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Egg Bites

Food, Recipes, ,

These are the egg bite recipes that came with an Instant Pot accessory package I purchased from Amazon.  Just wanted to put them somewhere, as the recipe leaflet is damaged.

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Starbucks Sous-Vide Egg Bites in your Instant Pot

Course Breakfast
Keyword Instant Pot, Keto
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 18 minutes
Total Time 28 minutes
Servings 7

Ingredients

  • 4 ea. eggs large
  • 4 strips bacon
  • 1 1/2 cups cheese use your favorite cheddar, or gouda, etc.
  • 1/2 cup cottage cheese
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

  1. Add 1 cup of water to bottom of instant pot, followed by the trivet that came with the pot.

  2. Cut bacon up into small strips and fry.

  3. divide bacon bits amongst the mold cups.

  4. Add eggs, cheese, cottage cheese, cream and salt to blender, and blend until smooth (about 15 seconds).

  5. Pour egg mixture into molds.

  6. Cover egg bite mold with tin foil and gently place into Instant Pot.

  7. Put cover onto Instant Pot, select Steam, and 8 minutes.

  8. Natural pressure release for 10 minutes after cooking is completed, then quick release.

  9. Carefully remove the egg bites from Instant Pot, and let cool down for a few minutes.

Recipe Notes

Can keep these in the fridge for up to a week.  You can also freeze them, and reheat by popping into a microwave for 30 seconds at full power.

egg-bites
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Spinach, Egg and Cheese Breakfast Bites

Course Breakfast
Keyword Instant Pot
Servings 7

Ingredients

  • 3 ea. eggs large
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 cup cheddar cheese grated
  • 1 cup spinach roughly chopped
  • 3/4 cup parmesan cheese

Instructions

  1. Put 1 cup of water into Instant Pot, followed by the trivet that came with your pot.

  2. Add all ingredients to blender, and blend until smooth (about 15 seconds)

  3. Divvy egg mixture evenly into the 7 pods.

  4. Cover with tin foil, then place gently into Instant Pot.

  5. Close lid, select “Steam” setting, for 8 minutes.

  6. Let pressure release naturally for 10 minutes after cooking has completed, then quick release.

  7. Carefully remove egg bites from Instant Pot, and let cool for a couple minutes before eating.

Recipe Notes

Can keep egg bites refrigerated for up to 1 week.  You can also freeze them.  To reheat, just pop into a microwave for 30 seconds at full power.

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Special Spinach, Onion and Cheese Breakfast Bites

Course Breakfast
Servings 7

Ingredients

  • 10 oz. fresh baby spinach cooked
  • 1 ea roma tomato diced
  • 4 ea eggs large
  • 4 ea egg whites
  • 1 ea medium Vidalia onion diced
  • 2 tbsp fresh parsley finely chopped
  • 2 tbsp chia seeds
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp white pepper finely ground

Instructions

  1. Place 1 cup water into Instant Pot, followed by the trivet that came with your pot.

  2. Add all ingredients to blender, and blend until smooth (about 15 seconds)

  3. Divide mixture evenly into the 7 pods of the mold

  4. Cover with foil, then place gently into Instant Pot

  5. Select “Steam” and set time to 8 minutes.

  6. After steam cycle has completed, let pressure release naturally for 10 minutes, then quick release.

  7. Carefully remove from Instant Pot and let cool for a couple minutes before eating.

Recipe Notes

Egg bites can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.  They can also be stored in the freezer to keep longer.  To reheat from frozen, pop an egg bite into a microwave for 30 seconds at full power.

LibreElec & VPN on Raspberry PI

Misc., Music

Tried out a vpn service for my Raspberry Pi media devices, called PureVPN. Their app works great on OpenElec, however OpenElec doesn’t run on the current Raspberry PI 3B+ hardware, and there is no indication that it ever will.

PureVPN
LibreElec does support the current hardware, however the PureVPN app doesn’t support LibreElec. I contacted PureVPN support, and they were unable to provide any timeline as to when their VPN app would support LibreElec, and I’m not willing to use older Raspberry PI hardware to accommodate PureVPN’s requirements. I was able to get a refund with minimal hassle. If it wasn’t for their inability to support the hardware/software I wanted to use their service on, I would probably still be using their service, as it was a very good value.


I found another vpn service, called Ivacy, and it does install & function. I found that some of it’s configuration settings, such as split tunneling were not intuitive, and their notifications as to when it’s connected and when it’s not connected were not very obvious. I experienced regular connection drops – seemed like every hour, the connection would drop. Getting a refund a week after signing up was straightforward and appreciated.


