eggs Archives - Olea Nutrition

What do you make when you have one little zucchini, a couple stalks of asparagus and a few sprigs of dill? Well, not much at first. But with a few eggs, a splash of milk and a bit of cheese you have the makings of a great looking quiche!

I happened to have a frozen pie crust in my freezer or else this would have turned into a frittata. Yes, a frittata is literally a quiche with no crust, so if you’re looking for a low carb version of this (although I don’t know why you would), just omit the crust and you have a tasty frittata!

Now, quiche is one of those dishes that I feel most people think that it is a dish reserved for tiny cute French bistros but it is so easy! Providing you use my pie crust cheat of course.

Onwards!

So I needed to use up a couple leftover veggies before they headed to the compost so seeing as though quiche/frittata is one of the best “pantry” dishes, where you can literally throw whatever your crisper contains and it will be amazing, I thought, yes, quiche! With a little dill, a little feta (always makes it betta 🤣), should be a solid dish!

First, chop up your veg and sauté to take the rawness out and set aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk up 3 eggs and 1 cup milk. Shred 1 cup of cheddar cheese (I also added 1/4 cup feta on top). Take out your pie crust from the freezer to thaw a touch. Sprinkle half your cheese in the bottom of pie crust and add cooked veggies on top of cheese.

Sprinkle the rest of your cheese on top and pour egg/milk mixture into pie crust.

Place quiche on a baking sheet and bake in an oven preheated to 425F for 15 minutes. Turn oven down to 350F and cook for another 30-35 minutes until egg mixture is set. You can test doneness by poking a toothpick in the center and if it comes out clean it’s all done!

The beauty of this recipe is that you can keep the egg/milk/cheese mixture the same and change up the veggies for anything! I’ve done wild mushroom, turkey bacon and Swiss; for a Mediterranean flava, sundried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, Kalamata olives and feta or this beauty with zucchini and asparagus. Experiment with whatever you have!

ENJOY!

A big, fresh, colorful salad is a perfect meal or side dish for your picnic or bbq during the heat of the summer, but are we getting all the nutrition out of our salads that we think we are?

Most salads are full of a variety of greens and mixed with an assortment of veggies such as red, green or yellow peppers, carrots, red cabbage and the more color we add the prettier and tastier our salads are – but are they more nutritious too? In short, yes, the more color we add to our meals means we are eating more carotenoids, a fat-soluble vitamin shown to be a powerful antioxidant and helpful at reducing inflammation, and they’re in all colorful foods from blueberries to beets.

However, without a source of fat eaten together with these veggies, the absorption of carotenoids into our body is much lower than it could be, meaning those beautiful salads may not be as healthful as we think. Although most salads are topped with a variety of oil-based salad dressings, more people are choosing “low-fat” or “fat-free” dressings, inadvertently removing the important element that boosts the nutrition of salads and veggies on our tables.

Recently, a group of researchers from Purdue University investigated the effects of adding whole cooked eggs to raw mixed-vegetable salads and whether the addition of this whole food improved the absorption of these important vitamins. With a group of 16 male participants, each consumed the same salad with either no eggs, 1.5 eggs or 3 eggs and tested the absorbability of a variety of carotenoids within a 10 hour period. Their research found that consuming 3 eggs with the salad increased lutein and zeaxanthin by 4.5 fold and other carotenoids, alpha-carotene, beta-carotene and lycopene, by 3.8 fold over the meal with no eggs.

Why eggs you may be wondering? The fat in the yolk of whole eggs enhances the absorption of all carotenoids, boosting the nutritive value of whatever vegetable you may enjoy. Although oil in salad dressings also increase absorption of these vitamins, it’s easy to overpour and mistakenly add mega calories whereas adding a single egg is only 70 calories and 6 grams of protein, making portion control simple while adding extra protein and nutrition in one easy step.

So next time you’re in the mood for a big salad, give it an extra boost of nutrition with the perfect whole food – eggs!

Source: Kim et al. 2015. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

Zucchini asparagus dill and feta quiche

Boost the nutrition of your veggies with eggs!