Breakfast: Fuel for the Day

Good morning! What a beautiful weekend! Hope you all had an opportunity to get outside and play.  Can you do us a favor and stop what you are doing and answer this simple question: did you have an awesome breakfast this morning?  Let even take a step back and make it more simple: did you have breakfast at all?

We really hope the answer to both questions was a resounding YES! It is important to start your day off  right by giving your body the fuel it needs.  That's like trying to drive your car around on empty and hoping you don't get stuck on the side of the road somewhere.  

Many times people complain that they just don't have time in the morning or they are tired of the same old eggs.  The following recipe courtesy of PaleOMG still includes eggs but provides a new slant on a normally grain filled quiche.  Enjoy!

Meat Crust Quiche

Prep time:  20 mins

Cook time:  30 mins

Total time:  50 mins

Serves: 4-5

Ingredients

• 1 pound breakfast pork sausage (or italian sausage)
• 1 small sweet potato, diced
• ½ yellow onion, diced
• 2 cups fresh spinach
• 4 eggs, whisked
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• ⅛ teaspoon ground paprika
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 tablespoons bacon fat (or other kind of fat)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Now you gotta make your meat into a crust. So pull out a pie plate and begin to press your meat into the pan until it is even all around and pressed up to the rim of the plate.
3. Place the pan on a baking sheet (in case of any spills) and in the oven, and bake for 18-20 minutes until meat presses back when you poke it. It doesn’t need to be completely cooked through, but pretty close.
4. While your crust is baking, place 2 tablespoons of fat into a saucepan over medium heat. Then add the minced garlic.
5. Add in the chopped onions and sweet potatoes to the pan and mix to cover with garlic. Once the onions begin to become translucent, sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper on top and cover to help steam the potatoes and cook quicker.
6. Once potatoes are tender after about 4-5 minutes, toss in the spinach and cover once more to help the spinach wilt.
7. After a minute or two, once the spinach is wilted, remove your mixture from the pan and place in a bowl to let cool.
8. When mixtures is cooled, add in the eggs, garlic powder, ground paprika and a bit more salt. Mix well.
9. After the crust is done baking, remove the excess oil that may be left behind, then pour your egg mixture on top of the meat crust. It’s just fine if some leaks over into the pan because the meat will shrink just a bit.
10. Place the pan back into the oven and bake for 23-25 minutes. My quiche took quite some time to completely cook through because the pan wasn’t very deep, so be sure to just poke at the middle. Once the middle pushes back when you poke it, it’s all good to go.
11. Let cool, cut and serve. Avocado on top was perfect.