BREAKFAST and EXERCISE — good food and bone-building exercise

MONAMIFOOD BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

Made with whole wheat flour, bananas, blueberries, almond meal (ground almonds), ground flaxseeds, and lots of cinnamon, these muffins are chock-full of anti-cancer healthy foods. But how do they taste? Just slightly sweet (very little sugar), but awesome!

Makes 24 regular size muffins and 24 mini-size muffins

Ingredients

Olive or canola oil for greasing the muffin pans

4 medium-size ripe or very ripe bananas

2 cups skim milk

1/2 cup canola or extra virgin olive oil

½ cup dark brown sugar, very tightly packed

2 eggs (preferably eggs with omega 3’s), lightly beaten

2 tablespoons agave nectar

•Why agave nectar? How does agave nectar help your body to prevent cancer?

2 tablespoons vanilla extract

• Vanilla brings out the sweet taste of food, so you can use less sugar in the recipe. According to the food experts, the best vanilla is produced under the brand, Nielsen-Massey. It’s quite expensive, but I think it’s worth splurging on.

3 ¾ cup white whole wheat flour

3/4 cup almond meal (finely ground raw almonds)

• I like the almond meal at Trader Joe’s. It’s not expensive and it includes the almond skin (dark brown part) which is high in fiber.

½ cup flaxseeds, ground

• Why flaxseeds? How do flaxseeds help your body to prevent cancer?

• For freshness, buy whole flaxseeds and grind them yourself — in either a coffee grinder or a mini food processor fitted with a metal blade. To keep flaxseeds fresh, store them in the freezer. I particularly like the golden flaxseeds.

1 tablespoon non-aluminum baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons ground Ceylon cinnamon

• Why cinnamon? How does cinnamon help your body to prevent cancer?

1 pound (16 ounces) frozen blueberries, almost defrosted (you don’t want blueberries and blue water)

• I use Trader Joe’s Wild Boreal Blueberries. These are very small blueberries that, according to the packaging, are “grown naturally with no pesticides.” Not all wild Boreal blueberries are grown without pesticides; many are grown from wild bushes but are treated with pesticides just like regular blueberries. Unfortunately, I think organic frozen blueberries are just too expensive to use most of the time.

•Why blueberries? How do blueberries help your body to prevent cancer?

Directions

Arrange the oven racks so that you have two racks in the middle of the oven, equidistant from the top and bottom of the oven. Preheat oven to 350 degree F.

Using a pastry brush, brush the inside of each muffin cup with a little canola or olive oil. (I used two regular size metal muffin pans and two silicone mini muffin pans. Use whatever you have available.)

In a large bowl, mash the bananas very well. (A simple old-fashioned potato masher will do the job.) Add the skim milk, canola or olive oil, brown sugar, lightly beaten eggs, agave nectar, and vanilla extract. Set aside.

Into a medium-size bowl, add the white whole wheat flour, almond meal, ground flaxseeds, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.  Mix these dry ingredients very well.

Take the large bowl with the wet ingredients (that you set aside earlier) and mix the wet ingredients well. Then dump the dry ingredients on top of the wet ingredients. (I know this is unorthodox, but I think it works better than the orthodox way of adding the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.) Mix the dry and wet ingredients until they are almost mixed. (It’s best if a few small patches of dry ingredients remain as there is more mixing coming in the next step and you do not want to over mix.)

Now dump the defrosted blueberries onto the batter and gently stir the blueberries into the batter. (You will end up with a batter that’s slightly blue and that’s OK.)

Using a medium size ice cream scoop (or whatever you have on hand), fill the regular muffin cups about 7/8 of the way to the top with the batter; fill the mini muffin cups to the top with batter.

Place the 2 filled regular size muffin pans on the upper shelf and the 2 filled mini muffin pans on the lower shelf of the preheated oven.

Bake for 40 minutes or until a thin skewer inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean.

Remove the muffin pans from the oven and set them aside to cool for 5 to 10 minutes. Remove the muffins to a wire rack to cool completely. When completely cool, store covered in the refrigerator or freeze to use later.

Enjoy and be healthy!

~Leni

SPINACH AND ONION CRUSTLESS QUICHES

After creating the recipes for Egg White Puffs and for Carmelized Onions and Roasted Spinach, it suddenly dawned on me that I could combine the two recipes and make Spinach and Onion Egg Puffs – now fondly known as Spinach and Onion Crustless Quiches.  Wow! They turned out great and my family and I have been enjoying them for breakfast, lunch, light dinners, and snacks ever since!

