Hella Good Omelette

I am the biggest egg snob you have ever met. To be honest, I don't actually like eggs. Growing up, my dad would get me to eat eggs by topping them with so many things, the actual egg underneath was but a distant memory.

Even then, it had to be the right topping. Heaven help the man if he served me GREEN PEPPERS. Ugh.

Anyway, this hasn't changed. But I don't have my daddy to top my eggs for me anymore (*sadface*) so the result is very creative egg recipes. When visiting my sister last year to help her through chemo - she's in full remission now, hooray! - this came in handy, since chemo messes up your taste buds and it was hard for her to eat.

Today's omelette doesn't have nearly as noble an origin, however. Basically I had woken up with my heart set on huevos rancheros (Rancher Eggs, kind of like nachos but with scrambled eggs) but discovered I was out of salsa. After I'd finished HULK SMASH-ing the kitchen, I made this omelette as  a consolation prize, pulled out all the stops because I was hungry and mad, and made something GOOOOOD.

I'm almost certain there's still an omelette in there somewhere.

Ingredients PER OMELETTE: - see below for explanations of ingredient varieties and substitutions
2 eggs
1 tbsp water
Pinch salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp cumin
5 cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes, quartered
1/4 cup cottage cheese
1 oz shredded chipotle-flavored cheddar, or to taste
1/2 avocado, diced

Preheat a small skillet over medium heat.

Combine eggs, water, salt, cumin and garlic in a bowl and gently beat with a fork. You need to make sure the cumin doesn't make a glob but instead gets beaten into the eggs, so keep beating until it is more or less mixed in.

Grease the skillet by half-unwrapping a stick of butter and rubbing it around the bottom. If the butter sizzles and begins to brown, the skillet is ready. If the butter IMMEDIATELY BURNS, it's too hot! Wash it out and start over. Temperature is important.

When the skillet is ready, pour the eggs in all at once. Watch it attentively; when the edges are opaque, gently pull them back from the pan with a spatula to let the uncooked egg flow under neath. This makes it cook faster so it doesn't burn. But always be gentle so it doesn't stick to the pan. If you moosh it around, it will stick.

After completing this step, add the tomatoes. They are more flavorful if they are warm :)

When the omelette is almost cooked, add the cottage cheese and fold it over with a large, flexible spatula. Then flip the skillet over on top of a plate so the omelette falls out on the plate. I am way too lazy to try to actually use a spatula for this flipping process, ha!

Top with shredded cheddar and avocado.

NOTES:

Eggs: For the love of God and your own conscience, spend a little extra money to buy cage free eggs. Battery cages are a blight on our species. Do not get me started, just buy the good eggs. (And if you love yourSELF, also buy antibiotic-free eggs. Chicken farms are spawning antibiotic-resistant UTIs.) The advantage of this is, most good, humane farms test for salmonella, meaning a healthy adult does not have to worry about salmonella at all and can safely eat soft-cooked or even raw eggs. ALSO, they are tastier and make firmer omelettes.

Cottage Cheese: Fiber One makes a delicious cottage cheese with a ton of fiber. Using it in this omelette will keep you full longer and help you keep a healthy weight! Woo Fiber!

Cheddar Cheese: I live in New England and buy Cabot brand cheese because my research indicates that dairy cattle raised in this area are kept in a more humane way than Midwest dairy cattle. Having said that, I now fully expect to be mailbombed by a Midwest dairy farmer... Sorry, guys! You know I love farmers :) Anyway, Chipotle cheddar is amazing, but regular cheddar is fine too.

Awesome Pancakes - gluten-free, lower-carb, high-fiber, DELICIOUS

I have been seriously remiss in not posting my recent grain-hipster experiments on this blog.

In case you're wondering, NO, I did NOT name these "awesome pancakes" myself. This is, however, what Ariel calls them. Like so:
Me: "What do you want for breakfast?"
Ariel: "I want those awesome pancakes again."

This recipe makes one serving. Just multiply it out to make enough for more people.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp Almond flour
2 tbsp ground flaxseed (I like Bob's Red Mill golden flaxseed)
3 tbsp oat flour (be sure to buy Gluten Free oat flour if you need gluten free)
1 packet of Stevia or equivalent sweetener
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 egg (optional)
Milk or milk substitute
Pinch of salt
1/4 tsp vanilla

Whisk the dry ingredients together.

Add wet ingredients. Note that, if you do not use an egg, you will need more milk. Basically, just add liquid until it is a slightly runny pancake batter. It is important to make the batter a tad thinner than you usually do! The flaxseed will make it thicken up.

Let the batter sit on the countertop and thicken while the griddle heats. You don't need it to be quite as hot as usual for pancakes.

Grease the griddle and pour out into four little pancakes. Cook until the edges loosen from the pan and look a bit golden. You want the edges to be a little crispy. Yummmm....

These are delicious with the usual butter and syrup, but they are very flavorful on their own, so you can also top them with peanut butter (or other almond butter) for a more savory breakfast, or even eat them plain! They're moist and tender and make a good snack, too.

MATH:
Here, I will do some math for you to make larger volumes of batter.

FOR 2 PEOPLE:
1/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
6 tbsp oat flour (that's 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 packets Stevia or equivalent
1 or 2 eggs, or none if you're leaving them out (you might have guessed that the egg quotient is flexible)
Milk or whatever
1/2 tsp vanilla

FOR 4 PEOPLE:
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
3/4 cup oat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
4 packets Stevia or equivalent
2 or 3 eggs, or none if you're leaving them out (you might have guessed that the egg quotient is flexible)
Milk or whatever
1 tsp vanilla

Grain Hipster Muffins - high protein, gluten-free

This is mostly lifted off the back of the Bob's Red Mill soy flour bag, where it is called "Outrageous Muffins", for very good reason. I made some changes:
1. Left out the wheat flour (entirely by accident)
2. Substituted half the sugar with stevia
3. Used diced prunes instead of raisins, since I hate raisins, and used less of them
4. Reduced the salt
5. Used orange oil instead of orange zest, because I didn't have any oranges and anyway zesting is annoying.

They are amazing. I'm eating one THIS VERY MINUTE.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup soy flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup wheat germ (leave this out, or substitute oat flour, if you need gluten-free)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup brown sugar OR 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup Splenda OR equivalent sweeteners
1 cup almond flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 cup plain yogurt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
Zest of 1 orange OR equivalent orange flavoring OR orange oil
3/4 cup diced prunes OR your favorite dried fruit OR blueberries

Oven 350

Combine dry ingredients and whisk. Add wet ingredients and mix with a big spoon; the batter will be thick. Stir in the fruit.

Spoon into 12 muffin cups. I firmly advocate aluminum muffin cup liners, instead of paper, because they never stick. I hate peeling soggy paper off of my muffin or cupcake!

Bake for 22 - 25 minutes, or until the tops are golden.

Notes:

- These are far lower in carbs than regular muffins, but much higher in fat, due to the almond flour. Therefore they are higher in calories. While the fiber and nutrients make these muffins still a MUCH healthier choice than conventional muffins, don't go crazy and eat ten of them.

- The recipe also called for baking soda; I used baking powder by accident. I just realized that. Oops? Apparently I still have my brain wrapped up in my book. However, I recommend the baking powder. It came out great and baking soda is very salty.

- You could probably substitute all the sugar for non-nutritive sweetener with no ill effect, since the almond flour will keep it moist. But you might want to add a spoonful of molasses for flavor.