Egg Muffin Breakfast Bites

Egg Muffin Breakfast Bites.. So I've been meaning to try to make these for a while and for whatever reason was inspired on a whim this week to do it. I happened to have a bunch of eggs that needed to be used up, as well as salami leftover from a Dahlish pizza I made last week, and some shredded mozz leftover from that also. I only had enough salami to use them in 3 of the 6 muffins, so the other three I tested as simply baked eggs. Now this isn't some food combination you've never had - but the novelty of it is great, and so is the ease of making and eating it!!

Scrambled eggs are hard to keep and eat on the go, but these perfect little baked egg muffins are definitely going to be my go-to protein source in the mornings post workout. You can make them a couple of days ahead of time and just reheat them in the morning. You can also use this idea for a breakfast or brunch where you're making eggs Benedict or breakfast sando's - how perfect?!

I originally saw this recipe using turkey slices but I used salami as I mentioned before. You could use anything - if you want to be more decadent you could use bacon, but for every day use I'd stick with sliced turkey or something similar.

How to:

Take a muffin tin and place 1-2 slices of turkey or salami in the base of each cup, making a lining. I happen to have a tin with 6 muffin spots and they're fairly small. Not mini, but definitely not large.

Once they're lined, you can sprinkle some cheese on the bottom, then crack an egg in the center. You could also forgo the cheese, or perhaps add it on the top? This is something you can really play around with. Add some chopped tomatoes on the bottom or some hot sauce for a kick.

For the non-meat lined muffins just crack the egg in the muffin tin, it shouldn't need any sort of non-stick aid as long as your tin is non-stick. I cracked some black pepper atop mine.

Then place them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10-12 minutes. Take them out and check them at 10 minutes and go from there. All oven's are different so this may take some experimenting. It also depends on how runny you like the yolk. Play around with it!

All Baked!

Plain Egg Muffins

Salami Egg Muffins

All My Egg Muffins in Tupperware!

Hope you all enjoy these, I sure did. They were easy and dahlish and full of protein to start my mornings this week.

Dahlicious Lunches: Low Cal on Repeat

Dahlicious Lunches: Low Cal on Repeat... I am a creature of habit, and I often get in grooves where I eat the same thing for breakfast or lunch over and over and over for a long time (I'm talking months people). Currently I only do that for my breakfast, which has consisted of TJ's Blueberry or Strawberry Greek Yogurt and Kashi Go Lean Crunch for many months now. For lunch I usually switch it up, but last weekend I was in one of my moods and I just cranked out 5 copies of the exact same lunch. I can't tell if I'm just a total whack-a-do or if I'm subconsciously prepping for a life of rearing 5 children. Anyways, like I've said before, chopping and preparing and organizing food is a total zen thing for me, so I actually LOVED spending an hour or two doing this. Anywho, here is what my everyday eating from 5:45 am-1:00 pm looked like this week. I track the calories on here just out of curiosity sake - however on days that I didn't do a morning workout I didn't eat the "Post workout" part eliminating about 300 calories from the whole thing. Generally I do Barre workouts in the AM which I've read you can burn anywhere from 300-600 calories in a class! Who knows - I just think they're a fun way to start my day!

Pre-Workout:
Banana = 100 calories

Post Workout:
Quick drink of Almond Milk (6oz) and Protein Powder (1 individual packet) = 140 calories
Trade Joe's Banana Chocolate Protein Muffin (actually only ate two of these this week and forgot about them - oops) = 130 calories

Breakfast:
Greek Yogurt = 120 calories
Cup of Kashi Go Lean Crunch =190 calories

Lunch:
3-4 Slices of Turkey (Oven Roasted) = 50 calories
Handful of baby carrots = 30 calories
4-5 Celery Sticks with Unsalted Almond Butter = 200 calories
1 Cup of Skinny Pop (love this stuff, its simply popped popcorn with a bit of sunflower seed oil and a pinch of salt = 40 calories
1 Cup fresh watermelon = 50

It was pretty simple I just separated everything into 5 individual bags/Tupperware containers and it was pretty low calorie. All in all it comes to 1,050 calories and it can be modified to find other replacements etc. It might sound boring but sometimes on busy weekday's at work it is so nice to have everything already all packed up at the beginning of the week to just grab and go and (unhealthy as it is) eat at your desk between phone calls!

Anywho, just another lunch idea! Happy weekend all!

Chicken & Eggplant in Indian Simmer Sauce

Chicken & Eggplant in Indian Simmer Sauce... This was actually a super simple meal for 1 and took no time at all. I can't take too much credit for doing much but chopping and assembling but it totally hit the spot. I love Indian food and I've found some good jarred sauces that are perfect in a pinch at home to give that flavor. The one I used in this is a medium hot Tikka Masala Simmer Sauce that you can find at many grocery stores, I think even at TJ's! For those of you who have never had a Tikka Masala dish, it is a creamy tomato based sauce with lots of Dahlicious seasonings - it is general not a very spicy dish but there are many versions.

What I Used:
1 Small eggplant
1 Zucchini
1 Yellow Onion
4 Chicken Tenders
3-4 table spoons jarred Tikka Masala Sauce
1 Lime

How To:
I gave all of my veggies a rough chop so they were in similarly proportioned bite sized pieces. I tossed them in a saute pan with a liberal pour of olive oil over high/medium heat and let them brown. While that was happening I diced up my chicken and sauteed those pieces in a separate pan. Once they were fully cooked I added them to my browning veggies. I added a few big spoonfuls of the simmer sauce and a squeeze of lime juice and a pinch of salt and let the whole thing simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes to absorb the flavor.

