Breakfast for Dinner

Cara is currently hosting a five ingredient “Platinum Chef” challenge so I decided to take part in it. Lucky for me, more than one thing could be made to add up to the five ingredients, so long as you used 2 or more ingredients in the dish. Otherwise, I might have had a problem. Unfortunately, I tend to not like fruit flavors (save for citrus) outside of, say, dessert, and one of the ingredients was strawberries. The remaining ingredients were nuts, basil, zucchini and tomatoes.

I decided Tom and I were having breakfast for dinner: a veggie frittata and some strawberry nut muffins. I haven’t made a frittata in my new apartment yet because the broiler leaves a lot to be desired. For one, I got used to the broiler at the top of the oven whereas this one is below. Secondly, my nonstick pan doesn’t really fit very well into the broiler (in my head I could actually see the egg/zucchini/tomato mixture all over the floor as I tried to wedge it in there). So, I decided rather than doing stovetop to broiler, I would do oven to broiler and bake my frittata instead.

Now, I decided to make up a muffin recipe which, as you may guess, could very well  have been a recipe for disaster (pun totally intended) seeing as I am certainly not much of a…err, platinum baker. But, I have typically had good luck with muffins so I decided to be adventurous. A while back I had seen a Cooking Light recipe for strawberry yogurt scones. I decided to tweak it a bit and make it into a muffin recipe. Oh, and add nuts, of course, to get that fifth ingredient of the challenge in there. The muffins tasted great. The only issue was the texture. Tom and I agreed it really was just that it was fresh strawberries. I know many people have had strawberry muffins and bread before, but we never had, so it was a little different to us. Nothing wrong with it, just a little softer inside than most muffins. I liked them, though, and think they base would also be good for freeze dried strawberries or dried fruits.

You should definitely take part in the challenge, which ends June 20. I’d love to see what everyone comes up with 🙂

Strawberry Nut Oat Muffins

1 cup oats
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. grated orange zest
2 Tbsp. vegetable or canola oil
2 Tbsp. strawberry yogurt
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup fresh strawberries, chopped
1/3 cup pecans, toasted and chopped

Preheat oven to 425 and grease or line a 12-cup muffin tin.

Sift together AP flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder and soda and salt together in a bowl. Stir in oats.

In another bowl, whisk egg. Mix in sugar, then add vanilla, oil, yogurt, orange rind, egg and milk until just combined. Stir in chopped strawberries.

Mix strawberry mixture together with dry ingredients. Fold in pecans.

Spoon into prepared muffin cups and bake about 17-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Per muffin: Calories: 177 / Fat: 6g / Carbs: 27g / Sugars: 9g / Protein: 4.8g
(making muffins without nuts will eliminate about 20 calories and 2g of fat)

Healthy Veggie and Gruyere Frittata
5 eggs
5 egg whites
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp (divided) Gruyere cheese
1 Tbsp fresh basil
3 Tbsp milk
salt and pepper
1/4 cup sliced zucchini
1/4 cup sliced grape tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped mushrooms
a pat of butter, or some cooking spray

If baking, preheat oven to 350 degrees. If not, preheat broiler.

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat with a pat of butter or some cooking spray.

Add zucchini and mushrooms with a pinch of salt and cook until tender. Add tomatoes and cook just for about 30 seconds or a minute.

If making from stovetop to broiler, pour eggs over vegetables in skillet and cook until eggs are almost set but still have some wiggle at the top.  If making in the oven, add vegetables to egg mixture. Pour mixture into a greased pie pan and cook about 20 minutes or until almost completely set.

Add remaining 2 Tbsp of gruyere to top of frittata and place under broiler to finish cooking/brown for about 1-2 minutes.

Four servings; calories per serving: Calories: 188 / Fat: 12g / Saturated Fat: 5g / Carbs: 2.8g / Protein: 16.2g