Breakfast Potato Pie

I make this when visiting my folks, I love potatoes like I love air: in my mouth, please. It is more of a throw-together than a hard and fast recipe, but a great way to use up leftover baked or roasted potatoes. I love this with any cheese (see note above re: potatoes) but brie is my all-time favourite. Have not figured out how to work that into lifestyle; goat cheese it is!

You will need:

2 tsp vegetable oil
1 c roasted or baked potatoes, about half a pound
1/2 small onion, chopped finely
1 c red pepper, chopped roughly, about half a pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp salt & pepper
2 green onions, sliced thinly
4 slices deli ham, about 55-60g, chopped
2 oz crumbled goat cheese or 1/2 c low-fat grated cheddar (not non-fat, that's disgusting)
6 large eggs
1/4 c homogenized (3.25 percent) milk
2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese (NOT powdered), about half an ounce

First, prep! Okay, no, first heat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Then prep! Cut your potatoes, red pepper and ham into bite-sized chunks, crumble / grate your cheese. You can just chunk the cheese, that leaves nice little pockets of oozy goodness throughout. Slice your green onions, chop your onions finely and mince the heck out of the garlic. Spray a pie plate, preferably ceramic, with as much oil as you have. Lots. And then a little bit more.

Warm the oil in a non-stick frying pan on medium high, add the potatoes and thyme, cook until they have a nice crunchy crust, about 3 minutes. Don't stir very often, you want the potatoes to have time to really brown on a side or two.

Reduce the heat to medium; add in the onions and red pepper, cook for three minutes until almost softened. Add in the garlic and cook for one more minute, until you can smell it.

 

Remove from heat and pour the potato mixture into the extremely well-oiled pie plate.

In a small-ish bowl, mix together the green onions, ham and goat / reduced-fat cheese. Dump on top of the potato mixture in the pie plate.

Looks like a ham-kaleidoscope!

Sprinkle on the salt, pepper and a little more thyme. In the now-empty bowl, beat the eggs with the milk until well blended. Pour the eggs into the pie plate and sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese.

Bake for 20 minutes, until the egg is set and the cheese is melted.

This makes 4 servings, at 233 calories each. Add a nice fruit salad and some whipping cream and voila! Brunch! Under 500 calories and super fast.

Enjoy!!


Equipment Corner:

Not much today, but I do love my ceramic pie plate for brunch-y type quiches. Mine is so pretty but enormous (again, not a dude, so not a metaphor) so is best for crust-less recipes like this.