Portable PWO Paleo Egg & Sweet Potato “Puffs”
Here’s another “Christie Original Recipe” . . . try at your own risk! Just Kidding – this one’s REALLY good! One of the only things that I have found myself “missing” since going 100% Paleo was the ease and portability of my PWO Shake. I have been making mashed sweet potatoes, and getting organic and low sodium sliced deli turkey, and taking a thick slice of turkey with about 2-3 oz of sweet potatoes as a PWO meal. (I would roll up the sweet potato in the piece of turkey and chow down!) This is pretty yummy, easy, 
and portable, but I wanted to get away from the processed deli meat. I liked the idea of egg whites and sweet potatoes, but wanted something a little more portable than scrambled whites. . .hence my creation!
These are soooo Good, Super Easy – a great combination for me!
Ingredients:
1 Medium Sweet Potato (around 14oz worked for me)
15 Egg Whites
Cinnamon
Sea Salt
Directions:
- Peel and dice Sweeet Potato into fairly small cubes
- Put SP in a skillet sprayed w/ a little Pam (I usually use olive oil or coconut oil to grease my pans, but want to keep my PWO meal as low in fat as possible, hence the Pam)
- Sprinkle w/ Cinamon and Sea Salt to taste
- Cover and cook about 5 minutes, stirring a few times (just long enough to soften the potatoes up a little – you don’t want them “mushy”)
- Distribute SP Cubes evenly between 12 deep-ish muffin pan holes
- Beat 15 egg whites together until they are a little frothy
- Pour egg whites evenly over the SP cubes in the 12 muffin pan holes
- Place in Oven at 350 and cook about 20 minutes
- Pull out of oven and turn pan upside down onto cooling rack
- Let cool completely before placing in fridge (If you don’t let them cool completely, they’ll get mushy and soggy)
I store mine in a tupperware container stacked on top of each other. Each morning, I grab two “puffs” to take with me to the gym, and put them in a ziplock bag. I’ve found that storing all of them in a ziplock bag in the fridge makes them go soggy and mushy too.
One additional note – these will “shrink” a little once they’ve cooled, but if they are cooked long enough, they won’t shrink too much. The combined pics at the top of the post are of a “puff” after having been refrigerated overnight.
Easy Portable Spinach “Muffins”
On to another awesome portable recipe that I stumbled across this weekend: Spinach “Muffins”!
I’m including this recipe in the same post because I found that it was easy to prepare these at the same time as my PWO Puffs, and I could even cook them together in the oven. The inspiration for these came from Melissa Joulwan’s recipe here, and I just made some edits (including entire egg rather than just whites, and using some different spices, and changing quantities up a bit).
Ingredients:
4 Omega-3 Eggs (yes, yummy yolks and all!!)
4 9oz bags/boxes of frozen spinach
3 Cloves Garlic, Minced
1-2 Tb Italian Spice Blend (or your own blend of oregano, basil, etc)**
1 tsp Garlic Powder**
1 tsp Onion Powder**
Sea Salt to taste
Red Pepper Flakes to taste (if you like spicy stuff)
Directions:
- Defrost spinach in microwave
- While Spinach is defrosting, beat your eggs well
- Drain Spinach REALLY WELL!! (I like Melissa’s tip of cutting a small hole in the corner of the bag, and then squeezing it like your life depends on it until you can’t get any more water out)
- Dump Spinach into a bowl and stir in minced garlic & spices/seasonings to taste**
- Add Beaten Eggs to Spinach, and mix well
- Spoon evenly into 12 muffin pan holes, and pack down a bit
- Bake in the oven at 350 for 30-35 minutes. (I baked mine right alongside my PWO Puffs, and just pulled my puffs out about 10-15 minutes before my Spinach Muffins)
- Pull out of oven and turn pan upside down onto a cooling rack so that “muffins” can cool.
**Note – I don’t really measure my spices most of the time – I just use the sprinkle – taste – sprinkle – taste method. . so the measurements above are guesstimates (although I think pretty close to what I used)- you should tailor them to your own tastes.
These will “deflate” a little as well, but not much if they are cooked well enough. The final pic is of one of my “muffins” after a night in the fridge. These are REALLY YUMMY straight out of the fridge! I had one this morning with a handful of raw almonds at 5am on my way out the door got my WOD on. I usually don’t eat before my workout (it’s just so dang EARLY!!), but this sat really well with me and it seemed that I had a bit more energy to get through the WOD. These definitely will be a new staple in my fridge!
And on a side note – I have NEVER been a fan of frozen spinach. I love fresh baby spinach in a salad or wilted under some meat, but I just haven’t ever been able to stomach the frozen stuff. . I think it must be a consistancy thing. . but I really, really liked these, so give them a try even if you’re not a fan of the frozen stuff – I think that they’ll pleasantly suprise you!
Well, that’s it! If you try either of these, and love (or hate) them, or have suggestions of revisions that would make them even yummier, please leave a comment and let me know!
