Easy Egg Muffins

and healthy, too! This was my post-workout meal today. It was only three days ago that I learned that I need to have protein and simple carbs within 30 minutes after exercising, so my breakfast is going through some modifications. At least I finally put some vegetables craps to good use today – you know, those leaves and stems from celery, leftover cauliflower, some baby carrots, and the last tomato in the house. You can use any vegetable, but be sure to slice them small. I’d like to try this with spinach, zucchini, mushrooms, onions, and broccoli next time.

Here’s the original recipe from Mind Over Munch.

I didn’t have any egg whites so I used the last three eggs in the fridge. Yep, definitely need to go grocery shopping tomorrow.

If you follow the original recipe and use only one whole egg and 3/4 cup egg whites each muffin is only 36 calories. Mine is 64 calories. Don’t use paper cups, I only did because I did not feel like washing the muffin pan.

Grilled Food Week

Since we don’t have the cold snap anymore and temperatures are back to the 30’s we resumed grilling our dinner. I love grilled meat, fish, vegetables. When it comes to meat, one does have to plan ahead because some marinades require 24 hours, and the sticks have to be soaked in water overnight. It is also easier to grill when you use two bamboo sticks instead of just one.

barbecued chicken with periperi and garlic chili sauce

chicken periperi

quick-brined porkchop with red pepper flakes, rosemary and thyme

add Jack Daniels barbecue sauce before grilling

voila! Rich flavored juicy barbecued porkchop

barbecued porkchop

marinade for beef kebabs

using two bamboo sticks makes it easier

beef kebabs

RECIPES

• Periperi Chicken – a Portuguese and African recipe, I tried my first “African Blackened Chicken” in Macau and then Bangkok. In Lagos we simply keep a couple bottles of Nando’s Periperi sauce in the pantry, so I was thrilled when hubby found them in Fred Meyer’s here in Spokane. Just combine it with olive oil and baste the chicken with it — this also works great with roasted chicken and porkchop before we owned a grill. My latest attempt involves adding chili garlic hot sauce and some Worcestershire sauce for extra kick and flavor.Or you can try this recipe.
• Grilled Porkchop – use this recipe to marinade the meat, but add a teaspoon each of rosemary and thyme leaves. I also reduced the amount of salt by a third or even a quarter, but let it marinade for two hours. Then I dump the marinade while using a strainer to collect the pepper flakes, rosemary, and thyme to rub on the meat. For that rich barbecue flavor I brushed some Jack Daniel’s barbecue sauce.
• Beef Kebabs – This is my second attempt with this marinade,  and I messed up by substituting black pepper with Montreal Steak Seasoning. Next time I will use only a teaspoon of the seasoning, and probably only a quarter of lemon juice, as it was too lemony for my taste. My father-in-law, however, loved it this way, because it tasted like beef jerky according to him.
• Grilled Vegetables – onions, zucchini, yellow squash, red or yellow bell pepper, and mushrooms always turn out good. I got mixed results with carrots, eggplant, and potatoes. My husband liked the tomatoes.

Christmas Eve Dinner & Christmas Day Brunch

cinnamon rolls

cinnamon rolls

apple pie

apple pie

vegetable tian

vegetable tian

roasted squash and pears

Christmas ham

vegetable tian, roasted squash with pears, grilled porkchop

Christmas ham

shrimp-spinach-avocado salad

shrimp-spinach-avocado salad

My mother-in-law is evil! Okay, seriously, I love her to death. But imagine my consternation when we walked in her home and found all kitchen counters filled with brownies, cookies, crinkles, and other baked goodies that she made that day. “They’re not for you,” she sniffed, “it’s for church, but you’re welcome to have some.”

Well, she was so busy with all these that I volunteered to prepare dinner on Christmas eve. It was probably the only healthy food we had during our visit. I could not stop pigging out on junk food, chocolates, brownies, and white bread.

And MIL bonded once again when we took turns working out to our favorite exercise videos. Last summer we bonded when she let me borrow her weights and mat while she got to use my exercise videos. You gotta love her, she let me keep her 3-lbs. weights because she never used these, “they’re too light!”

RECIPES

• Quick Brined Grilled Porkchop (marinade really makes the porkchop juicy and tender; I also added rosemary)
• Roasted Butternut Squash & Pears
• Vegetable Tian
• Shrimp Avocado Salad (I used baby spinach, substituted the lime with my lemon-infused olive oil and boiled the shrimps in water with lemon juice, salt, and pepper for 2 minutes)

3 Kinds of Breakfast … or Snack

I continue to monitor what I can eat that’s 200 calories or less. Doing so allows me to eat every three hours, thereby improving my metabolism. You can visually follow my efforts thru Instagram, which I’m having some trouble updating this morning.

Buttermilk toast 100cal, 2 Tbsp cheddar and monterey jack 100cal

This is part of my son’s breakfast: it’s a combination of white bread, shredded cheese, and garlic – and it’s 200 calories. Of course he gets two slices plus fruits and chocolate milk to go with it.

egg white 60cal, mayo 50cal

21-grain toast 110cal

And this is my breakfast and it’s also slightly under 200 calories: multi-grain toast with two hard boiled egg whites and half egg yolk. I had it with the usual mug of green tea and a teaspoon of honey. It is more filling than the white bread toast with peanut butter, with about the same amount of calories and less protein. The key is a hard boiled egg white is only 17 calories with 3 grams of protein, while a hard boiled egg with egg yolk is 70 calories with 6 grams protein.

White Bread Toast & Peanut Butter = 185 cal=

Edamame

Fred Meyer has edamame, or soybeans! After getting by without these for five years I can’t get enough of them this time. They are the perfect healthy snack when I’m craving for food an hour before dinner. The ones at Fred Meyer are very salty though. For double that amount and only 10 cents more I should have grabbed more at the Asian grocery store. But the FM pack is the perfect single serving.

Here’s why they are good for you according to WebMD:

• 120 calories
• 9 grams fiber (same as 4 slices of wheat bread or 4 cups of zucchini)
• 2.5 grams fat
• 1.5 grams polyunsaturated fat (0.3 grams plant omega-3 fatty acids)
• 0.5 gram monounsaturated fat
• 11 grams protein
• 13 grams carbohydrate
• 15 mg sodium
• 10% of the Daily Value for vitamin C
• 10% Daily Value for iron (same as 4-ounce roasted chicken breast(
• 8% Daily Value for vitamin A
• 4% Daily Value for calcium

The Secret of Edamame