A breakfast item from north of the border

After eating a whole pile of sweets - Valentine's day chocolates, cupcakes, homemade banana bread, lemon bars and slices of lemon tart - not to mention eating out twice in one day last weekend - I thought it might be a good idea to find some healthy recipes for the week.

I spent some time on the Food Network under the "heart healthy" link and found quite a few dinners that seemed appealing. But I also found one breakfast option that seemed perfect for a light morning meal and also offered a chance to try out another ingredient. The recipe, from Ellie Krieger, was for healthy breakfast sandwiches and the ingredient is Canadian bacon. Sure it's not really an exotic ingredient, but it is one I haven't used before so it counts toward Resolution No. 12. In fact, I rarely cook bacon at all unless you count tossing some bacon bits on a meal.

I don't really like the smell of bacon frying and the need to get rid of all the grease that is leftover after cooking it. But Canadian bacon offers a lighter option without all the messy clean up.

So Sunday morning I put the recipe to the test after my boyfriend and I went for a three-mile run in Campbell (despite the temptation to stop at a place called Psycho Donuts that is right down the black from the track.) The recipe is basically a healthy take on egg McMuffins. It called for one whole egg and one white egg per serving - I even used brown eggs that my boyfriend's mom gave us when we visited a couple weeks ago from her chickens (those eggs also went into some of the lemon desserts.) To give the eggs lots of flavor, I finely chopped fresh parsley, chives and basil, mixing the herbs into the eggs. I cooked the mixture in an omelet pan and then folded it over into quarters to fit on a toasted double fiber English muffin (Orowheat actually makes great double fiber wheat bread and muffins.)

To cook the Canadian bacon, all I had to do was add a little cooking spray to the pan and brown it up over medium heat. It was way easier than using regular bacon and I actually liked the way it added just enough saltiness to the meal. From there, the egg and Canadian bacon was topped with a slice of tomato.

I thought it tasted great and it was filling even after a long workout. My boyfriend liked it, too, though he admitted that the few ways he thought to improve the dish (like adding cheese) would only make it unhealthy. In the future, I might compromise and add a little Parmesan cheese in with the egg mixture.

Photo by MelissaFlores

Healthy breakfast sandwiches include an herb omelet, Canadian bacon and tomato on a whole wheat muffin.