Call these breakfast hummus wraps- tacos/ burritos or just wraps but make them. They are easy, quick to make and packed with nutrition. Easy to make ahead, and pack it for breakfast, lunch or have them as a quick no fuss dinner.
I love breakfast. And I love planning for it. Its so important to have a filling breakfast- sets the pace going for the day. These breakfast hummus wraps are so easy to make, yet they pack so much that you are good to go till lunch.
I feel most recipes are only guide lines, and the possibilities are endless to make them your own. Case in point- these breakfast hummus wraps/burritos. They are so easy to customize, and so many different options to try. You could use scrambled paneer instead of eggs to give it a vegetarian spin. You could add some sautéed mushrooms, black beans or even bacon or sausages. While I find them quick enough to whip up in the morning, but once our busy schedule starts again, you could also make these ahead and freeze them wrapped in parchment paper.
While we have been mainly having a single wrap for our breakfast, these breakfast hummus wraps would make a great lunch or even dinner option. You could use store bought tortilla, or make your own wraps with roti dough like I did.
Store bought hummus is fine, but as the title wrap this is a HUMMUS wrap, so make sure if you are not making your own you get the one you like the most.
Side note: it really is easy to make hummus- only thing is that it does require some prep time- soaking chickpeas, pressure cooking them, peeling the skin off for smooth hummus. You could use canned chickpeas to save time. The other components of a good hummus are tahini, lemon juice, garlic, olive oil, cumin and a few cubes of ice. Trust me on this- ice cubes lend a nice creamy texture to the hummus. So does removing the skins, though it is not absolutely necessary if you have a good blender. For the taste, make sure you use the best olive oil, and lots of tahini. I am not big on sesame seeds, but hummus needs tahini and a generous amount does elevate the taste. I realize I don’t have a recipe on the blog yet, because I always add according to the boiled chickpeas I am using, and haven’t yet written the measurements down. Next time will measure so that I can share the recipe with you.
The idea for these breakfast hummus wraps actually came when I had leftover hummus from the pita falafel wraps and a mezze platter I had made. The platter had homemade falafels, homemade pita, homemade hummus among other things. You can find the recipe for the homemade falafels here. The recipe for pita and hummus is pending and have made a note to post about them soon.
A classic brunch or lunch recipe of mushroom and spinach quiche made with whole wheat crust. Also, includes recipe for homemade cream cheese using paneer.
I can’t stress how much I love this quiche. I stumbled on this gem of a recipe for spinach quiche on Deb’s Smitten Kitchen blog ten years back and would almost make it every other week. I do not know why I stopped making the quiche but this lockdown reminded me of the recipe.
Even though I have made this mushroom and spinach quiche so many times, I have never been able to take a decent picture for the blog. Its not that I didn’t try but somehow I never thought the picture did justice to how good the quiche was, with the result that I always stopped myself from posting.
This time I took time to plan out the shot. Given that we are three people in the house and not just Anubhav and me, I try my best to plan every aspect of a shot before hand so that the food can be served warm and still I am able to get an image that I can use.
Somehow what I had envisioned and the shots that came out in the 10 minutes I gave myself to shoot didn’t quite match up. I tried to rectify it but then since we were already a little late in serving lunch and I didn’t want to serve it cold, I just let it be. I thought I will make it again- since the quiche is pretty quick to make. But since we were out of the specific ingredients for the quiche, I realized I will need to wait till we restock our refrigerator again, which won’t be for another few days. And then I thought this is what I always do, and this recipe never gets shared.
So here I am. Sharing this mushroom and spinach quiche recipe. It doesn’t require too many fancy ingredients and besides the cream cheese most ingredients are easily available at most places. In case you do not have cream cheese at home or can not easily source it, you could make it at your home. There are many easy tutorials online, you could use one of those. I am sharing my mom’s way of making cream cheese back in the day when it was not available.
Homemade Cream Cheese
To make homemade cream cheese, first my mom would make paneer from milk. For that she would let the full fat milk come to a gentle boil over medium heat. The milk should not be boiling vigorously. It should be a gentle boil. In case it does boil vigorously, reduce the heat and bring the milk back to a gentle boil. Let it stay like that for a minute. Add a few drops of lemon juice (for 1 litre of milk). You will start seeing small curds in the milk, but no whey. Add a few more drops of lemon juice and stir. Keep adding a few drops of lemon juice till you begin to see a greenish whey separating from the curds. Switch the gas off immediately when you see the green whey separating from the curds. In total it can take 1-2 tbsp of lemon juice. You can also use vinegar.
Keep a perforated colander/sieve/pan lined with a double layered cheesecloth ready. Drain the whey, collecting the curds in the cheesecloth. Wash the curds in running cold water to remove the lemon flavor. Tie up the cheesecloth and let it drain for around 30 minutes.
If you are making paneer, post 30 minutes is when you would place a heavy weight on the paneer, to make it flatter and stick together. But since we are using it to make cream cheese, the hung curds after 30 minutes of draining are ready to be transferred to a blender. Along with some cream, blend the fresh paneer to a smooth creamy cream cheese consistency. Mom would eye ball the cream to suit taste and texture- start with 1-2 tbsp and increase if required. That’s it. Your cream cheese is ready. My mom would use this recipe to make her lemon cheesecake, and while personally I have not tried it because I somehow always have cream cheese, I have seen her make this and had her cheesecake plenty of times and love it.
