cook it. I mean I love him and all, but his 6 a.m. alarm comes way too soon for this tired mama who has usually been up 2-3 times with the 6 month growth spurting offspring. (seriously...give me ALL the coffee today).

The result of my desire to feed the husband well but still get another hour of shut eye resulted in these little babies. They are delicious, quick and can be kept in the freezer during the week. The husband just pops them in the microwave for a couple minutes and voila...homemade gourmet breakfast! Ok...maybe not gourmet...but better than cereal or pop-tarts. Here's the handy dandy recipe!


Breakfast Egg Cups

What you need (makes 14)

- 12 large eggs
- 1 Cup milk
- 6 strips bacon, cooked and chopped
- 1/4 C diced red pepper
- 1/4 C diced onion
- 1 C shredded cheddar cheese
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper







Directions

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 12 cup muffin tin. This recipe makes 14 "muffins" because I wanted them to last a whole week so you'll have a little extra after the first batch. If you only want to make 12 just reduce the eggs to 10 and 3/4 C of milk.

This is my new best friend. I love it!

- Beat the eggs slightly and add the milk. Continue beating until smooth and slightly frothy

- Add in the bacon, peppers and onion

- Add in 1 cup of shredded cheese and the salt and pepper

- Evenly distribute the egg mixture into the muffin cups

- If you're feeling fancy, top with a little dried parsley flakes.

- Bake at 350 for about 15-20 minutes, until the eggs have set and are puffed up

- Run a knife around the edges to release and invert them onto a cooling rack (this will prevent them from collapsing too much)

- I wrap 2 "muffins" in a piece of foil and place them in a freezer bag. The husband eats 2 every morning which is equivalent to 2 eggs and along with the bacon in there it's a pretty filling and hearty breakfast.

- You can easily add whatever combination of vegetables and cheese/spices you like. Ham, broccoli, asparagus, spinach, parmesan, feta - hard to mess these up!

Bananas Foster Pancakes

One of my favorite things to do on Saturdays is make breakfast with and for my husband. These days, he spends time with Josh on Saturday morning and I get busy in the kitchen cooking up something more special than just the usual cereal and pop tarts. This past weekend we had bananas and pancake mix on hand so I decided to be creative and "dress up" our pancakes a bit. They turned out super yummy and SO easy!

What you need (serves 2)

- 2 bananas, sliced diagonally
- 2 T butter
- 2 T brown sugar
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon (or more!)
- GF pancakes

Directions

- Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat 

- Add sliced bananas and brown sugar

- Cook until golden and syrupy (about 5 minutes) stirring well

- Add the cinnamon and stir.

- Turn off the heat and spoon over the top of your pancakes

- We added a bit more syrup to ours (splurge!) but powdered sugar would be delicious also!

A fast and easy breakfast that looks difficult and gourmet...sign me up!!

Zucchini Banana Muffins

Still no baby. So I'm still baking! The other day I thought I would try out zucchini bread and it turned out pretty yummy! I decided to make these as muffins to make them last longer (or at least theoretically last longer) but you could make this as one loaf also. They aren't super sweet and I liked that the recipe didn't call for refined sugar and only uses one kind of GF flour. Slap some schmear on these babies in the morning for a delicious breakfast, or serve warm with butter and a cup of tea (for me these days it's raspberry leaf tea all day long). The next time you have zucchini on hand whip up a batch of these and enjoy any time of day!


What you need (adapted from inspired-housewife.com) 
(Makes 1 loaf or 18 muffins)

- 2 C sorghum flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 2 bananas, mashed
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 C melted butter
- 1/2 C honey
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 C grated zucchini






Directions

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees

- Line your muffin pan or grease your loaf pan and set aside

- In a small bowl, combine the dry ingredients and stir well (flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt)

- In a medium bowl, combine the wet ingredients except for the zucchini (bananas, eggs, butter, honey and vanilla) and stir well (I used an electric mixer to break up the banana)

- In 1/4 C increments, add the dry mix to the wet ingredients, mixing after each addition. Be careful not to over-mix or your bread will turn out tough

- Gently fold in the grated zucchini and stir

- Pour batter into loaf pan or evenly separate into muffin tin.

- Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour (loaf) or 18-20 minutes (muffins)

- Serve and enjoy!

Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

My craving for homemade baked deliciousness continues! I'm not usually a huge carbs eater (especially being GF) but the past couple of weeks all I've wanted are muffins and coffee cakes. So, I've been trying out my favorite GF flour blend and baking some things on my own. The latest recipe is for Lemon Poppyseed Muffins. They came out really well and I was very happy with them (so was the husband). Hopefully this craving will cease soon so I don't end up gaining 40 lbs by the end of this pregnancy! Here's the recipe for ya!


