Veggie + Goat Cheese + Chive Frittata

I had some really fantastic breakfasts this weekend! 

Funny, I went out to breakfast a few weeks ago when I was up in Portsmouth for the weekend for my friend’s birthday and I realized it was the first time I had been out to breakfast in a long time!!  I love going out for brunch/breakfast, but I’ve realized that making breakfast at home is my FAVORITE meal to cook on the weekends!

Our house gets nice and sunny, and I love sitting at our table with a fresh cappuccino and whatever breakfast dish we decide to cook up. 

Not to mention I can do this all while still in my PJ’s :)

Saturday morning, I was craving sweet! 

This is easily the 3rd or 4th time I’ve made these Almond-Coconut pancakes since I first came up with the recipe!

My tweaks this weekend were to add 2T of Oat Flour and increased the almond milk to 1/2 cup.  Of course the addition of the flour makes these not Paleo anymore, but that’s an easy thing to leave out.  Delicious both ways.  The flour made them just slightly softer. 

This weekend I enjoyed my pancakes with a few chocolate chips, some real maple syrup, and split a banana with Brian.

Sunday morning, I had no idea what I wanted.

Sweet?  Savory?  Eggs? 

Then I remembered that I wanted to make some sort of baked frittata or other egg dish I could pack up as leftovers to have for breakfast at work some days this week!

Frittatas are so simple and so delicious, plus the flavor combinations are endless!

Ever since I saw the cookbook Plenty on Megan’s blog, I knew I had to own it, and I bought it a couple weeks ago.  In it, there is a recipe for a Smoky Frittata made with cauliflower and smoked mozzarella.  It sounds so flavorful and the picture looks like cheese heaven. 

This recipe was my inspiration for the frittata I made this morning.  I used vegetables and cheeses I just happened to have on hand.  I also used some Greek yogurt and ricotta cheese to add some creaminess to the egg mixture. 

Cauliflower for breakfast.

 

Vegetable + Chive + Goat Cheese: Frittata

• 1T olive oil
• 1 cup chopped cauliflower
• 1 cup chopped zucchini
• 1 cup baby spinach (about 2 big handfuls)
• 4 eggs
• 2 egg whites
• 1/4 cup non-fat plain Greek yogurt
• 2T part-skim ricotta cheese
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1/tsp paprika
• salt & black pepper
• 2T finely chopped fresh chives
• 2oz goat cheese, crumbled (or more if you want)
• a sharp cheese to grate on top (I used Gouda Parrano)
• 3-4 cherry tomatoes, seeds removed, sliced (optional but delicious)

Pre-heat oven to 375

In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs and egg whites.  Then whisk in the Greek yogurt, ricotta, and mustard until all combined.  Add paprika, salt & pepper, and chopped chives.  Stir to combine and set aside.

In a cast iron or other oven proof skillet, heat oil over medium heat.

Add cauliflower and zucchini and sauté for 3-5 minutes until vegetables are tender (mine even got slightly browned in my pan which is good too).  Add the fresh spinach leaves and sauté for about 2 more minutes or until spinach is wilted down. 

Move around veggies in the pan so they are evenly distributed in the pan.  Pour in egg mixture, don’t stir.  Sprinkle the goat cheese around, place the sliced tomatoes on top, and grate as much of your sharp cheese as you want right on top.

Remove from stove and place in the oven.  Bake for 5 minutes, then turn oven onto broil and broil for 4-5 minutes until the frittata is set and the top is just getting slightly browned on the edges. 

Remove from the oven and let sit for 5-10 minutes before serving!

Next time I’m going to add even more tomatoes, the bites I had with tomato were my favorite…well except for the big melty chunks of goat cheese.   

I enjoyed a big slice with an iced latte (topped with a little whipped cream), and 1 of my leftover almond-coconut pancakes.

Having whipped cream in the fridge is dangerous…mmm.

Can’t wait for breakfast tomorrow!

So for those who pack their breakfasts for work…what do you bring when you’re craving something savory/salty??  Sometimes I just don’t want oatmeal, or yogurt…and those are the mornings I end up buying breakfast sandwiches.  But, of course, that’s something I don’t want to do too often. 