Another quick cream cheese substitute that you can use is a mix of hung curd and cream. Since this is a savory recipe both substitutes given work pretty well. The paneer plus cream is a little less tart, especially if you wash out the lemon flavor from the paneer nicely in the step above.
The pastry crust recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart’s pate brisee. I use whole wheat and honestly I prefer the whole wheat crust. I know this recipe has eggs and well it is a quiche so that is expected. I do understand that many of you might not eat eggs, but if you would like to try a tart based recipe then you should definitely check out the vegetable pie recipe that is also on the blog.
Hope you get to try this recipe and if you do, please feel free to tag me in your creations on instagram, facebook or leave a comment here.
Overnight chia seed pudding- a great healthy way to start the day as breakfast or to eat as a mid day snack. Requires only 3 main ingredients and is easily customizable, vegan and gluten free.
My daily routine these days is that I wake up anywhere between 6.30-7.30am. Freshen up and then try to get an hour’s worth of exercise in. There are many online resources for home workouts but the ones that I am following are Cure.fit’s classes, Alo moves and MadFit’s youtube channel along with my pinterest board. I would one day like to tune in for Matt’s live zumba classes on zoom but due to the time difference have not been able to. I have also heard great reviews about Fitness Blender from friends, so you can probably check that too. What does your home workout look like, and what sites are you tuned into for your daily routine?
Exercise is followed by the sweeping and mopping of the kitchen and living room area on alternate days. The other days Anubhav vacuums the entire house and I take rest. The entire house is not mopped on a regular basis (although it is vacuumed) and I have made my peace with it. Post cleaning session, either Anubhav or I (depending on whether he has woken up) makes tea and then we watch the news/ catch up on mails/talk to parents.
Then I get down to making breakfast. We have a system where I cook, and Anubhav does the dishes. Sometimes he cooks and also does the dishes 🙂 .
Post breakfast, we have coffee sometimes and then either do some work, or chill watching something on TV. Rest of the day then goes either in cooking, eating or doing the dishes, and so far it has been pretty okay. I have finally gotten back to blogging- trying new recipes, styling and shooting them with no client approval lurking on my head. And I am thankful for that.
Its difficult to turn a blind eye to whats happening across the world though, so when I feel that I am bored or when things might be a little overwhelming I try to remind myself- I am so lucky to treat my problems as “problems”. That these “problems” are the only ones I have at the moment. That in spite of everything, we are still able to eat the food we enjoy eating- there might be some changes but not much- nothing absolutely nothing to crib about there. Yes cleaning the house, cooking meals, and then doing dishes are taking so much time these days and can be tiring but at least we can make ends meet and do so much more.
I do have my reservations using the words lucky or privileged, given that we have put in hard work to be here and the idea is not to undermine any one else’s efforts by calling them lucky or privileged, but I am grateful that whatever we have worked towards has put us in a comfortable position during this lockdown. Of course this year and probably the next we will have to make a lot of lifestyle changes and think about all unnecessary expenses that earlier we never gave a second thought to. We will also have to put a pause on some of our plans – a house of our own, a new car, and even going on those vacations. We never went on our honeymoon thinking we will go for it in March. I think that plan too might not see the light of the day till next year, given travel abroad might be challenging not only financially but due to health concerns. Again, I remind myself that I am lucky to call these as “problems”. And in time this too shall pass.
Coming to today’s recipe- I think chia puddings are just so delicious and convenient to make. You mix the chia seed with choice of milk, sweetener and flavorings at night, chop fruits in the morning, layer and serve. They are so easily customizable. Basically you need three ingredients- chia seeds, a sweetener, and choice of milk. You could leave out the sweetener in case you are topping with sweet fruits. Rest everything is optional and just adds to an already great breakfast/dessert option. You can use whatever fruits you have on hand to top. You can opt to add another layer of granola or not. You could choose to use toasted nuts instead.
In this recipe I have used a mix of coconut milk and yogurt. I added yogurt because I wanted to reduce the amount of coconut milk since coconut milk is generally more fat enriched and this was going to be breakfast, but feel free to use only coconut milk or almond milk or even regular cow’s milk. Just keep in mind if making with a more fatty milk, then to limit your serving size as only 1/2 cup of this pudding to make this count as a healthy breakfast, any more and it becomes an indulgent breakfast. You can add cocoa powder and make it a chocolate chia seed pudding- banana, raspberries, walnuts or almonds would make a lovely topping with a chocolate chia seed pudding. You can also add your protein powder to give it an additional nutrition boost.
This overnight chia seed pudding while great as breakfast, can also be a lovely mid day snack or a delicious post meal dessert. And since it is easily customizable to be vegan and gluten free, a perfect option for those with dietary restrictions.
In case you do not have chia seeds, and it is not easily available where you are- you could use basil /sabja seeds as well. I have a mango coconut basil seed pudding recipe lined up which makes a great substitute for chia seed based puddings. Like chia seeds, sabja/basil seeds too have many health benefits to them. Plus, if you are using basil seeds, since they swell up quicker you do not have to do the overnight chill and could just let them soak in the coconut milk for 30 minutes.
Let me know if you have any questions about any of the ingredients, will be happy to help. And in case you make this tag me in your creations on instagram, facebook or leave a comment here.
I love breakfast. And I love planning for it. Its so important to have a filling breakfast- sets the pace going for the day. These breakfast hummus wraps are so easy to make, yet they pack so much that you are good to go till lunch.
