Egg White Breakfast Muffins

These taste much better than my horrible photography skills would have you believe

Let me start by explaining that I love breakfast.  I love it more than any other meal.  On the weekends I swear that every restaurant within a 25 mile radius that serves Eggs Benedict calls my name and beckons me to come calling.  When normal people are craving chocolate, I am craving pancakes and bacon.  On a Friday night when most people would order a pizza, I whip up some biscuits and gravy.  My love for breakfast is never ending and I am convinced that it was invented just for me.

As a result of my undying devotion to breakfast, I am always looking for new ways to eat all my favorite breakfast foods.  A few weeks ago I came across an egg muffin recipe and I knew I just had to give them a try.  I eat egg whites nearly every morning of the week, and it takes roughly 12 minutes from start to finish to cook and eat them.

That's 12 minutes I could still be sleeping.

Solution?  Egg muffins!  The recipe this is adapted from uses egg beaters, and you can use those if you prefer them, but I prefer whites because they're the best part of the egg for you, and I prefer real egg to beaters only because I don't want to know how they get beaters to turn that weird orange color or why they have that slightly rubbery flavor. 

These little muffins are fantastic because you can make them on a Sunday night and then toss them in a container and just grab one on the way out the door in the morning for the rest of the week.  Too easy.  If you are always running late in the morning like I am, then these are going to be life-changing for you.

Egg White Muffins:

Ingredients:

• Non-stick cooking spray (I use TJ's olive oil spray)
• 3 cups egg whites
• 1 to 2 cups chopped veggies and/or meats of your choosing (I used diced lean ham, mushrooms, and green onions)
• Salsa (if you like salsa in your eggs)
• salt and pepper to taste 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
2. Spray a muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray (I used a standard size muffin tin and it made about 7 muffins, so no need to spray all 12 cups unless you are making a large batch)
3. Add some salt and pepper into the whites and stir until mixed
4. Pour whites into each cup, filling each one about half way
5. Disperse the meat and veggies evenly into each cup
6. Add about a TBSP of salsa into each cup
7. Put in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until muffins are cooked through
8. After 30 minutes, remove from oven and cool, then place in an airtight container or some plastic baggies and toss in the fridge for grab-n-go use whenever you want!

They just pop right out of the tin too so you don't lose any muffin goodness along the way

Now, I am always looking for shortcuts when I cook, so even though this entire process takes about 10 minutes, I wanted to speed it up further because I am that impatient.  So I dumped my ham, mushrooms, and green onions into my whites ahead of time, mixed it all up, and then tried pouring that into the cups.  BAD idea.  The ham sank to the bottom, the onions floated to the top, and the mushrooms went wherever they wanted.  The result?  Some cups were just egg whites, some were only ham, and some had way too may green onions.  So my recommendation is to pour the whites and then add your protein individually. Lame, I know, but since you have now made breakfast for the entire week, I think it's a small price to pay.

And there you have it- egg white muffins!  You can eat them cold as you run out the door, or heat them up in the microwave for 40 seconds and eat them hot.

Either way, I like to think this revolutionizes pre-work breakfast and it guarantees I can have my eggs every morning (even when I'm running late...which is every day).  Plus, they are good for you, so you don't have to feel guilty eating something that tastes so good before it's even light outside.  Love it!

Hopefully you'll enjoy them as much as I do!

Welcome to The Jervey Shore!

Hello! So this time the plan is to actually maintain and successfully keep this blog up.  I admit I'm pretty lazy, but after a lot of thought I've decided that my past blogging downfall has been too many topics I'm trying to cover.  So my solution to my problem is to focus on a few things I just really love.  The two I've decided on...dun dun dun...are food and fitness!  The two (often conflicting) F's play a huge role in  my life, so why not share my love of them with the rest of the world? 

My support for this is as follows:

I am one of those people who LOVES food- and I don't mean like I enjoy a good meal now and then...I mean like as soon as I finish eating breakfast I'm already thinking about what I'm going to eat for my morning snack 30 minutes later.  As you can imagine, this kind of love is the dangerous kind and so I devote much of my time to taking my favorite foods and recipes and putting a healthy spin on them.  I *try* to eat clean when I can and I incorporate it into what I put into my mouth as often as possible.  I do NOT believe in diets- they imply that you are cutting out things you love cold turkey and they just scream short term solution.  I believe in little tips and tricks that you can use daily to clean up your favorite foods and maybe even get some real nutrition out of them.  I promise, it's (mostly) possible!  Now don't get me wrong, I love cheeseburgers, cupcakes, EVERYTHING fried food, and anything smothered in a heavy cream sauce.  So if that's what I'm craving, I'll generally go out and find it and eat it and love every bite.  But I try to eat clean and healthy roughly 90% of the time and I think this approach is a realistic and attainable solution for most people.  Baby steps people, baby steps- that's how you successfully make a long term change. 

When I'm not eating or in the office working for the man, I'm a kickboxing instructor who gets a real kick (pun totally intended) out of helping people reach their fitness goals.  I love teaching and I love watching people transform their bodies, and until my legs fall off I'll probably keep doing it.  I also play soccer (even in the winter!) and I run a few times a week.  Working out is my stress relief and it's my way of zoning out and forgetting about everything else for a few hours.  I'm a firm believer that there is a way to enjoy working out (yes, this includes those of you who would rather rip your fingernails off than step foot in a gym) no matter what you've told yourself in the past  There are so many things out there that you probably love and haven't even considered as an alternate way to get a workout fix in.  My goal is to share any insight I can in making it easier to love working out and hopefully putting it out there on the world wide web will help at least a few people.

So there you have it- my very first blog post and hopefully the beginning of me actually sticking with it for more than a week.  My attention span is pretty bad, but you can't fault me for trying. 

Stay Happy!