After reading about the benefits of getting more calories from good oils and protein and eating less carbs I came up with this recipe for polenta quiche, which has about 300 calories per serve, half from fat, and with 20g of carbs. I’m making up large batches and freezing slices so I have healthy tasty breakfasts on hand for the morning rush. It’s interesting to see how it comes out of the oven – the recipe is easy to make because you really just mix and bake and the heavier polenta settles to the bottom forming a crust on its own. Like any quiche recipe you can vary the fillings a lot – I like using some corn kernels and a rasher of bacon diced and fried up with the onion. Add some butter for a richer quiche.
Ingredients
6 Eggs
1 Tbsp Rice flour (or wheat flour if not making gluten free)
1/2 onion, diced fine
1 Spring onion, sliced
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Tbsp diced tasty cheese
1 Sprig parsley, sliced
1/2 Cup Polenta
2/3 Cup milk
1/2 Tsp baking powder (use gluten free if required)
Other fresh herbs if liked
1 Clove garlic, chopped fine
Pinch each salt & pepper
Saute the onion in 1 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat until clear.
Mix all ingredients together and stir very well.
Tip into a greased pan – I use a loaf tin but a round quiche/pie dish could also work.
Bake in a medium oven – (I used 180C/350F fan forced) until brown and no longer wobbling.
Here you see the polenta has settled somewhat, making the bottom more like a crust while the top half is light and fluffy!
I am writing down this recipe to share the enjoyment of picking fresh garden greens on a sunny spring morning – there is something very satisfying about cooking like this. The only remaining piece of the puzzle is to get our own chickens for really fresh eggs!
I vary this recipe depending on what is in the garden, today it is rocket (arugula), flat leaf parsley, thyme, oregano, spring onion and a little new spinach.
Here is part of the oregano jungleMy rocket is going to seed – but it still tastes good!
Ingredients
2-3 eggs
About 1 cup of mixed herbs and greens – spinach, spring onions, chard, oregano, whatever is good!
1 Tbsp of diced or grated parmesan
A grind of black pepper and a pinch of salt
A pinch of dried garlic powder or a clove of fresh garlic, chopped
Optionally a pinch of red chilli flakes
Method
Dice greens roughly and herbs fine.
Mix all ingredients in a bowl and stir together with a fork.
I think eggs overcooked are ruined, so I cook them over low-medium heat until just done. Heat a skillet and add a nice piece of good butter (go on, you’re about to work it off in the garden anyway aren’t you?) and a glug of olive oil.
Tip the egg mixture into the pan and cook until it starts to look cooked all the way through – a few minutes. Then carefully flip and cook the other side for a minute. It might help to carefully loosen all around the edges with an egg flip before flipping.
Not quite ready to flip
Eggs and chilli are a really yummy combination so I eat omelette with a dab of a delicious Harissa (chilli paste) from My Country Kitchen (I can’t find a website for them but bought at the Willunga markets). That plus a nice espresso = the breakfast of champions!
I was in Melbourne last month for work and my brother in law said I had to go to Hardware Societe. Unfortunately when I got there, I couldn’t get a table or even the attention of a waiter to start the process of getting a table. I gave up on breakfast that morning but I never gave up on the idea of baked eggs and this weekend I did two variations, both with pulses in a tomato based sauce finished with eggs baked on top. This is a seriously hearty breakfast that I plan on eating much more often, although it would make sense to make up the sauce the night before to save time. I’m treating this as more of an amazing new concept than a specific recipe and I will use whatever is in season – I chucked some zucchini and pumpkin into one of my versions too and will be trying one with beans soon.
Baked eggs with lentils
1 cup cooked lentils (or canned)
1 1/2 cups tomato passata or blended tinned tomatoes or plain pasta sauce
1/2 brown onion
1 carrot, peeled
1 stick celery
1 red or yellow capsicum (pepper)
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp cinnamon – I love a hint of cinnamon with lentils!
1 tsp paprika
1 tbsp chopped fresh herbs – any of thyme, basil, oregano, marjoram
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 egg per person
Finely dice onion, carrot, celery, capsicum, garlic. Sautee over medium heat in a dash of olive oil till soft, around 5 minutes.
Add cinnamon, paprika, fresh herbs, tomato passata and lentils. Simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. If the mixture gets so dry it sticks, add a dash of water.
Taste the sauce and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Spoon sauce into a casserole dish or individual servings. I’ve been eying off a set of individual casseroles like these for a while but don’t have any yet, so I used large soup mugs. Use a spoon to make an egg sized depression in the sauce for each serve and crack in an egg. Cover the dish (foil works) and bake until the egg is cooked right. Mine took about 15 minutes in a hot oven. I served with a little flat leaf parsley and grated parmesan and of course toast fingers are an obvious match for creamy egg yolk…
My second version replaced the lentils with chickpeas, and I used up a little leftover pasta dough to make a few noodles for the sauce. I did this one in a single casserole. Soooo good!
A bacon and egg pizza has been on my mind for a while now, so with a cool sunny morning on the weekend it seemed like the perfect time to do some morning baking in the wood oven! This is the first breakfast pizza recipe I’ve put together and while it wasn’t an unqualified success it was quite delicious, and I’m going to enjoy tweaking the recipe.
A note on ingredients – most commercial bacon is made by injecting pork with a solution of brine and phosphates so that it retains water and weighs more when it’s sold. They use liquid smoke and other additives for flavouring. While any bacon can taste good, I prefer to buy bacon from smaller producers who care about the quality of their products and minimise the chemicals they use. If you can find such a producer at a farmers market or specialty store, or even direct from the farm, stock up – the taste of traditionally cured and smoked bacon is worth the hunt!
You could vary the ingredients to include other breakfast favourites but I chose to keep it simple with onion adding some crunch and tomatoes contributing acidity and richness that goes well with smoky bacon. I chose to dice rather than slice the onions, to give a layer of texture underneath the bacon. Tearing the bacon adds to the presentation a little and makes for more interesting, varied mouthfuls.
This recipe allows for topping 2 small or one very large pizza.
Tearing off crust to dip in the egg yolk was delicious!
Shape the base, and place on a floured peel. In a bowl, sprinkle the tomato with a little salt. Place the pieces in a sieve and allow to drain. This will remove some moisture from the tomatoes and give them a little flavour kick as well. Drizzle olive oil over the base, then add tomato sauce followed by a thin scattering of mozarella.
Scatter the onion and tomato over the base. Add a little more cheese, then the bacon pieces.
At this point you need to make a decision about when to add the eggs, based on how well you want them done. I cooke my pizza in a wood fired oven for a minute before I poured on the eggs. This resulted in quite a runny yolk which was great to dip pieces of the crust into. If you are cooking in an indoors oven with a pizza stone, allow a few minutes for the eggs to cook to runny or put them on at the start if you like well done.
When adding eggs, you can choose to beat them in advance or pour them on whole. Whichever approach you take, have all of your eggs cracked and ready so you can get them on quickly and the pizza back in the oven. If using whole eggs, think about the position so that you can give guests an egg on every slice. The next improvement I will be making to this recipe will be to use large egg rings on the pizza – it is quite hard to get them to land where you want! I think egg rings will allow a little white to leak out around the edges and look nice, but hold the eggs roughly where I want them.
Once cooked, scatter with some fresh herbs. It’s hard to go past parsley for a classic egg pairing; I used basil from my garden as well. A final note – you could easily make mini pizzas following this approach, and I bet kids would love having their own breakfast pizza with an egg in the middle!
As always, don't overdo the toppings - leave room for the crust to breathe. This is before adding the bacon.Enjoy! Yes, I burnt the crust... just a little.