SPINACH AND ONION CRUSTLESS QUICHES ( aka SPINACH AND ONION EGG PUFFS)

Makes 6 crustless quiches (each one the size of a muffin)

If you would like to see a video showing how this recipe is made, just click on this link for the YouTube video that I made with the help of my friend Ludo Van Vooren, who served as my director and film editor, and my husband, Charles Nazare, who cheered me on. Also a big thanks to my friends Shelley and Fred and cousin David who looked this video over and told me it was good enough to share. I had my doubts, but I’ve swallowed my pride and learned to live with the fact that I don’t look as young as I used to when I made my other videos…and I’m out of practice, besides. But making this video was fun, so I plan to do more of them for this blog in the future. I hope you enjoy viewing the video.

Ingredients

• Extra virgin olive oil (for greasing the inside of each muffin cup)
• 6 tablespoons caramelized onions, prepared according to the post, Monamifood Caramelized Onions & Roasted Spinach
• 6 tablespoons roasted spinach, prepared according to the post, Monamifood Caramelized Onions & Roasted Spinach
• About 1½ teaspoons ground turmeric
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  
• Aleppo pepper or any mild red pepper, such as paprika (not the hot variety). The purpose of the red pepper is to give the quiche a nice warm color.
• fresh thyme leaves (or dried thyme leaves or dried oregano – or a mixture of these), to taste
• 1, 16-ounce container of liquid egg whites
• 1 tablespoon shredded or grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Equipment Prep Step

• If you are going to cook these quiches in a microwave oven, you will need a 100% food-grade silicone muffin pan (for regular, not mini size muffins).
• Unfortunately, in a microwave oven, the food in a muffin pan does not cook evenly. (The food closer to the walls of the oven cooks faster than the food farther from the walls of the oven.)  So using a pair of kitchen shears, I cut my silicone muffin pan into 6 muffin cups as you see below. Now I can arrange the muffin cups in a circle for even cooking.
  

My silcone muffin pan after surgery to separate the muffin cups

Directions (Microwave cooking)

Note: Oven cooking directions are given below the microwave cooking directions.

• Using a pastry brush and olive oil, lightly grease the inside of each silicone muffin cup with olive. (You may not need to grease these muffin cups. If you find that your little quiches slide out of their cups without greasing the muffin cups, that’s great; just skip this step.)

• If you can, remove the glass “go round” inside your microwave oven and place it on your kitchen counter. (If you can’t remove the glass “go round” from your microwave, then just use a large round microwaveable platter.) Arrange the 6  individual greased silicone muffin cups in a circle on the glass “go round” or round platter. Try to make sure that each of the cups is about the same distance from the outer edge of the glass “go round” or platter.
• Put 1 tablespoon of caramelized red onions inside each of the muffin cups.
• Put 1 tablespoon of roasted spinach inside each of the muffin cups.
• Sprinkle a scant ¼ teaspoon of ground turmeric into each of the muffin cups.
• Sprinkle a little freshly ground black pepper into each of the muffin cups.
• Sprinkle a little Aleppo pepper into each of the muffin cups.
• Add as much fresh thyme as you like to each of the muffin cups
  
• Shake the container of egg whites (as it says on the carton). Pour the liquid egg whites into the partially filled muffin cups, filling each cup almost up to the top. You will use – or almost use – the entire container of egg whites.
• Using a small spoon, gently mix the contents of each muffin cup to distribute the veggies more evenly.
• Place the “go round” or platter with the filled muffin cups into the microwave oven.
  
• Cook on high for 3– 4 minutes or until outer half of each of the mini quiches is starting to look slightly cooked (not so runny).
  
• Carefully rotate the each muffin cup 180 degrees so that the inner edge becomes the outer edge.
• Cook on high for another 2-3 minutes or until there is no more liquid remaining on the top of each quiche. In the final minute or so as they cook, you see them puff up high above the top edges of the muffin cups and then drop back down when they’re done. It’s dramatic and fun to watch!
• If desired, top each little quiche with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, and heat for another 10-15 seconds to melt the cheese.

• When the muffin cups are cool enough to handle comfortably, remove them from the oven.

One muffin cup with a Spinach and Onion Crustless Quiche inside

• Invert each muffin cup and the little quiche should slide right out. When you turn the quiches  right side up they look beautiful — and, I think you will agree, taste GREAT!

Directions (Oven cooking)

• To cook these mini quiches in a regular (not microwave) oven, follow the directions given above, but bake at 350 degree F — either in a silicone muffin pan or in regular metal muffin pan. I made three little quiches in my toaster oven (using cut-up silicone muffin cups) and they were ready after baking for about 20 minutes. It should take around that long to cook these in a metal muffin pan, too.
  