Now I’m using NordVPN, and I’ve found the connections to be much more reliable – and there seem to be a greater number of servers in some regions to connect to. While it’s not the least expensive option out there, I think the reliability is well worth the extra expense.

NXT Roasters

Coffee, Food

Just discovered NXT Roasters a couple weeks ago, and I’m pleased with their coffee so far, and their roaster is pretty cool too!

Bag of NXT Roasters Yellow Cataui coffee beans.

I’ve only tried their Brazilian Yellow Catuai beans – I prefer the medium roast of these beans, perhaps in future I’ll try some of their darker roasts.

I just picked up a couple more bags today, beans were roasted yesterday 🙂 I really like the bloom of the coffee when brewing, and the crema in the espresso shots is so rich and tasty.

Their roaster is very interesting, in that it recirculates the heated air, and through a special process, the air is cleaned before being exhausted. It has operated indoors without any chimney, and no burnt smell typical of other roasters I’ve seen, and is very efficient, using far less energy than conventional roasters. There’s some pretty detailed information on their roasting profiles for the different beans they use, and more information on the roaster itself in the NXT Roasters Blog.

Bulletproof Coffee – A Non-Dairy Variation

Coffee, Food, Recipes, , ,
espresso shot, mct oil, cashews and cinnamon

We’ve adopted a ‘largely’ Keto way of eating for about 8 months now, and I’ve gotten used to blending my morning coffee with MCT oil and butter, and a pinch of cinnamon for fun. Took a little getting used to being a creature of habit – my habit being over a decade of pulling a double shot every morning and making an Americano to start my day – no cream, no sugar.

Well, after our old blender gave up and replacing it with a Vitamix, I thought I’d try something a little different. I came across a site using cashews as a milk replacement – and thought perhaps I would see how it fared replacing the butter in my coffee. I was very pleased with the result, and with hile there are a few carbs, it’s still a Keto-friendly drink with 8 carbs, 42g of fat, and 5 grams of protein. It’s has more of a milk feel in the mouth as well – butter seems to have an slicker or oilier feel.

Filling my mug…
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Keto Cashew Bulletproof Coffee

Course Drinks
Keyword coffee, Keto, vitamix
Prep Time 3 minutes
Servings 1

Ingredients

  • 1 double shot espresso
  • 2 tbsp MCT oil
  • 1/4 cup unsalted cashew nuts (optional: soak overnight in water)
  • 1 1/2 cups hot water (just off the boil, or from the espresso machine)
  • 1 pinch sea salt

Instructions

  1. add MCT oil, espresso, hot water, cashew nuts and salt to the blender

  2. starting on low, start the blender, slowly turning the speed to max.

  3. blend at max for 20-30 seconds

  4. Pour into your favourite mug and enjoy!

Recipe Notes

Adjust the amount of hot water to the size of your mug.  Also, you might try adding a pinch of cinnamon, and/or a half-dime sized piece of 85% cacao dark chocolate to the blender…trust me 🙂 

If you choose not to soak your cashew nuts overnight, extend the blend time to 30-60 seconds.  This will pulverize the cashew nuts more, so there is virtually no solids left at the bottom of your drink.

New Blender

Food, ,

Our old Cuisinart blender finally gave up on us, so it was time for a replacement. We tried a Ninja, but I was very disappointed in the results when whipping up my bulletproof coffee in the morning – did a very poor job producing the nice creamy textured coffee that I was used to. I found our Oster Immersion blender did a better job than the Ninja, although not as good as our old blender.

So the search continued. A friend suggested checking out the Vitamix line – which I had seen in the past, but who would every spend that much on a blender! Well, as it turns out, we had enough Air Miles points to get one without laying out any cash at all, so why not! I ordered the Vitamix E310.

About 2 weeks later, the new blender arrived. I was very impressed with the solid build, and very surprised at the noise level. I think our old blender was louder, even with the Vitamix cranked up to full speed!

Vitamix E310

I followed their First Blend guide in the owners manual, and made a Golden Berry, Banana, and Lettuce smoothy. In less than a minute, I was amazed. I should have gotten one of these years ago!

This morning I made up my first bulletproof coffee in the Vitamix, and I was very pleased with the results. I think I’ll be trying a lot more with it – hummus, and mushroom soup are next I think…