Almond Spinach & Eggplant Omelet (with cheese, please!)

My mom doesn’t use recipes all that often when she’s cooking dinner – she’s more of a see-what’s-available-and-turn-it-into-a-meal kind of cook. Me, I’m all about a plan: even if I riff on a recipe using my own creative license, I still decide in advance what, where, when and how much I will be cooking. I’m just not that laid back, I guess. But every once in a while, I cross over into the world of culinary spontaneity – and every once in a while, my mom settles down with a recipe. Last summer, she surprised me with a recipe for an eggplant and spinach Stromboli that also called for raisins and pine nuts (which were substituted for almonds because, as delicious as pine nuts are, they’re also crazy expensive). She tweaked the recipe here and there, but still, I was in love with this combination of savory cheese, sweet raisins and eggplanty-eggplant (just call me Miss Thesaurus over here). It gave me an idea.

It gave me an idea for this Almond Spinach & Eggplant Omelet, which I worked on a bit sporadically over the following months. It’s legitimately healthy, not even pseudo-oh-look-there’s-some-spinach-and-eggplant-amidst-all-this-cheese-and-dough kind of healthy the way the Stromboli was, and it tastes legitimately delicious. A spread of laughing cow cheese melts into pure creaminess, the raisins counter the overall savory flavors of the dish, and the cinnamon, well, the cinnamon is about as magical as it always is in recipes (it’s by far my go-to spice, savory or sweet). I really enjoyed the Stromboli that my mom made, but I may have enjoyed this omelet even more. So if you’re feeling bored of your standard insert-veggie-and-cheese breakfast egg dish, give this a whirl – I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

One warning – this recipe requires some pre-roasted eggplant, so you may want to plan this for the morning after an eggplant-containing dinner, or at least a dinner that uses the oven so you can do double duty by prepping the eggplant along with your evening meal. No omelet, I don’t care what anyone tries to tell you, is worth taking the time to roast a fresh eggplant that morning.

One Year Ago: Autumn-Spiced Beef Chili

Two Years Ago: Almond-CitrusBiscotti

Almond Spinach & Eggplant Omelet

This egg dish combines creamy but low-cal Laughing Cow cheese with sautéed and roasted vegetables, crisp almonds, sweet raisins and cutting cinnamon.

Yield: 1 serving

Active Time: 8-10 minutes

Total Time: 8-10 minutes

(printable recipe)

The Ingredients

1 cup spinach

¼ - ⅓ cup roasted diced eggplant

1 tablespoon raisins

1 tablespoon sliced almonds

¼ cup egg whites

1 whole egg

½ tablespoon unsweetened almond milk

freshly ground black pepper, to taste

ground cinnamon, to taste

1 wedge laughing cow cheese¹

The Method

Add the spinach to a greased frying pan and cook until it has mostly wilted. Make sure the pan remains well greased, and corral the spinach into one half of the pan. Place the eggplant on top, followed by the raisins and almonds.

Meanwhile, whisk together the egg whites, egg, almond milk, and pepper. Pour it into the pan and allow it to fill in around the vegetable mixture. Sprinkle with the cinnamon (liberally, if you like cinnamon as much as I do) and cook the egg mixture, lifting up the edges to let the liquid portions run down and hit the pan to cook. When it’s mostly set, spread the side of the pan without the veggies (just the egg) with the cheese and fold over on top of the veggies. Finish cooking, flipping so the opposite side of the omelet hits the pan if necessary, but take care not to overcook – once the eggs are added it should only take a few minutes to finish up.

Nutrition Information: 227 calories. 9g fat (3g saturated). 220mg cholesterol. 212mg sodium. 17g carbohydrates (3g fiber, 10g sugar). 17g protein.

Source: Floptimism Original

Notes:

¹I used a pretty standard variety of Laughing Cow. If you don’t have it or don’t like it, a cream cheese could work, as could a provolone or Swiss. If you don’t do cheese at all, this would likely still taste yummy without it.

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