Quiche With Sweet Potato Crust

Here is my healthier take on quiche - sweet potato crust instead of a flour & butter crust.  Yum!!!  I love quiches because it's so versatile.  You can basically put whatever you want in it so this is what I decided to put into mine today.

Quiche with Sweet Potato Crust

3 sweet potatoes, sliced like potato chips

1 cup leeks, chopped

1 cup crimini mushrooms, diced

1 eggplant, diced

2 vegetarian Italian sausages, cut into 1/2" thick half circles (I recommend Field Roast) 

1 cup bell peppers, chopped

4 cups spinach

4 tb pesto (recipe below)

3 roma tomatoes, sliced

generous handful of haricot vert

10 eggs

2 & 1/2 cups milk

1/4 cup mozzarella, sliced

- Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

- Lightly grease a 12" spring form pan.

- Saute pesto, sausage, mushroom, leek, eggplant, & bell pepper until eggplant is done.

- Add spinach & saute until the spinach is just wilted.

- Line the bottom & sides of the spring form pan with the sliced sweet potatoes.

- Place sauteed vegetables over the sweet potato crust.

- Top with haricot vert, tomatoes & mozzarella.

- Beat eggs & milk until thoroughly combined & pour over the quiche.

- Bake for 40 minutes or until set.

Pesto

3 tb pine nuts
2 cups fresh basil leaves
1 clove garlic, peeled

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup freshly grated parmigiano reggiano cheese
Salt to taste

Makes about 1 cup of pesto & can be refrigerated for 3 weeks or so.

- Blend the pine nuts, basil & garlic using a blender, processor, or mortar & pestle.

- Add olive oil & continue blending.

- Add cheese & continue blending until the mixture is paste-like.

- Add salt & blend to taste.

Matcha Yogurt Pound Cake

I love carbohydrates - especially baked goods!  So I modified this recipe in my attempt to eat healthier during & hopefully after my challenge.  I have lost about 4% of my target weight thus far - hooray!  Hopefully my competition & I can all succeed in a healthy manner.  :) 

I absolutely love practically anything with matcha so I decided to try my own take on the Buttermilk Pound Cake (which looks & sounds absolutely divine) from Bittersweet Baker.  However, I decided to try replacing butter with yogurt as well as a few other modifications.  All I had in the refrigerator is Greek yogurt so I used that & wow!  It turned out to be VERY dense but still really good!

Matcha Yogurt Pound Cake

1 & 1/2 cups yogurt
3 & 1⁄2 cups sifted all-purpose flour, plus more for flouring the pan

2 tb of matcha powder (I like my matcha very prominent so I'm going to try it with 3 tb next time around)
1⁄2 ts salt
1⁄2 ts baking soda
1 & 3/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs

 2 ts vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk (you can also make buttermilk by mixing 1 cup milk & 2 tb vinegar & letting it rest 5 minutes)

- Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

- Grease & flour a bundt pan.

- Combine flour, matcha powder, salt, & baking soda in a bowl.

- Beat yogurt & sugar together until well combined in a separate bowl. 

- Add eggs in & beat until well combined.

- Mix in vanilla.

- Add a third of the flour mixture into the yogurt mixture & beat on low speed until well combined.

- Add a third of the buttermilk in & beat on low speed until well combined.

- Repeat the above two steps until all the flour mixture & buttermilk are well incorporated into the batter.

- Bake in the oven for 60 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

A Celebratory Occasion - Fig Rolls

We have finally hit a long awaited milestone at work so I made fig rolls to celebrate a release rolling out.  :)  I used this recipe with my own less sugary modifications.  Enjoy!

Fig Rolls

1/4 cup warm water

1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

1/2 package instant vanilla pudding mix

1 cup warm milk

1 large egg, room temperature

1 tb sugar

4 cups flour

1 package active dry yeast

1 jar fig butter (I found mine at Trader Joe's)

1 package cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

1/2 ts vanilla extract

Makes about 28 cupcake-sized rolls.

- Combine water, melted butter, vanilla pudding mix, milk, egg, sugar, flour, & yeast until well incorporated.

- Knead the dough a few times.

- Cover the dough & place in a warm area (no more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit) until it doubles in size.

- Lightly flour rolling pin & surface on which you will roll your dough out on.

- Roll dough out into a long rectangle & spread the entire jar of fig butter on the dough.

- Roll up dough, slice every 1-1.5" & place each slice into a cupcake pan.

- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

- Cover the dough & place the rolls in a warm area.  I like to put mine on top of my stove because the heat from the preheating oven helps the rolls rise.

- Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes.

- To make the frosting, beat the remaining ingredients together while the rolls bake.

- Allow rolls to rest for 10-15 minutes before frosting the rolls.

Cheers to my wonderful team for all your hard work to get Release 4 to roll out! 

Steel Cut Oatmeal With Apples

Breakfast is considered by many to be the most important meal of the day because your body has basically been deprived of fuel for xx hours depending on your last meal.  Skipping breakfast would tack on additional hours of fuel deprivation which then forces your body to recalculate its metabolism rate - it usually slows down your metabolism to conserve energy.  So one of the rules I am absolutely strict about is that I must always eat breakfast.  