Those sweet potato puffs look fantastic for a pwo meal… but 15 egg whites?? Holy cajole! I just hate using egg whites and throwing all the yolks away! It seems like a sin – especially when I pay a pretty penny for eggs from the farmers market. Do you just throw the egg yolks away? Or do you do something amazing with them? My grandma would simply not approve of being so wasteful and tossing them out.
Hi Margaret,
Occasionally I'll save a few yolks to cook and crumble into my dog's food as a treat, but most of the time the yolks end up going down the drain. I hate the wastefulness of it, but I try to keep my PWO snacks as close to fat-free as possible, so I don't want to incorporate the yolks into this particular recipe. I should mention that I use plain old supermarket eggs when I'm making this recipe. I couldn't bring myself to throw away the yolks from my organic or farmer's market eggs, plus I feel that most of the advantage of those eggs (over super-market) is actually IN the yolks. So if I'm tossing the yolks, there's no need for me to use the "special" eggs.
I'm always open to suggestions for other uses for the egg yolks though 😉
would including the egg yolk decrease the suggested amount of eggs drastically?
Hi Skittq – I'm assuming that you're asking about the Sweet Potato Puffs? (The Spinach Muffins are made using whole eggs)
Yes, if you were to use whole eggs for the puffs, I'd definitly reduce the #. I'd say for every 2-3 egg whites, use 1 whole egg (depending on how big your eggs are). So I'm thinking 6 – 7 whole eggs should do it – or you could just reduce the # of whites by 2-3 for every whole egg that you use.
If you try it, let me know how they turn out 🙂
I just made these and I used Trader Joe's 100% Liquid Egg Whites which are pasteurized and cage free and they came out really well. I do have a question though I workout at CF 3x a week so I'm only going to use 6 of these a week. Do you think it's possible to freeze them?
Thank you so much for this great recipe by the way. I needed something that was super portable and delicious and these most definitely are!!
and by "these" I meant the sweet potato puffs!
Hi Judi – I'm so glad that you tried them and liked them!
I've never tried freezing them, so I honestly am not sure of the answer to your question. . . I'll have to try it and get back to you. I DO notice that toward the end of the week the sweet potatoes start to change color a bit, but I think it's just due to exposure to air (kind of like apples change color in the air). They still taste just fine and I've never had trouble with them making me feel ill even when they are a colored a little bit "funny". . .
Another thought that I had (and am going to try soon!) is to blend together softened sweet potatoes and egg whites, and then poor them into muffin tins w/ a bit of cinnamon, sea salt, and maybe a pinch of ginger. Same Macronutrient profile for PWO, but a bit of a different texture/taste. I'm thinking that this form of the "muffin" may even freeze a little better – I'll let you know if I try it how they turn out 🙂
If you try freezing the "puffs", let me know how it works out!
I'm in Iraq at the moment and don't have an oven (or cookware for that matter). I have a lot of food sent to me and my fiance found me some cage free powdered eggwhites and I can get some spinach from the chow hall…
My question here is, can I cook these in a microwave? I also just got a small (11"x11") electric griddle. Could I make patties instead of muffins?
Hi Camilla – and thank you for all that you do for our country.
I bet that you could make really great "patties" on your griddle! I think they would turn out better than anything microwaved, although you could always give that a shot too.
I'd mix the egg whites with the spinach, and a healthy dose of herbs and spices and make them into almost little "pancakes/patties" on your griddle. If you're able to get a whole egg or two from the mess hall, throw those in there too (yolks and all). I know that they may not be cage free, but the yolk would really add to the "yummy factor" of these, and I think it would do fabulous things on a griddle 🙂
If you try them, let me know how they work for you!
I just made the sweet potato puffs. I forgot to put the seasoning on the potatoes because I was multi-tasking while making this, but they still taste good! They didn't dump right out of the pan, I had to loosen them up a little, but that's probably my pan's fault lol
Thanks for this recipe, definitely a keeper!
Hi Christie,
Fantastic creations. Can you tell me what PAM is for oiling the baking tray.
Thanks
Chris
Hi Chris – the Pam was just to keep the puffs from sticking to the pan, but I actually need to revise the recipe – I don't use Pam anymore because it has soy lethicin and other chemicals in it.
Instead, I bought a refillable oil mister, and just mist my pans w/ olive oil 🙂 Here's a link to an example of an oil mister: http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/9278516/?catalogId=54&bnrid=3180501&cm_ven=Shopping&cm_cat=Froogle&cm_pla=Cooks_Tools&cm_ite=9278516
I'm so excited to find this! I have some boxes of spinach that I wasn't sure what to do with. Since going paleo, I have to do without some of my favorite recipes. It is SO worth it though! Thanks for sharing!
Your recipe looks fantastic! I'm definitely gonna try it. I am wondering how many of these you eat PWO? The usual protein content of one egg is 7 grams and the shake I would be replacing has 16g. So I'm thinking 2-3 of these Egg & Sweet Potato Puffs would be the right replacement?