What the SHELL?! My Failed EGGS-periment...

As my summer draws to a close, my husband and I are turning back to our clean eating and P90x-ing.  We went though the whole program last year and had really great results.  I lost about 12 pounds, was in the best shape of my life, and felt amazing.  This summer has been a bit of a lard-fest for me, and to be honest, I can't wait to get back to eating healthy again.

If you know anything about the P90x diet, it is a very high protein, low carb, low fat regimen.  So I have been pinning a lot of P90x safe meals over the last few days in anticipation of our start.  Today, I focused on one of the central ingredients to the P90x program.... EGGS.

I found 2 recipes I wanted to try out to help us eat more eggs.  I start back to work tomorrow, so I rarely have the time (or, well... the motivation) to wake up and make breakfast.  So, when I found these make-ahead Egg Muffins, I thought they'd be perfect to pop in the microwave and eat before work.  Also, while on my egg hunt, I found this pin which claimed that hard boiling eggs in the oven is even better than the traditional boil-in-water approach I've perfected.  Here's the eggs-periment:

Recipe Number 1: Egg Muffins

The ingredients:
-egg beaters
-green onions
-colby/jack reduced fat cheese
-reduced fat bacon bits
-PAM cooking spray
-muffin liners (unless you have a silicone muffin pan...)
(*note, you can apparently add just about anything to these muffins... from broccoli, to peppers, to sausage...)

I started by lining the muffin pan, spraying with PAM, and putting in a few green onions.  You would also add any other veggies FIRST.

Then I added the cheese and bacon bits.

Finally, I filled each muffin liner up with the egg beaters (to about 3/4 full).

I baked the muffins at 375 degrees for 25 minutes, and I was pleasantly surprised when I pulled them out.... they were so cute and fluffy!

However, after about 3 minutes.... WHAT THE SHELL?!?! My muffins deflated!!!!!

They continued to deflate over the nest few minutes.  I let them stand for about 25 minutes as directed by the recipe, then peeled off the wrappers and refrigerated the muffins.  Needless to say, they certainly didn't LOOK like the muffins in the recipe....

As far as the taste..... equally underwhelming.  However, I must say that the convenience was great... I'm already 2 proteins and a veggie in, and its not quite 6 am!  If theres a next time... I will omit the bacon bits.  In my opinion, it made them a bit too salty, and they tasted a little bit burnt.  Maybe uncooked low-sodium bacon would work better.

Recipe Number 2: Baked "Hard-Boiled" Eggs

While my egg muffins were deflating, I placed a dozen eggs in my muffin pan and popped them in the oven at 325 degrees.

The pinner claimed that baking the eggs make them "tastier" and easier to peel.  I also liked the idea of being able to leave the room for 25 minutes and accomplish other things, rather than watching boiling water...  After about 27 minutes (the pinner said 25-30, so I went half-way...), I pulled the eggs out.

Once again.... WHAT THE SHELL!?!?

At first I thought my oven was just dirty or something... and something had dripped on my eggs.  I rinsed them, and the spots came off... success?  Not quite.  Upon peeling my eggs, I found that not only was it WAY more difficult to peel the shells off as compared to my usual boiling method, but it appeared that the eggs were BURNT! They had little brown burn spots on them! UGH!

I'm still going to eat those eggs... call me thrifty... but I am not wasting a whole dozen eggs!

Moral of the story:  You pin some, you lose some...

Here's a little sneak peak of the newly pinned P90x approved recipes that I plan to try over the next week.  Stay tuned for updates!!!