Butterfly Quiche

I love quiche.  I really adore pastry crust, but that is rarely a good fit with a calorie restricted diet (I just started Round 2 of The Biggest Loser on Wii).  I have often used phyllo dough to make mini quiches in muffin tins, but this time I thought I would try something different–making crust cups out of whole grain bread, inspired by a recipe someone tweeted earlier this week that I now can’t find.  The end results were–well, not pretty–but quite tasty.  I decided to call them butterfly quiches because the corners of the bread kind of look like wings.  You could change out the fillings and use the same concept to come up with mini quiches of varying caloric values.  As prepared here, they worked out to 163 calories and 5.73 grams of fat per mini quiche.  Makes 6 (with some of the sausage and spinach filling left over).

Ingredients:

• 6 slices Sara Lee Whole Grain Delightful bread
• buttery cooking spray (like Pam)
• Parkay buttery spray
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup egg whites
• 2 links of Honeysuckle White roasted tomato and garlic turkey sausage
• 3 cups of fresh spinach
• 1/2 a small onion, diced
• 2 oz. Swiss cheese
• 1/4 cup fat free half and half

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Spray a 6 cup muffin pan with buttery cooking spray.
3. Press each slice of bread into a muffin cup, shaping to the cup.
4. Spritz the inside with Parkay buttery spray
5. Bake the cups for 5-10 minutes until firm and toastlike (this will vary per oven)
6. Meanwhile, remove the sausage from its casing and brown it with the onion.
7. Take the cheese and grate it using a microplane or small hole box grater (the smaller the hole the further the cheese will appear to go).
8. Once the sausage is browned, add the spinach and stir until wilted.
9. Remove from heat.
10. Once the toast cups are baked, remove from oven.
11. Carefully remove each one from its muffin tin and respray with cooking spray, heavily.  Replace the toast cups in the muffin tin.
12. Beat the eggs, egg whites, and half and half until well combined.
13. Sprinkle cheese at the bottom of each cup.
14. Spoon some of the sausage and spinach mixture into each cup.
15. Top with the rest of the cheese.
16. Carefully pour the egg mixture into each cup until just full.  A lot of it will soak into the bread. This is fine.
17. Place the muffin tin on a cookie sheet to catch drips.
18. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until eggs are set.
19. To reheat, pop into an oven or toaster oven at 300 degrees for approximately 5-7 minutes (watching so they don’t burn).

Printable version.