Healthy Recipes: A Pantry Purge (AKA Stuff in my Freezer)

I'm in the middle of a full-on stage 10 pantry and freezer purge and for the past two weeks I've targeted the frozens. It's part of the "Monthly Project" over at the Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans where we are taking the whole month to tackle something and this month it's using up what we actually have and trying to minimize what we buy. This has been really great for me, you should join us, it's never too late! (Read about it here!) 

The first project I tackled was eating all that FROZEN CHICKEN. And there was A LOT of it. So we grilled, I made chicken and yellow rice, it was a pretty yummy week.

The next tackle was the ridiculous overflow of frozen square boxes of vegetables I got into by purchasing more when I wasn't sure if we had any which of course we did and that turned into at least 10 boxes of spinach and/or broccoli stacked up on top of each other.

As it happened, I also had a couple of containers of eggbeaters, a couple of them half full, a couple of them full and all of them still well within their usage date (again, I keep buying items that I'm not sure I have and it always turns out I have two already).

So I made a lot of eggs and veggies. I found a fantastic recipe from Weight Watchers for a Broccoli Cheese Quiche and that's what you see way up top! And everyone loved it. It was 5 points! Here's the recipe:

Healthy Broccoli Cheese Quiche

Ingredients:
6 oz pie crust, 9-inch, refrigerated
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup(s) red onion(s), chopped
1 1/4 cup(s) part-skim ricotta cheese
1 cup(s) low-fat shredded cheddar cheese
1 large egg(s)
2 large egg white(s)
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp table salt, or more to taste
1/4 tsp black pepper, freshly ground, or more to taste
10 oz frozen chopped broccoli, thawed and well-drained
1 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375ºF. Press pie crust into bottom and up sides of a 9-inch, removable-bottom tart pan or a 9-inch pie pan; refrigerate until ready to use. To make filling, heat oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until soft, about 3 minutes. Transfer onion to a large bowl and add ricotta cheese, cheddar cheese, egg, egg whites, mustard, oregano, salt and pepper; mix well and fold in broccoli. Spoon mixture into prepared crust and level surface with a wooden spoon; sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake until a knife inserted near center comes out clean, about 35 to 40 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before slicing into 8 pieces. Yields 1 piece per serving.

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Yum!

The next thing I did was make yummy muffin pan crustless mini-quiches, which are great for making ahead of time, putting in a ziploc bag and in the fridge and popping one or two for breakfast every morning! I didn't take a picture, but we ate them all up, they were great for recovery meals for my runs and my husband was able to take them to work with him. I made them using a recipe I tweaked off the food network (to make it healthier):

Crustless Mini-Quiches!

Ingredients:
2 cups egg substitute
1/2 cup nonfat milk
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/4 tsp salt
1 box frozen spinach or chopped broccoli, cooked
1/3 cup grated parmesan
nonstick cooking spray

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray the muffin pans with nonstick spray. Whisk eggs, milk, pepper and salt in large bowl. Stir in spinach and parmesan. Fill muffin cups almost to the top with egg mixture. Bake until the egg mixture puffs and is set in the center, about 8-10 minutes. Pop em out and serve immediately, or let them cool, put them in a Ziploc and refrigerate! You can also use a mini-muffin pan if you want teeny tiny ones.

My next project this week is going through the pantry and fridge, cleaning out all the crapola, taking a walk with the kids to go get a newspaper, clipping coupons, making a list of things WE HAVE and what I'm going to make with it, and then going shopping for the week buying just the few things I need to make them. I'm going to mostly USE WHAT WE HAVE. No more wasting!

I've got a recipe for something not so healthy but we totally cleaned out the pantry with it, it's a 4 INGREDIENT cookie and it's amazing and I'm posting that next week. Yum.
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psst. This week's giveaway is HERE.