The above quiche is dairy free, sugar free, wheat and grain free and crust less.  And it's still delicious.  More about how to make it later.  Here's why I made it. 

On Friday, July 1, I started Dr. Kellyann's Bone Broth diet.  I jumped in after someone I trust told me about it.  It requires 2 non-consecutive days of fasting on bone broth, and then the food is similar to Whole 30.  My first day was a fast day on bone broth (water and tea and coffee, too) because Friday's aren't as busy.  When I say I jumped in, I had not read the book, so I got it from the library -- and began to listen to the audio book during Friday.  The electronic version was checked out, but the audio was available.  

The short summary is that in addition to the two fasting days, I was signing up for 21 days of no sweets of any kind except fresh fruit in limited quantities, no dairy (and I eat dairy every day sometimes three times a day), no grains, gluten (I've been gluten free for 3 years) or psuedo grains (read quinoa), no legumes (much of what I bake is made with sprouted lentil flour.) Yes, a big, big change.  And, I knew a change was necessary.  This was supposed to jump start my system into major fat burning.  That's just what I wanted.

I know from previous fasts that the first 3 days are the hardest and those are behind me.  It's day 4 and so far, so good.  My energy seems to be okay for about 3/4 of the day, and then I just want to rest. The most difficult part of this is that one is supposed to eat 3 meals a day.  I usually only eat a snack around the middle of the day, and then a late and healthy dinner started out with my delicious lentil flour crackers, organic or raw cheese and guacamole on the side accompanied by a glass of wine.  Oh, did I mention for the next 21 days -- no alcohol either. 

So now I've had to start new habits.  Breakfast -- which means I have to rise earlier.  For 2 of the last 3 days I made scrambles.

Day 2- Arugula, cauliflower, green onion, tomato seasoned with graham marsala, pink salt and pepper with dulce flakes on top.  Blueberries on the side.

Day 3 - quick scramble with bacon,  eggs, asparagus and some greens, blueberries.

Day 4- I really wanted something different for this day, and discovered I had a quart of my chicken and greens soup - Chicken bone broth, kale, spinach, arugula, cilantro and dandelion greens, with zucchini squash, green onion, garlic, chicken meat, spiced with cumin, lemongrass, coriander, pink salt just sitting the the fridge.  So I pulled it out, heated it up, and decided to poach some eggs in it. 

Normally, I always crack eggs separately and then put them in my mixtures.  It's a system I worked out when ages ago I got a bad egg.  Rarely happens, maybe one in over a thousand (remember I use over 100 eggs a week).  It has happened though and I worked out a system to not spoil everything by cracking the 1 in a 1000 egg into my bowl.  But, this morning I was in a hurry.  So many things I wanted to accomplish, so I just cracked the egg into the pot of hot soup, and you guessed it, that 1 in a thousand egg popped up, not reeking smelly bad, but looking like it wasn't far away.  So I threw out the soup and began again.  You can bet I won't forego cracking each egg separately again. 

With the soup no longer an option, I poached a couple eggs in chicken bone broth with chopped fresh spinach thrown in.  And you guessed it -- blueberries on the side.  I have a really large box of blueberries that I got at the La Canada Farmers market from Nicholas Organic Farms.  Yummy, Yummy. 

I needed something I could grab and go.  This was all taking way to long.  Then, I had an idea.  In her book Dr. KellyAnn has a recipe for crust less quiche.  It's just eggs, asparagus and spices cooked in a pie plate.  Sometimes as a private chef I made single portion crust-less quiche for my clients.  I started playing with the recipe in my head, and realized that instead of milk and cream -- one could use chicken stock.  So, I made the crust-less quiche above. Really I made several so I could keep them in the fridge and grab one when I was in a hurry.  Mine included broccoli, bell pepper, maui onion, and crimini mushroom sprinkled with graham marsala,  crumbled bacon and sliced mushroom on top.

Okay, I want to get this post up, but a little later I'll do a post with complete instructions on how to make individual crust-less quiche. 

It's a huge mountain, much too overwhelming to climb!!!

Lately I've been receiving encouragements to get back to my writing, both from internal guidance and externally from the universe around me.  One of the excuses or stalls I put in the way of restarting is not what to write but rather where to start. "There is just too much to write about and I've left it too long."  At least that's what I tell myself. 

When there's a mountain of whatever kind (in this case just way too much of many differing interests and explorations) I think many of us tend to get stalled.  The mountain of what I might write about  looms large made up of my many journeys over the past year.  All right it was more than a year.  Yes, I've been absent for a long time.  And the longer I delay, the higher the mountain. 

What makes up this mountain?  A friend invited me to take a monthly essential oils class over the last 12 months. That has led to much time spent indulging in the joy of out-of-class study about the healing effects of the many oils.  It is a great feeling when something I've learned helps both myself and others. And so I keep at it. 

Then, there was the deep desire to learn to make the kind of artisinal breads made by New Cascadia Traditional Bakery that I wrote about on this blog. As a way of pushing myself, I scheduled classes to teach, because that always makes me dive deeper into a subject.  Again, developing classes takes time.  In April I taught a gluten free baking class including how to make gluten-free sourdoughs starters, mock rye bread, French style sourdough baguettes, and gluten free bagels. There's tons to write about here. 

Another consuming factor in my life is my business which is both my passion and how I support my many interests.  I  have a gluten free cottage baking business and I've been taking on new clients and finding ways to support both old and new clients.  At a local doctors encouragement I took on some private chef clients with food developed to the doctors specifications (traditional foods a la Weston A Price).  Every week I create a menu for them.  All of these interests push me to the edges of my knowledge and learning and that's what I love about my life. And yet, it does makes for a full plate or looked at another way, a feast every day. 

As you can see, there's plenty to write about.  It's just where to begin.

To climb a mountain, take the first step.  Then the next. And the next. 

One of my mentors. Elaina Luther at Culture Club 101 always says it's all about the food.  And another of my teachers, Julia Cameron of The Artist Way fame, says to write about where you are right now, to just begin with now.  And so that's what I'm doing. This post is my first step.

Right Now - Yesterday and Today, I started the 21 Day Bone Broth Diet.  And in the next post I'll write about that.  But right now, I have to get to the Farmers market before all the fabulous greens I want are already purchased by the early birds.  Remember, Enjoy, -- your day, your life, this moment, this second.