Egg-sactly The Protein I Needed

Recently I was looking for a small meal/snack that had a fair amount of protein and minimal calories.

When I eat eggs, I prefer my fresh, local ones. They taste soooo much better than store bought. But, these are a little pricey, so I don't use them in things like baked goods, etc. Instead I keep a container of egg beaters in my fridge.

It was a little after 5pm and I was trying to think of a quick, easy meal to eat before my nightly workout. I prefer to make things that can be used for lunch or additional meals/snacks for a few days.

I had the egg beaters. And I had some leftover veggie chorizo (spicy sausage) from TJ's from another recipe I recently made (veggie sausage stuffed peppers...OMG sooooooooo good!). I also had some queso fresco leftover from the pepper recipe.

Aha!

Individual quiche!

Here is roughly what I did:

• First I heated my oven to about 350. But I have a convection oven in which it seems to be impossible to burn anything, so keep an eye on yours if you have a conventional oven or try it at 325.
  
• In a bowl I poured the entire container of egg beaters.
• Then I poured in a little milk, maybe half a cup.
  
• I added some S&P and some chopped herbs.
• In a saute pan, I cooked up an onion and sauted the chorizo (it crumbles when you get it out of the package).
  
• Then I removed the pan from the heat and stirred in a little queso fresco.
• I sprayed a muffin pan with non-stick EVOO spray.
• I ladled the egg/milk mixture into each muffin hole, about 3/4 full.
• Then I spooned a bit of the sausage/cheese mixture into each pool of egg.
• I had some shredded mozzarella from a recent homemade pizza, so I placed a few sprigs on the top of each so they would crisp up and get brown.
• I put them in the oven for about 20 minutes. I kept an eye on them and took them out of the oven when they were brown, puffy and a toothpick came out clean after I poked one.
• I let them cool for about 5 minutes and then popped them out and ate em up!

The entire container of eggs was only about 200 calories. The sausage added maybe 300 calories to the total dish. The cheese added another 200, maybe. And the milk added about 100. This is a rough estimate, but it means each quiche was between 60 and 75 calories. And it was all protein and little fat!

If you don't have veggie sausage, you could easily use the regular stuff or ground beef, etc. But remember that this will add calories, saturated fat and cholesterol. You could also leave the sausage out entirely. You could also add different sauteed veggies, bits of lunch meat chopped small, or whatever you have on hand that goes with egg (think creative omelets.)

We ate three each for dinner that night with a little fruit. Then I have eaten two for lunch each day since along with a salad and some fruit.