Sometimes I’ll even cook an egg in the microwave and add that to ham and cheese on toast.  It works. 

RTB: Reach the Beach Relay 2012

And we’re already 1/3 of the way through February! 

I’m such a sucker for the seasonal cups at S-bucks!  I’m still plowing through some gift cards leftover from Christmas, so I don’t feel as bad purchasing coffee (and sometimes breakfast) lately. 

I’ve been “Crossfitting” for  2 months now and still love it!  Especially now that I’m on longer sick or have flashmob rehearsals, I can get to Crossfit more .  I went 4 times last week!  This week I’ve gone Monday night, tonight, and planning to go tomorrow.  Usually I love the Saturday morning workout, but this Saturday won’t work. 

At Crossfit we all have notebooks where we write down our workout everyday and what our weights/reps/times were so we can look back at our progress.  It’s also helpful to figure out what weight to start at when you haven’t done a particular move in a while.

I’m getting stronger!  I’ve set personal best records on my weightlifting skills, and even went down in resistance bands on pull-ups!  If you can’t do pull-ups on your own yet, you use a resistance band tied onto the bar that you stick your foot in to take some of the weight off your body.  The thicker the band, the easier it is.  I started with a green band, and now I’m on the blue! (that probably only makes sense to other Crossfit people)

Moving on…

I have another fitness venture on the horizon though…



Reach the Beach Relay Massachusetts!! 

I’m actually part of a fabulous Blogger Team and we’ll be Reaching the Beach on May 18th-19th.   
This is a 24-hr, 200 mile relay starting at the Mount Wachusett Ski Area and finishing at Horseneck Beach in Westport, MA! 

There are 12 of us, and we each run 3 legs of the race, some are as short as 2.8 miles and others as long as 8.3 miles. 

Here's awesome team I get to be a part of:
The official New Balance blogger team: "Off Balance" 

Tina -  Carrots ‘n Cake
Theodora – Losing Weight in the City
Anne – Fannetastic Food
Monica – Run Eat Repeat
Elizabeth – On Tap for Today
Ali – Food Fitness Fashion
Sarah – Sarah Fit
Ashley – A Healthy, Happier Bear
Patricia – Run Foodie Run
Melissa – Fitness NYC
Gretchen – Honey I Shrunk the Gretchen
and ME!

Not gonna lie, I’m ever so slightly intimidated by the fact that many of those women are much more experienced runners than me. Plus, I haven’t been out for a run in months!  However, I’m more excited than anything and I know I can get back into running shape in no time!

I am actually really interested in how I will combine my training with Crossfit.  I’ve heard more than once that my Crossfit training can definitely help with my running without having to actually train for the running as much as I normally would.

I can definitely see how Crossfit will help me, BUT I know myself and I know I need to get my long run stamina back up.  Currently, my regular gym membership is frozen because I wanted to focus my time and $$ on Crossfit so I don’t have access to a treadmill…fine by me.  I’m probably going to slowly ease back into running outside when the weather will allow. 

Ironically, this past week we’ve had more running drills working into our Crossfit workouts and it felt nice to get outside for some 400m or 800m sprints!  Well I’d call it more fast-paced running than “sprints” ;)

I can’t wait!  I’m excited to run at night, excited to have some quality girl bonding time in the van, and can’t wait to relax on the beach when it’s all over!!

My eats lately have been completely random and not too interesting.  Still trying to up my protein intake, and lower my carb intake but sometimes that just doesn’t work out…
and that’s totally okay too.

A super fast meat sauce:  lots of garlic, onion, ground beef, splash of red wine, crush tomatoes, and fresh basil.


Served a top a bed of baby arugula and spinach fettuccini.

The theme around here lately has definitely been FAST and easy!


I whipped up a pan grilled burger (just ground beef, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, salt and pepper)
Served with sliced, and sautéed Dijon Brussel sprouts (my current favorite way to eat Brussels!), and thin slices of sprouted wheat bread.  Ketchup not pictured.     

Current Obsession:

So good…SO good!  It’s like a chewy coconut almond cookie!  It's great for a sweets craving, especially at work.  

Well we’ve covered the “F’s” today:  February, Fitness, Food, Fun…and hey, tomorrow is Friday!! 

