Frittata-A-Go-Go

Breakfast is supposed to be the most important meal of the day. Yet we rarely eat it. Our schedules just don't allow it. When you get up and immediately go to the gym, you don't want a heavy breakfast and when you go from the gym to work, you can't really take along scrambled eggs or oatmeal. So I've been pondering what I could make for breakfast that would be portable, have a good mix of protein and carbs, and would work for J. Hence... frittata-a-go-go, or Muffin MacEggs, or OmFins, or Scrambled Quickfins, or Atkins Muffins (we had trouble coming up with a name).

Ingredients

• 5 eggs
• 2 egg whites
• 4 oz reduced fat feta cheese
• 4 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled 
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 diced red bell pepper, sauteed
• 1 bunch green onions, sauteed
• Salt and Pepper (to taste)
• Crushed red pepper (to taste)

The eggs were local, from Skagit River Ranch. If you're in the Seattle area and want eggs from Skagit, you need to get to the farmers markets early, especially in the summer. There is usually a line for their eggs. During the winter though, they can usually be had relatively easily. The bell pepper was organic, but not local. The green onions were local (from the Ballard farmer's market). The crushed red pepper that we used was actually a locally grown and dried purple cayanne pepper. We used a mortar and pestle to pulverize it. The bacon was also from Skagit. We bought the heavy cream from Sea Breeze Farms. The cheese was from the grocery store and I doubt it was anywhere near local.

As I pulled this recipe out of thin air, I didn't have any instructions and had no idea if these would even work. The first time we made this recipe, we also used mushrooms, though we felt that these made the frittatas a little too watery. J cooked up the diced peppers and onions and I handled the bacon. When everything was cooked, I started beating the eggs. I beat the living hell out of those eggs. Seriously, the beating lasted 7 or 8 minutes. Then I added the cream and repeated the excessive beating procedure. I added all of the other ingredients and mixed for another couple of minutes. I then filled our greased muffin tin with the result. This recipe made 10 muffins.

We baked them for about 25 minutes at 375. Here's the result.

So, how did they taste?

These were a success. We eat them for breakfast every day during the week after our workout. J doesn't like eggs, but even he was willing to eat these. We have been making them weekly for over a month and have tweaked them slightly every time. I rarely measure the crushed peppers so the spice level varies slightly. One interesting variation that I discovered completely by accident went a little something like this.

I slide the muffin tin into the oven, set the timer, and go sit down on the couch. Five minutes later I leap up, utter an expletive, and run to the kitchen. I'd forgotten the cheese! I pulled the muffin tin out of the oven and started hastily spooning cheese into the partially cooked frittatas. This produced a very interesting result. The cheese ended up hovering near the top of the cooked frittata. Every bite produced a concentrated burst of feta that gave the frittata a bit more substance. Since then I've started mixing in half of the cheese in the KitchenAid and then leaving the other half to be spooned into the partially cooked frittatas.

Nutritional Information

• Calories: 143
• Fat: 9 grams
• Carbohydrates: 2 grams
• Protein: 9 grams
• Sugar: 1.3 grams