Chopped veggies

The sauce!

Sauteing veggies pre-sauce

Dinner - voila!

You could easily serve this over rice, but I opted for the carb-less version and enjoyed the steaming chicken and veggie combo solo. It was full of flavor without being too hot at all. I love flavorful spice, but not burn your mouth/ruin your meal kind of heat. If you do like that you can always opt for a hotter version of the sauce or add some sriracha or chopped jalapeno to kick it up.

This meal took about 20 minutes and was really hearty - enjoy!

Dahlicious Lunches: Cucumber Boats of Egg Salad

Dahlicious Lunches: Cucumber Boats of Egg Salad... I wanted to share a quick lunch I whipped up today working from home. I am going out of town this weekend and felt the need to use all of the random last tid bits in my fridge that would otherwise go bad on my trip. I knew it would be a hodge podge lunch but it turned out better than I'd expected.

What I had to use:
A few slices of turkey
1 Avocado
Little Persian Cucumbers (I only used 1)
1 hard boiled egg (I ate the other two at lunch yesterday and this was the last one!)

Other things I also used:
4 Little sweet pickles
1 large table spoon of Greek Yogurt
2 types of mustard (spicy brown and grainy)
Balsamic Glaze

On My Plate

1. Rolled Turkey Slices with Grainy Mustard
2. Sliced Avocado drizzled with Balsamic Glaze
3. Cucumber Boats with Greek Yogurt Egg Salad (see the how to below this photo!)

Lunch!

The first two are pretty self explanatory.

But the egg salad was the fun part. I simply grabbed one of the Persian cucumbers, lopped off the ends and cut it long ways down the center. Then I took a small spoon and ran it through the seedy inside of each half, scooping them into "boats". I then chopped my hard boiled egg into bite sized bits and tossed it in a bowl. To that I added 4 little chopped sweet pickles. Next one large tablespoon of plain Greek Yogurt and a squeeze of spicy brown mustard. I gave it a good mix with a large fork and piled it into my cucumber boats. It was so perfect, easy to pick up and the cucumber was a great crunchy vessel for the egg salad. To be honest I was going to use mayo for my egg salad but I was out! So I used what I had (aka the Greek Yogurt) and much to my surprise it was Dahlish. It wasn't too tart as I was afraid it might be, and of course we all know that Greek Yogurt is lower in fat and calories and higher in protein than mayo so that was of course a positive!

Close up on my egg salad cucumber boats. What beauties right??

Happy to share a new hodge podge lunch idea to kick start the weekend! Happy Friday yall!

Grilled Pork Chop with Homemade Tzatziki Sauce

Grilled Pork Chop with Homemade Tzatziki Sauce... I go in and out of phases of making pork chops, I'm in a phase right now. They're easy and a little different than white meat chicken or some sort of seafood. If they're grilled the right way and not overdone they can be quite juicy and Dahlicious. I prefer buying the ticker ones, or getting a butterflied boneless chop from the butcher. This week that's exactly what I did. One big butterflied chop, half for dinner half for leftover lunch. I decided to give this dinner some middle eastern inspired flavor by adding my Biryani Spice Blend to the sauteed Kale and by making a Tzatziki sauce - I just happened to have all of the ingredients on hand!

The Sauce:
To make the sauce you will need the following -

• Plain Greek Yogurt
• Cucumber (I had small Persian cucumbers but regular ones would work too)
• Lime
• Fresh mint (optional but greatly enhances the flavor - dill could be used also/instead)
• Also optional is a little salt and dried oregano, I added these this time thought usually I am a purist and don't.

First peel the cucumber, then using the smallest side of your grater, grate the cucumber into a paper towel. Cucumbers are full of water and for this you'll want to remove most of the water that comes out. I have seen recipe's where they take the seeds out and use a food processor and then drain - but I think that simply grating works too. Use the paper towel to squeeze out most of the water, I like to keep a little for more cucumber flavor, but this is up to you.

Next, chop up a handful of fresh mint leaves, really really fine. You could do the same if you have dill. 

Add the cucumber ( I used a full little cucumber) and the fresh mint and half of a lime's worth of juice to a bowl. Now add a heaping scoop (think a few tablespoons) of the Greek Yogurt. Give it a good vigorous whisk with a fork and taste it. Add salt, lime, oregano, paprika  whatever you want to enhance the flavor to your liking. Place it in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve.

This can be used as a sauce or a great marinade. It's tangy and minty and add's a very fresh, cool flavor to the meal.

The Chop:

I simply seasoned it with some garlic pepper I bought from Mariano's and grilled it for about 5 minutes on each side on my grill pan. I turned the temp down and put a lid over the top to let it cook through - I cut into it a few times to see if it was done.

The Kale:

Chopped, rinsed, sauteed with olive oil. Sprinkled with Biryani Spice blend in the last few minutes before serving.

The Acorn Squash:

Cut in half, de-seeded, drizzled with olive oil and organic blue agave. Placed on a baking dish skin side up at 450 for 35 minutes. Perfection.

Dinner is served!!