Egg Foo Young Muffins

Egg Foo Young is a quick dinner disguised as a full on production...and it is my favorite way to use up extra bits of veggies in the fridge.  Because my recipe is more of a method than an exact science, I always end up with extra egg mixture.  Last night I had an extraordinary amount of mix...and instead of making extra omelets, I whipped up some Egg Foo Young Muffins (recipe below.)  To round our my bento I have apple slices, sweet potato stars, grapes, homemade quick almond butter, egg foo young sauce in the screw top container and cinnamon-stevia blend in the orange container.
The almond butter is just a handful of raw almonds soaked for an hour in filtered water that I pulsed in a mini food processor until smooth (or relatively smooth.)  It is a bit messy, but ounce for ounce it is 1/10 of the price of commercial almond butter.

Egg Foo Young

2 cups Assorted Veggies, roughly chopped

1 bunch Scallions, thinly sliced

1 cup Shredded/Cubed Protein (pork, chicken, shrimp, cubed tofu or whatever you have), pre-cooked

1/4 of a Medium Yellow Onion

1 inch piece of Ginger

2 cloves Garlic

2 whole Eggs

6 Egg Whites

Peanut Oil for cooking

1/4 cup + 2 tsp Gluten Free Low Sodium Tamari

1 cup Unsalted Chicken Stock

1 tbsp Cornstarch

2 tsp Sugar

In a large bowl, mix veggies, scallions and shredded protein. 

In a separate bowl, grate onion, ginger and garlic on the fine side of a box grater. Whisk in eggs and 2 tsp tamari.  Combine vegetable and egg mixtures and toss to coat.

Brush a large skillet with peanut oil and heat on medium high heat.  Using a 1/4 cup measure, cook egg mixture like a pancake 2-3 at a time.  Brown on both sides and transfer to a cookie sheet once cooked.

Mix cornstarch with a little of the Chicken Stock to create a slurry.  In a medium sauce pan over medium heat combine remaining tamari, chicken stock, slurry mixture and sugar.  Whisk until thickened to desired consistency (to coat the back of a spoon is ideal.) Turn the heat down to the lowest setting while cooking the egg pancakes.

This is a base sauce that you can transform many ways when the heat is turned down.  Add two pressed pods of garlic, a few slices of peeled ginger, crushed red pepper or some slices of jalapeno.  I freeze the remaining, completely cooled sauce in a silicone ice cube tray to spice up steamed veggies.

Egg Foo Young Muffins

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Pour mixture into a muffin tin lined with paper muffin cups or coated with cooking spray.  Bake for 20 minutes or until set.

Notes

• I cook with low sodium and unsalted broths, stocks and sauces whenever possible to control the amount of salt in the final dish. 
• Tamari is an aged soy sauce that I can now find at my regular grocery story.  If you cannot find Gluten Free Tamari, you can substitute for an equal amount of soy sauce.  It will taste great but will not have the extra element of Tamari. (Think substituting red wine vinegar for balsamic.)
• Very, very rarely do I add white sugar to a dish, however, even though this is such a small amount, the sauce does not taste the same without it.  I have attempted to sub in brown sugar, turbinado sugar and stevia to less than pleasant results.
• Green Peas are the standard veggie of choice in this dish and will float to the top of the muffin.  Here I used one cup shelled green peas and one cup of a mix of bean sprouts, carrots, mushrooms and green beans.  Some fresh cabbage would also be a great addition.
• Adjust your eggs accordingly, the ones I used last night were jumbos so 2 whole, 6 whites were enough.  I cook with eggs at a 3:1 ratio of whites to whole eggs which I find is the point immediately before I can taste a difference.