Whole30 Breakfast

As is fairly obvious via my social media presence, Parker and I are somewhere in the midst of doing a "Whole30". If you're unfamiliar with this diet, you can find the general premise here. The gist is essentially a diet of "whole" foods leaving out dairy, grains, legumes, and added sugars. The biggest challenge we foresaw prior to starting was breakfast. Think about it. What do most people eat for breakfast? Cereal (grains + dairy + hella sugar). Bagels (grains + sugar). Oatmeal (grains...though arguably healthy so I felt defiant about this breaking a rule, but we will get to that another time). So what's left? I mean no one has time to fix themselves scrambled eggs every morning. Especially me. I love sleep too much. But then, we found this miracle of a solution: the breakfast bake. So, I wanted to share this recipe with everyone in case they were hesitating about Whole30 solely because the breakfast conundrum (although let's be honest, there's about 100 other reasons to hesitate about starting Whole30; again, more on this later).

Frankly, like most recipes, I found several variations of this recipe just by searching for Whole 30 breakfasts (this was our go-to for most meals throughout the month and most meals in general). My point being: you can google almost any combination of ingredients and find a recipe for them. That really should be cooking tip #1 for millennials.

Though the baker in me loves precision, this is one thing I like to cook that I actually allow myself to be a bit more liberal with amounts - hence why the ingredient list is so vague. You can really sub out any of the veggies with other veggies as well. If you don't like broccoli, add some yellow squash or red peppers instead. Make it your own.

I know cutting can be tedious and intimidating. There's no right or wrong way to chop vegetables (short of you cutting yourself). I think maybe you can pull this off with pre-chopped frozen vegetables, but I haven't tried it so no promises. I personally find chopping vegetables really cathartic, and I think the time is worthwhile when it takes me 2 hours on a Sunday night making this but only 45 seconds in the microwave every morning.

Cooking things in cold oil contributes to making them greasy so make sure your oil is quite hot. You can throw some onions or something in there and see if it sizzles to check. My mom used to tell me the traditional Chinese way to tell if oil is ready is to put the back of a wooden spoon in the oil. If it bubbles, your oil is ready. I have yet to prove this one wrong.

Definitely wait to add your spinach until close to the end. Again, I don't have a specific time, but just feel it out - a few moments before you are done cooking the veggies Spinach needs to wilt a bit when you cook it but not too much or it becomes soggy and slimy.

I know 12 eggs sounds like a lot (it is), but eggs are very cheap. We would buy 36 eggs at Sam's Club every week during our Whole30. 12 would go to this bake, and at least a half dozen or so would be hard boiled for mid-week snacks.

I usually give it a little stir once everything is in the baking dish prior to putting it in the oven, just to even things out.

Congrats! You have breakfast for two for the next 6 days at least (I cut it into 12 pieces). It's very good with a bit of hot sauce on it (compliant of course), and I also eat a banana with a little almond butter. I can honestly say this actually keeps me full until lunch. Enjoy!

Our Whole30 Breakfast Bake

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp or so of olive oil

Enough butter (or ghee* if you're being very Whole30) to grease a 9x12 baking dish

1 zucchini

1 small(ish) floret of broccoli - basically not too much, not too little; guesstimate based on my picture

1 green pepper

1/2 white onion

1 fairly generous handful of spinach

1 handful of mushrooms

3 links of Aideills Chicken Apple Sausage (it's one of the few with no sugar added)

12 eggs
Salt and Pepper to taste

*ghee is clarified butter, basically butter without the milk fat

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease your baking dish with butter/ghee* coating the bottom and sides. Dice all your veggies into small enough chunks that are desirable to you - think about how you want your casserole to be. Slice sausages into circles or semi circles, either works. Using a large skillet/pan/wok, drizzle some olive oil to coat the bottom and heat. Sauté your veggies (except the spinach) until they are soft and tender - onions are more translucent and the broccoli has become a little more rich in color. Add spinach to veggie mixture and allow to wilt. Place veggies in a bowl and set aside. Sauté sausage pieces until a little browned. Combine sausage and veggies and spread them out in your baking dish. Whisk all eggs in a separate bowl. Salt and pepper eggs to your liking and pour over the veggies. Bake for 45 min or until the edges of your casserole are peeling off the edges of your pan.