What you need (makes 30 mini muffins)

- 1/2 C butter, softened
- 1 C sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 2/3 C GF flour (my recipe HERE)
- 3/4 C buttermilk
- Zest of 1-2 lemons (I used about 1 1/2)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 T poppy seeds

Directions

- Preheat oven to 350

- Combine sugar and butter and beat with a mixer until light and fluffy

- Add the eggs, mixing well after each one

- Add the flour, milk, lemon zest, salt and baking soda and mix until just incorporated

 - Add the poppyseeds and gently stir until mixed

- Divide the batter into a greased muffin tin. I made these as mini muffins but you could do regular size or even a loaf if you wanted

- Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes or until lightly brown around edges and on top

- You can stop there if you like but I wanted a little more lemon flavor in mine. So I mixed the juice from 1 lemon and 1 T of sugar and brushed the top of each muffin with it. It really added a nice pop of tart lemon flavor which I loved. You can skip this step though if you prefer or have another use for your lemons.

Ta - dah! The husband really liked these and so did our church worship team! There are only 3 left so I think I'll go finish those as my breakfast this morning! Happy baking everybody!

Blueberry Yogurt Muffins

My latest pregnancy craving has been homemade baked things...yummy bread, coffee cake, muffins...you name it, I want it. I found a couple recipes on Pinterest that I wanted to try and make gluten free, one of them being these delicious looking blueberry yogurt muffins.

These were great! I scarfed down 2 of them as soon as they came out of the oven. About 5 minutes after I finished, Joshua got the hiccups and started moving like crazy...which I'm taking as a sign that he liked them too! What I liked most about these is that they weren't too sweet so the blueberry flavor really came through. I liked that they are made with yogurt instead of butter too!

You could easily make these as mini muffins but I stuck with the original recipe. I'm already planning on making another batch and look forward to eating these for breakfast over the next week. Oh who am I kidding...these will be gone in a couple days. But shhh don't tell.

Here's the recipe!

What you need (makes 12 regular size muffins) - adapted from CookingAndMe.com

- 1 C plain yogurt
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 C oil (I used coconut)
- 2 C all purpose flour (my blend is listed below)
- 1/2 C sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 1/4 C blueberries (I used frozen)






Favorite Flour Blend - from the Gluten Free Bible

- 1 C white rice flour
- 1 C sorghum flour
- 1 C cornstarch
- 1 C coconut flour (or almond flour)
- 1 C tapioca flour

Sift together and store in an airtight container. You can easily double/triple the recipe as well!


Directions

- Preheat oven to 375 and line muffin tin with baking cups

- In a medium bowl, combine the yogurt, egg, vanilla and oil and mix together

*If you're using coconut oil, add it gradually so it won't harden when it hits the cold yogurt*

- In another medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt

- Remove 1 T of the dry ingredients and toss with the frozen blueberries. This will help keep them from sinking straight to the bottom of your muffins

- Gently fold in the wet ingredients to the dry. Don't overmix or the muffins will be tough

- Add the blueberries and gently stir. The batter should resemble cookie dough and don't worry if it turns purple from the blueberries

- Fill your muffin cups evenly and bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean

- Let cool for 5 minutes and enjoy!

Freezer Cooking Day Part 2

Welcome to Freezer Cooking Day 2! As I mentioned in the previous post, I really enjoyed splitting up the cooking over 2 days. It helped me not feel rushed or stressed out and I knew what my stopping points were for each day. You don't have to do it this way by any means, it's just what helped me the most this time around.

Since I had the most time on Saturday, I decided to use Sunday as the "no cook" recipe day. We went to church, I came home and took a nap, made these recipes, and STILL had time that night to relax and hang out with my husband. Here's a list of the recipes (with links) that I made on day 2:

- Oven Baked Chicken Fajitas (Follow freezer directions in post)

- Crockpot Italian Chicken (Follow freezer directions in post)

- Honey Garlic Chicken (I made this twice because its so easy and a favorite!)

- Cinnamon Rolls (I made 2 batches. Follow freezer directions in post)

Here was my game plan:

Step 1: Assemble and prepare all ingredients for Fajitas and place in gallon freezer bag.

Step 2: Place ingredients for Italian Chicken in gallon freezer bag

A 3 ingredient meal! Love it!

Step 3: Assemble and prepare ingredients for Honey Garlic Chicken and place in gallon freezer bags

I made this recipe twice because we love it so much!

Step 5: Clean counters and prepare cinnamon rolls. This was the longest recipe because it required some mixing. But the others were literally 10 minutes at the MOST to prepare.

Step 6: Clean up and RELAX! All done!

This gave us about 17 meals (including lunch leftovers for myself and Jon) plus the granola to snack on and cinnamon rolls for 2 mornings. I'd say it was definitely worth all the hard work! I mapped out when to serve each meal but obviously things change and happen (like um...finding out you're pregnant!) and meal plans get thwarted. All that to say I will definitely be doing this again before the baby comes so that we have have meals ready to go! 

I hope this inspires you all to take some time (even if it's just a few hours) and get some meals prepared! I promise it will be worth it!