A Monday Recipe: Crustless Quiche w/ Leeks, Spinach and Goat Cheese.

This is such a good recipe! It's from Kalyn's Kitchen, and she calls it "Breakfast Casserole with Spinach, Leeks, Cottage Cheese, and Goat Cheese" which was just a bit unwieldy for my title. Kalyn's Kitchen has so many delicious South Beach Diet recipes, and this is one she suggests for a phase one breakfast.

Here's her recipe but I did it a bit differently, hints at the end.
Preheat oven to 350F.

Ingredients:
1 leek, white and light green part only, chopped and washed, drained
2t olive oil
5-6oz baby spinach leaves, washed and dried (I drained a canned of spinach, b/c that's what I had)
10 eggs lightly beaten
1-2t Spike seasoning ( I used salt and pepper to taste)
1/2c low-fat cottage cheese, drained and rinsed.
3 oz soft goat cheese crumbled

Cut a 3oz piece of the goat cheese from the log and freeze while you prepare other ingredients
Measure 1/2c cottage cheese into a strainer and rinse w/ cold water
heat olive oil in skillet, add leeks and saute 3-4 minutes, add spinach leaves and cook 3-4 minutes more. While those are cooking, beat eggs with seasoning. Remove the goat cheese from the freezer and crumble finely.
Spray an 8x8 baking dish w/ nonstick spray. Spread the vegetable mixture over the bottom, then layer on the cheeses. Pour the egg mixture over all of it and stir gently w/ a fork to mix the veggies and cheese into the eggs.
Bake 20-25minutes, until eggs are set and lightly browned.

Here's what I did:
I prepared all of my vegetables: chopped and cleaned the leeks, drained the canned spinach.
Then I used 2 oz of goat cheese, in larger chunks, plus 1T of crumbled feta. I prepared the cottage cheese as suggested.
I also chopped up cooked bacon (I happened to have two pieces leftover from breakfast)

I added the oil to an iron skillet, sauteed the leeks. Then, I added my drained spinach to the skillet. I sauteed for 3-4 minutes, until the excess moisture evaporated.
I turned off the heat and spread the vegetables around the bottom of the skillet evenly.
I used olive oil cooking spray to thoroughly spray the sides of the skillet.
I sprinkled all the cheese evenly over that, then the chopped, cooked bacon.
Lastly, I poured the seasoned, beaten eggs over that. I **did not** stir them.

I baked for 25, and which time it was done, cooled on a rack about 10 minutes, until the egg pulled away from the sides of the pan, then inverted onto a plate. VIOLA!!

She suggests that this is 4 or 6 servings, but for me, it's more like 8. I have to admit I rarely make a recipe with goat cheese because most of them call for so little of it I always have goat cheese to use up for weeks.
I made a recipe last week with goat cheese but was ready this time with a few extra recipes to use up the rest.
I love making egg recipes because they're so cheap at Aldi: .49/dz. This calls for 10 eggs, but at that price, it's no big deal: .40 worth of eggs, .30 worth of leeks (one leek!!), $1.25 for goat cheese, pennies for the feta and bacon, and about .20 worth of cottage cheese (also at Aldi..their dairy prices are insane!!), makes this dish cost about $2.50 despite it's fancy-sounding ingredients. It's really good, too, and this will be my lunch all week. Yummy!