Paleo Breakfast Casserole

I have Helen to thank for this delicious breakfast.  I never would have thought to sub sweet potatoes into a breakfast casserole.  And I have to admit.  I was a tad bit nervous.  I am new to liking sweet potato.  In like, I only tried sweet potatoes about 3 1/2 years ago.

And while Helen adapted her recipe to what she had on hand/liked.  I did the same as well.  My store had reduced fat Jimmy Dean sausage for $5.99 – wtf?!  So I went with the store brand breakfast sausage ($1.99 thank you very much!) so I reduced the amount to 8 ounces instead of the full pound in her dish.

I also added . . . chopped pickled jalapenos.  If you are not a hard core fan of sweet potatoes, I suggest you add the pickled jalapenos because it’s a nice balance to the sweetness of the potatoes.  And I also cheated by adding 2 ounces of sharp cheddar, which kinda makes it not so Paleo – so leave it out if you follow it to a T.

Best part?  One casserole – breakfast for a week done.  I know I won’t get sick of it the rest of the week.

Paleo Breakfast Casserole

• 6 servings:  295 calories, 15 fat, 17 carbs, 2.7 fiber and 21 protein

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound breakfast sausage
• 2 cups diced sweet potatoes (what I got from 1 large one)
• 3 cups baby spinach, chopped
• 3 cups egg beaters
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons chopped pickled jalapenos
• 2 ounces shredded cheddar cheese
• 4 baby peppers, sliced thin for the top

Cook sausage in a skillet until no longer pink.  Microwave the sweet potato for 4 minutes.  I drained any fat off the sausage and then tossed in the sweet potatoes and cooked for another couple minutes (no onions in mine!).  Then just mixed it all together in my baking dish – and topped it with the cheese and the sliced peppers.  Mine took about 50 minutes to bake (my oven may be slow) so check yours after 30-40 minutes.

That one sweet potato gave me all this!

On the side I sautéed a whole apple with a teaspoon of butter and 1 teaspoon of brown sugar.

I brought a slice of this to one of my co-workers who is doing Cross-Fit and Paleo.  She emailed me:  “this casserole is ah-maz-ing!”  I could not agree more.

Before work I did Level 1 of 30 day shred.  For the record, I never do level 2 – I just hate it for some reason!  25 minutes exercise before work?  Done.

My blood sugar was only 140 before my lunch workout.  I ended up eating a banana for more fuel, and could only walk so my blood sugar wouldn’t drop too much.  It was a gorgeous day!  I ended up walking for 55 minutes.

I got back to work and had left over beef stew and salad in a Solo cup.  Um, doesn’t everyone eat their salad in a Solo cup?

Over the weekend Tony asked if I had ever had white bean soup with bacon.  I actually never had, but he had a jones for it.  When I was cleaning out my deep freeze I saw that I had a ham bone (probably from last Easter!).  I’ll post the recipe tomorrow because I haven’t worked out the exact calories yet.  And now that I am looking at the recipe I realize I forgot to add the half and half, so it’s only chicken broth – no wonder it doesn’t look like the recipe photo!

But this is delicious.  You get the flavor of the ham, I ended up picking off just a cup of ham that I shredded and put back in.  Topped each bowl with 1 slice of cooked bacon.

It was good the day I made it, but after sitting in the fridge for a couple days, the flavors just melded so well.

On the side I had a buffalo turkey open face sandwich.  2 ounces of my homemade bread, spread with laughing cow blue cheese, topped with romaine, 2 ounces oven roasted turkey breast, cucumbers and buffalo sauce.

This sandwich was so good – I toasted the bread so it was crunchy, the cheese made it so creamy and of course, how can you go wrong with buffalo sauce?

I forgot to mention the prize for BSI – Flour this week.  Simply leave your recipe link on this blog post, or if you don’t have a blog, just email me your recipe and I’ll post it on recap day.

Stats for Day #2 of 30 of Operation Bad Ass:

• 25 minutes 30 day shred
• 55 minutes walking (10 minutes short of my 90 minute goal)
• 1424 calories
• 50 fat
• 163 carbs (still over by 38 grams)
• 25 fiber
• 81 protein
• 46% of calories from carbs, 32% from fat and 22% from protein
• NO WINE

Alright, off to do workout #1 of the day.  Hannah is actually meeting me for lunch today.  She has a babysitting gig after school and otherwise I won’t see her much.  I am hoping she’ll want to bring her walking shoes!

Make it a great day!