The guest post that almost wasnt.

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Once upon a time, in a Viewer Mail long long ago, we talked about this:

I know youve probably talked about mini fridge tips but if you have I cant find it. Any suggestions for things I should keep in my work fridge for snacks? I have my own in my office.
Surprisingly, this email was actually the first time Id gotten the mini-fridge question!

We’ve pondered food on the go & junk for the trunk & good choices when eating out but not yet the work-fridge fillage dilemma!

Instead of rambling on & on about food pairings (here’s where you cheer that I am, for once, only answering the damn question) I decided to make a list of what Id put in my fridge and hope that you all will chime in below with what you’d choose:

*Breakstone individual cottage cheese containers

*hormone/antibiotic free sliced deli meat

*laughing cow cheese (soft & hard. all flavors)

*fruit

*string cheese

*ready to drink shakes (any of you drink these? We’re Myoplex fans in Casa MizFit. you?)

*hard boiled eggs

*grilled/sliced chicken

*Oikos organic greek yogurt

*flax seeds

*pre-sliced bagged veggies

*bagged salad (and, yes, a few snack sized snickers bars).

Now, one small digression (for this email anyway), tip: dampen a cotton ball with vanilla extract, shove in a ziplock baggie, get to work, plop in your fridge.

No matter what you stock in there it shall never stank the way mine did once when I had an office job and brought in some tuna

Very soon thereafter I received the guest post below.
Very VERY soon thereafter I ran into some computer problems.
Yada.
Yada.
Yada.
This should have run sooner (hence the lovely flashback above).

Patient Shannon blogs at Tri2Cook

She played tennis and bowled throughout her youth, yet, in her opinion,  about all she had was a kick ass right forearm.

With graduate school came a love of running (despite what her knees say), cooking, and most recently triathlon.  She loves to be outside, or in the kitchen, and started a blog to tri (rimshot?) and share her quest for tasty, healthy food.

I opened the fridge, and what did I see?
A lot of green things, looking back at me.

What to do?  So close to the trash…
Oh no! Waste not– time to salvage ‘fore I crash

All ready to go
In the morning…as you flow

Yeah I’m not a poet, but in tune with a recent post (MizFit note: CRINGE. My bad.), I thought this would be a great recipe to share with the Bumbling band.

As with most of the food I prepare, this was done ahead of time, and makes for a great on-the-go breakfast.  The idea is not my own, but this is my take on a recipe that I saw first at 101 cookbooks.  I’ve used what I had available in my fridge, but frozen veggies could also be used.  The possibilities are endless.  I’m thinking a version with smoked salmon, goat or cream cheese, and dill or chives would be particularly divine for a special brunch if the occasion arose.

Green Monster Muffins
Adapted from 101 cookbooks
Yield: 7 muffins

1/4c onion, diced
~1c broccoli florets, chopped
½ green pepper, diced
scant 1T EVOO  (EVOO)
½ c packed spinach, chopped
1 scallion, sliced (~2T)
~2T chopped fresh parsley

Saute onions, pepper and broccoli in olive oil until tender.  Mix in spinach, scallions and parsely and set aside.

1/3c cottage cheese
1/4c whole wheat pastry flour
1/4c almond meal (just ground almonds)
2T finely grated Parmesan
1t baking powder
1t salt-free Spike seasoning (or add your favorite seasoning)
dash salt
3 large egg whites
1/2c + 2T egg substitute

Combine all ingredients (including veggies) in large bowl and mix well.  Pour into muffin tins sprayed with nonstick spray.  Bake at 400F for 20-30min (I took mine out at 25min).  Store in the fridge for when you’re ready to grab and go.

As I prepared them above, they came to ~100 calories and 6.4g protein per muffin if I did my math right.  The best part is you can adjust them to your taste—cheddar would’ve been good but I didn’t have any on hand, certain veggies would also scream for goat cheese (I know I do!).  You can also certainly use all eggs instead of the whites and substitute (about 4 lg eggs).
Whatever you do, don’t skip breakfast!!!

Thanks so much Shannon.  For your FUN  blog.  For the post.  And yes: for your patience.

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Comments

  1. Vanilla cotton ball trick…never heard of it! My fridgemerator is always stankin’ of something that someone (ahem, hubsta’) forgot to wrap properly. Thanks for the tip!

    Happy Thursday!

  6. I’d love those muffins for my minifridge Shannon.

    Will you make them for us all? LOL.

    Fun post!!

  8. Pretty low carb, for those of us who eat that way, too… which is really nice to see in a muffin recipe.

  9. Yay for muffins that are NOT sweet. I totally do not understand starting the morning with sugar. If I do, I’m cranky all day. LOVE the fact that she pointed out that almond meal is just ground almonds. For out flour? I use oatmeal and a food processor – much cheaper and no need to track yet another thing in your pantry!

  10. **cue confetti shaped like the words MEALMIXER.COM**

    Shannon gets the Marianne Seal of Approval.

    (And I’m not being silly either)

    The Ready To Drinks? Pre-made shakes in cardboard drinkbox containers.

    Ren Man LOVES for fastquickhurry office snack.

  11. I’ve gotta try the vanilla cotton-ball; my fridge always smells like hard-boiled eggs.

    I just tried Oikos yogurt yesterday for the first time, because my local market had them on sale 3 for a buck. I normally just buy plain, but I *had* to try the “honey” flavor. Ohmygarsh that was fantastic!