Often times I would be on the go so my breakfasts would end up being things like bagels, donuts, & etc - basically high in refined carbohydrates & sugar, low in nutritional value.  As a result, I would be hungry again in an hour & eat multiple snacks to get me through to lunch.  I would like to get out of my grazing habit so I'm trying steel cut oats this week.  Steel cut oats are considered complex carbohydrates, meaning it takes longer for your body to digest allowing slower & consistent release of insulin.  You want to stay away from refined carbohydrates because it makes it a lot easier for your body to process the insulin all at once which causes insulin spikes that signal your body to store fat instead of burn it.  Also, you do not get hungry as easily with complex carbohydrates because your body takes longer to digest it.

Let me tell you, eating oatmeal sure does curb those hunger pangs before lunch.  So much so that I still wasn't hungry by the time lunch rolled around!  I am definitely going to continue eating oatmeal for breakfast this week.  

I made steel cut oatmeal with apples that is made in a slow cooker overnight.  I could eat this all day long because 
A) it has apples (who doesn't like apples?) 
B) apples keep the doctor away
C) tastes delicious
D) involves so little effort to make

Steel Cut Oatmeal With Apples

4 apples, peeled, cored & diced
3 cups milk
1 cup uncooked steel cut oats
1/2 ts cinnamon
2 ts ground flax seed 


Makes about 5 servings.


- Put everything in a slow cooker on low heat for 7-8 hours.

Brussel Sprouts With Quinoa

This is Day 3 of the competition/challenge & I have had ice cream every day so far but I am not eating heaping bowlfuls of ice cream.  I have managed to limit myself to no more than 2 small scoops of ice cream per day - the two scoops add up to about one child size portion.  I am quite proud of myself for being able to limit myself as I have always grown up in a household where each person eats from a cereal bowl full of ice cream in one sitting.  I must say, I sure do love my dairy!  

As you can see, I have not gone all health nut crazy with this challenge.  I strongly believe that it one cannot deprive your body of food that it wants otherwise when you do finally eat it, you will gorge on it & before you know it the entire 10oz bag of pretzel M&Ms is in your belly.  So I have not been depriving myself from cravings.  Instead, I am teaching myself to get into the habit of smaller portions of my less healthy choices.  A perfect example for me is dairy.  I also happen to love cheese & have a tub of fresh mozzarella balls right now so I decided to incorporate a small amount into the quinoa lunch I have made for tomorrow.  It looks & tastes so yummy!  

Brussel Sprouts with Quinoa

1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup water 
1 tb olive oil
1 cup brussel sprouts, quartered
1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup mushrooms, chopped
1 cup grape tomatoes
1/4 cup mozzarella balls, quartered
1 cup onion, chopped 
3 stalks green onion, chopped
Salt & pepper to taste
 
- Cook quinoa & water in a small pot on low heat until water soaks into the quinoa & appears translucent.
- Heat olive oil in a large pan on medium heat.
- Saute brussel sprouts & onion in the pan until the onion is translucent.
- Add remaining vegetables & quinoa into the pan & mix together until mushrooms are thoroughly cooked.
- Add salt & pepper to taste.
- Turn heat off & let it cool for 10 minutes before adding the mozzarella in.


Enjoy!!



 

Challenge!!!

What am I getting myself into?!

First off, my roommate & I gave up eating & drinking out for Lent & I must say that it has been very difficult.  You would think that I would be healthier from not eating out but oh let me tell you - that is not my case!  I have been on a baking frenzy at home in an effort to appease my eyes, nose, stomach, taste buds, & brain.  (Posts on those baking adventures will follow in the near future.)  It is quite difficult to make batches for one person or two people so yes, I have been eating basically every serving I bake...down to the last crumb.  So yes, I have gained some weight.  It's definitely not a lot of weight, no more than ten pounds, but it's enough for me to worry about illnesses like diabetes with all the sugar intake I have indulged in.  So today one of my dear friends proposes an additional challenge for me.

A couple of my friends are on this mission to lose weight so they have put together a challenge where everyone puts the same amount of money into a pot & attempt to lose a certain amount of weight.  Once that weight is lost, the person must stay within one pound of their goal weight for 30 days.  Those who do split the pot but if everyone loses, the money goes to another friend whose sole role in the challenge is that she will gain that entire pot of money if everyone loses - meaning this friend is not participating in the weight loss challenge.  I have committed to losing 5% of my current weight & I don't know about my challengers but I have decided to lose it in a healthy manner.  I will workout & eat healthy so I thought it would be fun to blog about this little adventure & the healthy food I make at home since I am also not eating out for Lent.  

I know I should stick to relatively healthy meals during this competition so I decided to spoil myself for the last time.  So here is my last meal before the weight challenge starts tomorrow.  I had an egg & salad burrito (my effort to not be a complete fatty today), 2% milk, a slice of lemon bar, & berry goat milk ice cream.  Yuuuum!  

I definitely enjoyed every single bite of this meal!  

Alright everyone - It'll be a fun challenge to continue not eating or drinking out for Lent, lose 5% of my current weight, & use my creative juices to come up with healthy meals.  Wish me luck!