Omelette Fuffins– South Beach Phase 1 Breakfast

*Update 5-16-12*

My aunt left a comment below asking for nutritional information so I used this handy-dandy calculator to figure it out. It’s a great resource for determining the nutritional information for your recipes, since home-cooking doesn’t come with labels.

I based the ingredients/ servings on my second batch of fuffins in which I used 18 eggs, 1 standard package of mushrooms, 1 whole vidalia onion, 4 green onions, 2 cups of low-fat shredded cheddar (added to the egg mixture this time), and divided among 24 standard muffin cups. I also accounted for the 2-ish tbsp of olive oil used to saute the mushrooms and onions. Yuseff and I each eat 2 fuffins for breakfast, so 1 serving = 2 fuffins. This recipe yeilds 12 servings.

Remember: this recipe is customizable, so if you use different veggies, cheeses, or add meat, you can control the nutrition of your fuffins.

———————————–end of update————————————

Yeah. Fuffins. As in Fake Muffins.

This really awful thing has been happening with me and my pants. They either don’t go up over my hips. Don’t button. Or if they get that far, they freaking hurt and I can’t breathe.

At first I thought that I shrunk them. But uhh… that wasn’t the case. The fact was that my “food baby” (the little bulge I’d get after eating a big meal) stopped going away after a few hours and had become my actual body. Ugh.

I resisted going on a diet with all my might. I’d never gained weight before (except for that one time that I was pregnant with a 9 lb monster-baby). And darnit, I was NOT willing to admit that I was starting to now. But there I was, with my favorite skinny jeans held together with a rubber band looped around the button. Wah.

So. I’m South Beach dieting and having a hard time coming to terms with it. First of all, isn’t this a fad diet? Doesn’t that mean something bad? Secondly, I’m not that comfortable eating sugar-free and fat-free items because they only got that way with chemistry and artifice. Finally, I just want to eat a cupcake because cupcakes make me happy and diets make me sad.

But whatever. We’re one week in, and even though I’m super tired, crabby, and ready to maul the next person I see with a dinner roll, I don’t have to “suck-it-in” as much as I did last week. So, maybe it’s working.

The extra challenging thing about this phase is the limitations on what types of food you can eat. You can eat as much as you need to feel full. You just can’t eat whatever you want. He are some of my problems:

1. You can eat hummus. You cannot eat pita bread, pretzels, or carrots in phase one. I do not like cucumbers or peppers. So. Hummus is out.
2. You can eat Peanut Butter. You cannot eat bread or bananas. I do not like celery. I’m slowly perfecting the art of eating celery without letting it touch my tongue. Peanut butter on a spoon is tasty, but feels really desperate.
3. You can’t eat any fruit or fruit juice. I like fruit way more than I like vegetables and meat combined. You can drink Crystal Light, but my fresh-squeezed lemonade is infinately better.
4. You can eat cheeses (but they have to be fat free). You cannot, however, eat Brie. Brie is my favorite cheese. But I eat it on crackers with blackberry preserves. So that whole snack is off limits.
5. You can drink coffee. But you can’t add flavored creamer. I have to use fat-free half and half and Splenda, which makes a questionable sizzling noise when I add it to the mug.
6. I had to buy ingredients to replace the stuff that’s already in my home (that we already spent money on). Splenda to replace my sugar. Fat free cheddar and fat free mozzerella to replace the regular cheddar and mozzerella. Natural peanut butter to replace the huge jar of regular JIF. Fat free half and half to replace my french vanilla creamer. Sugar free Jell-o to replace anything that actually tastes good. No sugar added fudgsicles to replace those beautiful oreo cheesecakes. It goes on and on.

Anyway. Enough complaining, I guess. I found a treasure trove of recipes for Phase 1 of South Beach Diet over at Kalyn’s Kitchen, including ones for egg muffins. I used her recipe as an inspiration to make ours and Yuseff said that they tasted like omelettes– which is true, they do taste like omelettes.

I’m telling you. This is a tasty fuffin

 
If you aren’t on a diet (I envy you), these still make great grab ‘n’ go breakfasts and they are gluten-free.

Omelette Fuffins— print this recipe

Step 1: Dice 1/2 of a small onion and saute in a pan that’s been drizzled with a little olive oil. After 3 minutes, add 1 small package of sliced baby bella mushrooms and saute until tender.

Step 2: Crack 12 eggs in a large bowl and whisk until scrambled. Cut 4 green onions and mix in with the eggs. Add 2 cups fat-free shredded cheddar cheese and the sauteed mushrooms and onions.  Add desired amount of salt and pepper. Combine all ingredients.*note* I completely forgot to add the cheese to mine, so we ended up having to sprinkle cheese on each fuffin before reheating. It still tasted good, but I will definitely add the cheese to the mixture next time

Step 3: Use a 1/3 cup measuring cup to scoop out the egg mixture into a muffin tin that’s been coated with canola-oil cooking spray. (I forgot that canola oil is allowed and tried to use olive oil. It did not work.)

Step 4: Bake at 375° for 28 minutes or until eggs are cooked.