  15. Interesting recipe! And thanks for reminding me about the vanilla cotton ball trick – does that work for bigger fridges too??

  16. it does but I use multiple cotton balls placed around fridge.

    for some reason it works far better than the ole baking soda thing for us.

  17. I’m not sure what to make of the muffins. On one hand, I like muffins, but on the other, it seems like more work than I’d like to invest to make breakfast (Although I might use leftover veggies instead of having to saute).

  18. Great tip about the vanilla-soaked cotton ball – must try this. In fact, there’s something in my fridge right now that is giving off some horrific odor….

  19. you are so as I am tricia.
    Id definitely make before hand and freeze and pop in microwave for breakfast.

    sad? perhaps

    work with the time I have in morning? fo’ shizzle.

  20. Her blog is great- and these muffins looks so tasty! I”m a big fan of 101 Cookbooks though usually I figure that the recipes are too complex for me to try. This one looks like a possible candidate for putting into practice 😀

  21. haha, you think i do this in the morning? no way 🙂 i make things over the weekend, then reheat!

    i will have to go soak some cotton balls tonight…

  22. Ah, nice tip about the vanilla cottonball. They can be expensive, but if you ever buy a vanilla bean, once you’ve used it (taken the seeds out), pop the empty pod in a sugar jar, you’ll get vanilla sugar. Delish! 🙂

    Right now, we’ve got some chorizo in the fridge. Heavy garlicy, spicy smell (which I love :D). If I were to put the cottonball in now, the smells might mingle and create an odour explosion of catastrophic proportions 😀

  23. do u know of something i could replace the almond with? my hubby is allergic to most nuts (except walnuts, peanuts and me;) but i’d love to make these!

  24. do u know of something i could replace the almond with? my hubby is allergic to most nuts (except walnuts, peanuts and me;) but i’d love to make these!

  25. Mmmmm, those muffins sound SO YUMMY. I just had bfast but could seriously go for one right now. 🙂

    And the cotton ball trick? I LOVE it! Who doesn’t like the smell of vanilla?

  26. Those muffins would go down a treat right now. I don’t usually like muffins because they’re always sweet. Not these bad boys. I’d eat mine with a smear of avocado. Mmm, I can almost taste them now!

  30. I don’t have a mini fridge but I’m getting one now.Then I’m stocking it to capacity with my homemade spicy hummus, cottage cheese, brown rice salad and raw carrots. And some of those green muffins. *drools*

  31. You could easily use more flour for the almond flour, or my guess is some ground up oats could provide a nice option 🙂

  36. These look like they’d make a healthy accompaniment to dinner too…however, I have to confess that the frying-the-veggies step + combining and baking ingredients step make this recipe a little more complicated than what I’m usually willing to do. Hm. Next time I saute some veggies I’ll try to remember to set some aside. 🙂

  37. The muffins look yummy on Shannon’s website (is it just me, or does anyone else see floating dots in her pictures).
    I’m definitely gonna whip these up over the weekend.

  38. Kellie- hehe, it’s a “snowing” theme 🙂 and since i’m in the northeast and it’s only march, it’s still the season!

  40. Cool…I got confetti! That’s the first thing that made me smile today. The second thing is that I must immediately contact Bag Lady and make sure that she did not stuff her spouse in the ‘fridge.

    I tried the vanilla in the fridge ONE TIME. My kids kept tearing it apart looking for the invisible dessert. If you get into the habit of covering things and wiping off the bottoms before you stash them, your fridge should not be stinky. I also line my crisper with a kitchen towel…fingers never need touch that one zucchini that escaped notice and is now fuzzy…

  41. Veggies in muffins? What a great idea! I love incorporating fruits (and now veggies!) into baking since the produce can usually be a bit old and it won’t affect the recipe too much!

  42. Mmmm…now I’m huingry.

    I made it my goal of the month to eat breakfast every day – I’m notorious for skipping it altogether or calling ht cream in my morning coffee breakfast. So far so good…

    Great breakfast muffin idea – seems like a perfect thing. Make them sunday night and have breakfast (and snacks ahem) all week. Score. 🙂

  45. THOSE MUFFINS SOUND AWESOME! I am not a big fan of sweet stuff in the morning but those sound PERFECT for breakfast! Thanks for sharing!

    And if I had a mini-fridge with stuff to nosh on as snackies at work, it would have to have lots of fruit, cut up veggies and low fat sesame ginger dressing, hershey kisses for that occasional sweet craving, and beef jerkey, oatmeal packets, and some cans of soup for emergency lunch in the panty (my desk drawer).

  47. I never knew about the vanilla extract. I should stick some in the department’s fridge at school; that thing has some funk going on in there.

  49. Mmmmm…those muffins do sound great! Thanks for sharing the recipe!

    Vanilla on a cotton ball? Wonder if I can sneak some into the work fridge.

  53. I am sad. You mentioned Oikos Greek Yogurt. My Wal-Mart *used* to carry it and now does not. I miss it badly.

    Tried talking to a stocker, but that never seems to get me anywhere over there, just the generic “Oh, we probably can’t get it from the supplier anymore.” GRRRRR!

    And no other place in town stocks any greek yogurt of any kind. Rats. Getting my greek yogurt vicariously through reading your blog isn’t the same, LOL!

  54. I needed those fridge ideas and may sneak into the office this weekend and place some cotton balls in there as well.

    Linda

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