So... I did a thing this weekend. After talking for over a year now about how I don't eat egg whites, I ate 6 eggs.

Why don't I eat egg whites? Well, my longer explanation is in the full review of the Ditch Your Nutritionist Program. But basically egg whites make my chin break out. Like, specifically in the areas where blood runs out of the corners of the mouths of vampires. So that's essentially what I look like when I eat something my body is sensitive to. It's just as sexy as it sounds.

After eating about 3 eggs per day during my first full year of "going paleo," it freaking sucked to cut them out. The yolks don't bother me and are essentially nature's multivitamin, so I'll still eat those sometimes. But I always feel wasteful not having anything to do with the whites, so eggs aren't a staple for me anymore.

However, this weekend...

I had a friend who owns chickens and raises them up to my food-snob and animal-care standards, who juuuuust so happened to give me 6 eggs. So yeah, I ate them. And I enjoyed the heck out of them. I shared a photo of an oldie-looking Allison meal on my Instagram, with 3 sunny-side-up eggs, a pile of broccoli, and some berries. It was beautiful.

But my friend Alyssa with Teeny Tiny Spice had been posting a version of Shakshuka all last week and I was intrigued. So I took her recipe and tweaked it for myself and by golly, I'm so glad I did. Hoooooly cow. This is such a weird food but I want it again. Also, I was calling it "shashuka" for like 4 days before I realized what it was actually called and apparently it's a staple dish in the Middle East?? So, sorry that I'm uncultured. But I love your food. Here's my take on it. <3

Shakshuka

Prep time: 10 minutes Cook time: 10-20 minutes Total time: 20-30 minutes

Yield: 1 serving

Directions

Ingredients

Preheat oven to 450ºF and use oil to grease an 8-inch cake round.
Melt oil in a small skillet on the stove. Crush garlic into the oil and brown.
Sauté onions and bell pepper until soft, then add mushrooms and soften those. Add basil leaves about 1 minute before turning the heat off of the veggies, just to soften them.
Pour sauce into the cake round and add the cooked veggies. Stir them all together.
Add spices and stir again. Spread the sauce mixture around the cake round evenly. Lay extra basil leaves for garnish out on top of the sauce.
Crack 3 eggs over the sauce mixture and bake. 10 minutes of baking will get you a soft-boiled egg consistency, so leave the pan in for up to 15 minutes for hard yolks and about 8 minutes for runny ones.
Remove from the oven and enjoy either with dipping bread, tortillas, or with a spoon right away!

3 pastured eggs

1/2 cup tomato or marinara sauce

1/3 sweet onion, diced

1/3 cup sliced baby bella mushrooms

1/4 bell pepper of choice, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 handful basil leaves, plus more for garnish

1 green onion, chopped

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp sea salt