Mini Soy Chorizo Crustless Quiches

Being a stoner on the go, I always try to find ways to make my life easier without sacrificing eating healthy homemade vegetarian meals.

I recently stopped at a Target store with my mother who bought me a new pan. She was feeling guilty for burning the one I previously had after forgetting it on the hot stove one evening while she was enjoying some relaxing time in the jaccuzzi.

Target is full of fun kitchen gadgets, and just like a kid in a candy store, I started whining and I asked my mother for everything in the store. "I want this! I want it, I gotta have it,  get it for me"

I left with a new pan....and a few cliff bars which are often used as my breakfast on my way to work. But I had my eyes on a muffin tray and it would take me a few days to work up the courage to go back to the store to buy it for myself. It's not easy being a man with a muffin tray at the cash register.

When I came back home I immediately put it to use and started working on my first batch of mini crustless quiches. I do enjoy a good muffin once in a while but I was looking to use it to make all kinds of savory snacks that I could then freeze and reheat later whenever I would get hungry. Since the tray has 12 compartments, it allows me to get a few meals out of one batch, hence minimizing the amount of effort required for each meal. But cooking so much for one person can also be dangerous if you end up eating all twelve quiches on your own...I know

Recipe for 12 quiches

Ingredients
- 6 eggs
- 1/2 cup of flour
- 1/4 cup of heavy cream
- 100g soy chorizo
- Basil
- salt and pepper
- Thin Zucchini slices
- 1/2 cup of Grated cheese of your choice (I used swiss and Comté cheese)

Mix the eggs, the cream, the flour, the chorizo, the basil, 1/4 cup of cheese and the salt and pepper together. Pour the mix in the muffin tray about 1/8 inch from the top and add a slice of zucchini on top of the mix. The slice should be thin enough to stay on top of the batter and not sink. Then add the remaining cheese on top the zucchinis.

Place the tray in the oven at 375 degrees for 35 mn or until the top is becoming brown. I also tried it with a handful of ground mushrooms and loved it. It's an easy and festives recipe.

The Vegetti Spiral Slicer: My New Favorite Kitchen Toy

I have recently gone from being omnivorous to being pescatarian, but I have been eating vegetarian for the most part. Now it wasn't an easy transition: I was a meat lover for years and I would try anything on my travels and ate things that most people would never touch (eg: 7-Eleven hot dogs). But I decided to make the jump for a few personal reasons and I have been happy with this decision. I essentially only eat fish when I get a craving after a big workout or a long hike, but I keep it to a minimum. Who can forget Finding Nemo's most famous quote: "Fish are friends, not food". I had to change my way of thinking along the way and find new staple food to keep in my kitchen, while still making my cooking fun and delicious.

Going cold turkey was the only way to make this happen, but of course it meant that my first month of meatless dishes looked like....well... it looked like something was missing. As they often say on the show The Taste: "Where's the protein?" I still love to host diner parties and cook for my friends, and even though I will never try to impose my personal beliefs on others, I enjoy the challenge of treating them to a meatless but tasty dinner that hopefully will inspire them to cook more vegetarian dishes in the future. My quest for the perfect Vegetarian party dish had started. 

There have been some hits and there have been a lot of misses, but practice makes perfect and I persevered. Along the way I peeled, I boiled, I steamed and I puréed and green veggies don't scare me anymore: I have come to love every produce in the grocery store (except celery, now that's just nasty). I've also always wanted to keep having fun in the process, whether I'm having fun cooking or plating for a nice picture. And after too many visits to Bed Bath and Beyond, I finally gave in and bought myself a Vegetti Spiral Slicer.

Whether you're looking to cut back on the controversial gluten, or you simply want to find a fun way to eat vegetables for you and your family, the Vegetti will become one of your favorite kitchen utensil.

I have used it repeatedly with Squash and I have yet to experience with more veggies, but here are two of my recent dishes.

The picture on the left is a baked portabello mushroom with grilled cheese on a bed of yellow squash Vegetti with a homemade tomato sauce. The picture on the right is Squash Vegetti in a bowl of Gazpacho.

Baked Avocado with Egg

I recently saw a post on Facebook about this quick and easy healthy breakfast option...then I saw it again on Twitter, then I saw it again on Instagram... and I quickly realized that this recipe was going viral right before my eyes.

Of course I don't believe anybody who re-posted this recipe actually tried it nor will they ever, but the picture made them salivate enough that they decided to share this creation with the rest of the world....so I decided to test it for you.

I have to admit that this is a stoner's dream recipe for a few reasons: it's fast, it's easy, and it's a good alternative to the RedBull and M&Ms you usually have for breakfast.

Now I will say that calling this a "recipe" is a bit of a stretch since it really just consists of cracking an egg in an avocado half and adding a few spices on top before throwing the concoction in the oven for a few minutes...but that's why it's a healthy stoner's best friend: It is literally made in less than one minute and bakes for about 5-10 minutes depending on how you like your yolk (soft or hard).

Depending on how hungry you are, you might want to crack a second egg in the other half of the avocado...especially if you have the munchies

As far a being a viral recipe....I'm still a little surprised that this item would make people click on their mouse enough times to share it with the world but then again some people think deviled eggs are worthy of entering a cooking contest..

Enjoy this as a breakfast item, a snack or even as an appetizer.

Meatballs and Rice Pasta

Last night I felt lazy but still wanted to have a decent meal. I opened the fridge and after staring at the pack of ground beef laying in the middle of the empty fridge I decided to cook some meatballs with tomato sauce and rice pasta.

Here's my recipe (3 people):
MeatBalls Mix
- 1lbs of beef
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup of flour
- A bunch of Freh Cilantro
- Italian Herbs
- Pepper
- 1 Strip of Bacon cooked and cut in tiny pieces
- Grated Swiss cheese
Other ingredients
- Tomato Sauce
- Red Wine
NO SALT (add salt only at the end before you serve)

Wash your hands, put all the ingredients in a giant bowl, mix the ground beef with all the other ingredients listed above and put the mix in the fridge to rest for at least 15 minutes.

While you wait, grind some weed, roll a joint and pour a glass of the red wine you're about to use later in the process.

After waiting and getting baked, pour some olive oil in a pan and let it heat up as you start making small beef balls with your clean hands the size of a small apricot, their size will reduce as you start cooking them. Throw all of them in the pan at the same time and cook all of meatballs thoroughly. Once they are medium, add a little bit of red wine to glaze the balls. Proceed to open the can of organic tomato sauce and add the content in the pan with the meatballs and turn down the heat to let the meatballs simmer for at least 20 minutes.

Add some grated swiss cheese and a little bit of salt on top of the meatballs before serving and enjoy this delicious comfort food with some of your favorite pasta.

It's all part of a Healthy Breakfast...

Buying croissants at 7-Eleven is always a good idea when you are coming back from a drunken night and you know you will need a big breakfast to soak it all up. However, they were not the fluffiest croissants in town and a few extra topping helped turn these dried croissants into one of the most delicious morning treat.

We cut the croissants in two pieces and toasted the halves in the oven toaster. We then added honey and slices of bananas on top of the buttery pastry and we covered it with some Ben & Jerry's Ice cream (“Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream.” It’s vanilla ice cream with fudge-covered waffle cone pieces and caramel"). It was a delicious desert...errrr....breakfast I mean.

A day later I was going to physical therapy for my wrists where the doctor advised me to stop eating sugar for a while to help the inflammation. So I didn't tell him about this concoction.