Mornings. Ugh.

Weekday mornings are the worst in our house – my husband and I both work full-time, and we have three kids to get fed, dressed, groomed and prepped for school/daycare.

It’s a lot. I’m always in search of the holy grail of breakfasts, the sort of dish that doesn’t make me feel like a failure as a parent.

This morning I woke up at 5:00 and decided to just roll with it. I had just ordered a silicone mold from Amazon, and after opening the fridge and seeing a case (!!!) of roasted hatch chiles perched precariously, I decided to make egg bites.

On a recent road trip to Acadiana, we stopped at a Starbucks near our hotel to pick up a quick breakfast, and I ordered the sous vide egg bites. Sous vide is a lot less pretentious than it sounds – it means to cook with vacuum. Effectively, you’re sealing up food in a bag and cooking it evenly in warm, circulating water. But here’s the best part of what I did: I didn’t use my Anova immersion device. I used my food processor, the mold, and my Instant Pot, and these egg bites were on the table in less than 30 minutes.

Copycat Egg Bites

(makes 10-11, serving size is 2-3)

4 eggs
.5 cup fat free cottage cheese (note: this is the only acceptable use of the dreaded cottage cheese in our house)
.5 cup shredded cheese (I used Monterey Jack)
Whatever veggies you want – you could even add crumbled bacon or sausage. I used roasted hatch chiles, but you could use fresh spinach, roasted peppers, etc. I’m thinking ahead to a quasi-Lorraine egg bite with gruyere, bacon, and caramelized onions.

Add it all to your food processor and pulse until well-mixed. Hit your mold with a little cooking spray, and fill the cups with the egg mixture, leaving a little space at the top. You’ll need two molds to hold all of the mixture, or just reserve your leftovers for a second round. Seal with the lid, and place on top of the Instant Pot rack.

Add a cup of water to your Instant Pot, and carefully lower the rack – using the handles – into the Instant Pot. Set it to steam for ten minutes. When it’s done, if you’re in a hurry, engage the  manual release, and your egg bites will be on the table within minutes.

Verdict: these were good, though in retrospect I probably wouldn’t add 3 full hatch chiles next time. The texture was light and airy, and I think these would probably freeze well for use on busy mornings.