Weekday breakfasts are often a struggle for me.  I generally wake up at about the time when I ought to be leaving the house, so I stumble through my morning routine as quickly as possible and head out the door without even considering breakfast, which I regret as soon as I sit down at my desk.  Part of the problem is that I’m not hungry when I first wake up; it takes my body about an hour to adjust to this whole ‘being awake’ thing.  So I’m just not interested in breakfast when I’m first getting up, and due to my (admittedly bad) habit of waking up late, I don’t hit that ‘oh, hungry!’ stage until I’m well out of the house.

Because I know myself, I keep cereal bars and other snack-type things at the office to make sure that I have something to eat when the breakfast urge finally hits me, but none of it is real, hearty breakfast food that does what breakfast is supposed to do — tide me over until lunch!  So when I was idly clicking around the food interwebs, you can imagine my delight when I found this post over on Sweetnicks about “egg cups”.  Make-ahead portable breakfast?  I’m SO THERE.  So I followed the link trail back to Kalyn, where I found her original recipe, and made up a batch for us to have for the rest of the week.

Verdict?  I need another muffin pan, so I can make a bigger batch!  Don likes to take a little stack of three to work with him, in a tupperware so he can pop it into the microwave without any extra effort.  He’s already made a request for a batch with sausage and pepper in them — this first batch was mushroom and pancetta — and I think he’s pondering all the myriad ways these could be made.  I also caught him ogling my new mini-muffin pan and mouthing the words “cocktail party”!  Overall, these babies have been a total success in our house.

Mini Breakfast Frittatas
(Makes 12 frittatas.  Recipe pulled from Kalyn and adapted to reflect how I made mine.)

12 eggs*
1-2 cups grated cheese
3 scallions diced small
Any veggies you might put in an omelet (I used sauteed crimini mushrooms but the next time I’ll use green peppers and maybe onions)
Any meat you might put in an omelet (sausage, bacon, pancetta, etc. [all pre-cooked, of course!])

Preheat oven to 375F.  Line and spray muffin pan — if you’re using silicone, you don’t need to line it but you should spray it.

In the bottom of the muffin cups, layer meat, veggies, cheese, and scallions.  In theory, you want the muffin cups to be about 2/3 full, with just enough room to pour a little egg around the other ingredients.

Break eggs into large measuring bowl, add salt and pepper to taste, and beat well.  Pour egg into each muffin cup until it is 3/4 full (easier if you use a measuring bowl with a pour spout but I just used my quarter-cup measuring cup). Stir slightly with a fork.

Bake 25-35 minutes until muffins have risen and are slightly browned and set.

These will keep at least a week in the refrigerator without freezing, although they can also be frozen and reheated according to Kalyn. For best results, thaw in refrigerator before reheating. Microwave on high about 2 minutes to reheat.