Have you ever run a relay before?? How do you best train for these, when you only have about 6-8hrs between runs??  Did you follow a specific plan??

What’s in the Middle? The White Stuff.

Let’s not talk about the events of last night.

So instead I’ll just talk about the food that I just happen to make for this particular Sunday night ;)

I made two items to bring over to my friends place, and one I’ve been dying to make since I first tried it back in September!

Pizza Monkey Bread!!  Elina made it for a little after-work shin-dig that she hosted back in September, and ever since then I knew it would be the PERFECT food to serve for a party!  I’d been waiting for a good opportunity and I' finally decided that the Superbowl (there, I said it) would be the best excuse to eat little hot balls of dough stuffed with cheese and pepperoni! 

I used the same recipe she used, from Confessions of a Foodie Bride, and since I was also making a dessert, I opted to purchase the dough and sauce to make my life easier.

I grabbed a ball of plain and a ball of multi-grain pizza dough from Whole Foods.

I also used the suggestion of weighing out the pieces for uniformity.

Brian helped me with this one, and as I divided up the dough, he started flattening each piece and filling them with a slice of pepperoni and a chunk of mozzarella cheese.

Teamwork!!  I then coated each piece in garlic butter, filled up the Bundt pan, wrapped it in plastic wrap and headed to our friend’s apartment where I baked it up hot and fresh!

Not surprisingly this was a huge hit!!  I mean, who doesn’t love pizza in bite size form!      

I also made something on the sweet side.

I knew I wanted to make a dessert, and this wasn’t actually my first choice, but my friends rave about these cookies from Flour Bakery and I have wanted to try my hand at them.  Plus I love making something I know people will get excited about!

Oh-Oreo’s, Oh-Oreo’s,   What’s in the Middle?   The WHITE stuff! (sung to the tune of NKOTB “The Right Stuff”…no?  no one ever sang that version back in the day?)   Nevermind…

Here in the Boston area, Flour bakery is pretty well known for these replica’s of the iconic chocolate wafer cookie.  In fact, they sell out often!  I remember one time I went to Flour, and really wanted an Oreo…the line was so long and in the time I was waiting someone phoned in an order and took them ALL!!  I WAS SO SAD!

No more sadness now, because these are actually quite simple to make.

Lucky for you the recipe is online here!  The cookbook also has an option for a Peanut Butter filling, so I did half and half. 

The dough comes together pretty fast and easy. 

Lots of butter and chocolate!

I used salted butter for everything, and just omitted the salt that the recipe called for…I usually do this when I bake and everything comes out great.

I forgot to grab a picture before I added the dry to the wet ingredients, but the butter, chocolate, sugar, egg mixture solidifies fast!  It’s still very soft and workable, I was just surprised.

At this point the recipe recommends diving in with your hands to mix the dough.  Make sure you WASH YOUR HANDS GOOD FIRST…then dig in!

Once the dough is mixed, it sits out for an hour to firm up.  Then form into a log on wax paper.

The recipe calls for a 2.5” diameter roll…I wanted my cookies smaller so I just made my log longer and narrower…mine was just under 2” in diameter.

At this point it’s hard to get the long nice and round, mine was more of a long rectangle.  But once you wrap it up you can roll it out a bit, and from there you chill it for 2 hours, taking it out every 15min or so to roll it and make sure it’s not getting a flat bottom.

I didn’t do that every 15 min…I did it maybe 2 or 3 times during the 2 hours and it turned out just fine.

I did this the night before, and this was my dough log the next morning.

(so many jokes…)

Ready to be sliced into cookies!

I actually used my measuring tape and scored off 1/4” slices to get them roughly the same size.

I found that my cookies baked up in 16-18 min.

Once cool, I arranged them in pairs, and tried to match them up by size.  They are all fairly uniform but some definitely were bigger than others.

The filling was a simple butter cream…my FAVORITE kind!

Your standard butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, milk.  Classic.

I filled about half of the cookie pairs.

Then used the same bowl to whip up the PB filling.

I can’t pick a favorite, both were delicious!!

My Oreo-loving friends were thrilled! 

Kind of want one right now with some milk…  Good night!! 

What was the best thing you ate last night???