Notes

• After posting this recipe (and that was after making it at least 25 times), I discovered that adding fresh thyme made the little quiches even more delicious. And, since thyme is an anti-cancer food in its own right, (as explained in my earlier post, Roasted Grape Tomatoes and Thyme), go ahead and add plenty of thyme. Just buy (or grow) fresh thyme, wash it, dry it, and store it in your freezer. Storing in your freezer will make it easy to remove the leaves from the stems (as explained in the Roasted Grape Tomatoes post) and it will still taste fresh.
• If you are out of fresh thyme, no problem. Use dried thyme or dried oregano leaves. Oregano and thyme (as well as rosemary, basil, and mint) are members of the terpene family and have anti-cancer properties.
• These Crustless Quiches do not freeze well. But you can store them in your refrigerator for a few days.
• By using a silicone mini muffin pan (cut up into individual cups), you can make mini quiches. (And, if you don’t want to cut up all your silicone bakeware, use the pan as is and take out the cooked mini quiches and return the pan to the microwave to cook the rest.) I served these mini quiches at a party not long ago and they disappeared!
• I learned the hard way that if I follow the manufacturer’s direction that came with my silicone muffin pan: “do not place in the dishwasher,” then the muffin cups remain non-stick and I do not need to to grease the muffin cups.
  +++++++++++++++++++++++

And here’s another Crustless Mini Quiche recipe from Monamifood: Updated Crustless Mini Quiches. The newer version does not require silicone muffin pans. And it is easier to make. However, it does not include turmeric. I now use turmeric (including fresh turmeric) in a lot of other foods I cook, so I don’t mind not having some for breakfast.

Enjoy and be healthy,

~Leni

EGG WHITES: Egg White Puffs

Why egg whites?

Egg whites are a good source of protein and they’re fat free. (The fat and cholesterol in an egg are entirely in the yolk.) Because cooked egg whites are pretty tasteless, they need to be perked up with flavor, and that can come from healthy foods such as herbs, spices, and vegetables. So while egg whites, themselves, aren’t an anti-cancer food, the foods you make with egg whites can be great anti-cancer foods.

EGG WHITE PUFFS

I used to make scrambled eggs (mostly egg whites) in large batches in non-stick pans and refrigerate them so it was easy to have some eggs for breakfast for the next few days. But recently I have come up with a better idea — Egg White Puffs – which just take minutes to make in the microwave. Now I whip up a batch or two at a time and refrigerate what we don’t eat that day so these delicious puffs are ready for breakfast the next day.

Ingredients

Extra-virgin olive oil

1 cup of egg whites

• ½ of a 16-ounce carton of egg whites or the whites of about 6 eggs

Ground turmeric

• For information about turmeric and it’s anti-cancer properties,  see the post, Turmeric and Black Pepper.

Freshly ground black pepper

Aleppo pepper or any other hot or slightly hot dried pepper you like (optional)

• Penzeys is a good source for Aleppo pepper and all herbs and spices.

Directions

Grease a silicone mini-muffin pan with olive oil; set aside.

Whip air into the egg whites using one of the following methods (optional):

• Pour the egg whites into a 2-cup measuring cup. Use an immersion blender to whip the egg whites up so that they have an inch or so of foam on top.

• Pour the egg whites into a blender and blend until nice and foamy.

Note: Whipping the egg whites as described above does not change the taste, it just makes the puff puffier, and I like that, but not everyone does.

Pour an equal amount of egg whites (whipped or not whipped) into the prepared mini muffin pan. If you have whipped the egg whites, most of the froth will remain in the measuring cup or blender. Use a teaspoon to evenly divide the froth among the muffin cups.

Sprinkle a little turmeric, black pepper, and Aleppo pepper (optional) on each one of the egg whites in the muffin pan.

• Since I use turmeric a lot, I keep it in a jar with a shaker top (one that used to have cinnamon in it).

Put the filled muffin pan into the microwave oven and microwave on high for 2 minutes. You will see the egg whites puff up and then fall back somewhat.

• In my microwave oven (but maybe not in all microwave ovens) the egg whites on the outside cook completely in 2 minutes, but those in the center need another 30 seconds.

Use a teaspoon to lift each of the cooked (no longer runny) puffs out of the muffin pan.

If needed, put the muffin pan back into the microwave oven for 30 seconds to cook the last two or three puffs that need more time. Then use a teaspoon to remove the last couple of cooked puffs.

Serve your Egg White Puffs with Sauted Herb Flavor Cubes or  Sundried Tomato Flavor Cubes or both.  They’re absolutely delicious and so very healthy!

Enjoy and be healthy,

~Leni