Brinner!  It’s one of my favorite meals to make!  My friend Kara has informed me that brinner is a colloquial midwestern thing so just for clarification, brinner is breakfast for dinner.  And it’s great!

I made an old favorite and a new favorite for brinner.  The first was a crustless quiche with as many veggies as I could squeeze in.  The second was Danielle’s Grain-free Apple Spice Cofee Cake.  It was so delicious!  Dense and moist, better than the best bakery.  I made it without the coconut glaze because I couldn’t find any coconut milk without the guar gum.  Companies add it to keep the milk from separating but it’s a Sdkjfdkjg for people trying to follow the SCD.  I’ll admit, I ate a whole slice (and a half) before I mustered the necessary self-control to actually take a picture of it.  Reason #472 why I can never actually be a hipster.

Ok, the quiche.  The basic recipe is as follows:

Crust-less Quiche

5 eggs

1 cup SCD legal homemade yogurt

whip these two ingredients together and add salt and pepper to taste.

Ok, but here’s the deluxe version:

Alli’s KICKIN’ Crust-less Quiche

5 eggs

1 cup SCD legal homemade yogurt

whip these two ingredients together and add salt and pepper to taste

1 onion- chopped and sauteed

1 head broccoli- steamed and chopped

1 cup kale- chopped without the branches

5 strips SCD legal bacon (read: fried very crispy!)

Add these ingredients after you have whipped the first two.  Save the bacon grease and use it to grease the pan.  It infuses the whole dish with the sweet, salty taste of bacon.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and cook for one hour.  Use foil on the edges to keep them from burning.

All in all, it was a dining success!  My sister told me I needed to add pictures of people enjoying my food (I assume so everyone knows it was actually edible).  My two favorite recipe bunnies sat with me in the fading light of this summer day and between the three of us, we demolished almost everything!  There was definitely a point during the last third of the coffee cake when my husband and I looked at each other across the table and agreed to finish it instead of saving it.  High-fives for occasional indulgences!

The last piece of coffee cake!

Pretty Kara and my awesome quiche!                                Proof that brinner makes everyone smile 

This past weekend I flew home to Minnesota to visit my family.  My mom rose to the occasion by helping me figure out yummy things to cook the whole weekend.  Yes, my mom is the best.  She came home from the farmer’s market with a gorgeous bouquet of sunflowers and two fresh bunches of basil.

We decided to make basil pesto.  After that first step, we debated for awhile what to pair it with.  We finally settled on sauted strips of zucchini, cut to look like noodles!  Four zucchinis and 30 minutes later, we had three bowls of steaming basil pesto and multiple high fives for our effort!

We used a carrot peeler to slice the zucchinis and then used a small knife to slice those slices in half.  It was the most time consuming part of the meal but worth it for the texture.  We used a blender to make the pesto.  We sauted the zucchini for about 5 minutes and then added the pesto and chopped up grilled chicken from the night before.  After a couple of minutes, we added the chopped up roma tomatoes and then served.  Insert Italian-ish kissing fingers in appreciation.

Basil Pesto with Zucchini Noodles

4 zucchinis

3 roma tomatoes

2 bunches of basil (or 3 cups)

1/4 cup olive oil (1 tbls for sauteing)

1/2 lemon squeezed

Salt and Pepper to taste

4 oz grilled chicken

Blend the basil, olive oil, lemon and s/p in the blender.  One thing to note: when I made it the next day, I added 1/4 cup parmesan and 1 clove garlic and it was delicious!  The fresh garlic is pretty rad.

Enjoy!