Eggs Florentine on Golden Polenta (low cal and gluten free)

Last year, when Saucy Mama ran the "Fab with Five" contest, I thought it might be the most difficult contest that I could enter. Create a recipe using only five ingredients, including one of Saucy Mama's delicious sauces or mustards? Luckily, the sauces turned out to be so good, that it really wasn't all that difficult. While I didn't win, I had such a great time coming up with recipes that I was one of the first in line to sign up for this year's contest. This year the theme is "Skinny Mama" and we, some 50 bloggers, are to come up with low cal or gluten free recipes....healthy stuff. Yikes. The last recipe I posted was for Carrot Cake Pancakes. I wasn't so sure I could do this. Then, the box of mustard arrived in the mail.

You can win a selection of three mustard's...see how below!

Holy Cow! We received the three mustards in the picture, plus three others. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard, after all....

Since my last recipe was a rather caloric, albeit tasty, breakfast entree, I thought I would start with a healthier breakfast idea.

Eggs Florentine on Golden Polenta with “Skinny” Mustard Sauce

1/2 cup low-fat plain yogurt

1/4 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise

2 tablespoons Saucy Mama Tarragon Lemon Mustard or Champagne Honey Mustard

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon water

12 oz prepared polenta, cut into 8 1/2" rounds

3 teaspoons olive oil, divided

1 (6 oz) bag baby spinach leaves

8 eggs, poached

Salt and pepper to taste

First, mix the yogurt, mayo, mustard, lemon juice and water together; set aside.

Heat two teaspoons of olive oil in a large skillet. Add the polenta slices and fry them over medium/low heat for about 5 minutes on each side, or until golden and crispy. Remove from skillet and cover to keep warm.

Add an additional teaspoon of oil to the skillet and add the fresh spinach. Saute for 3 or 4 minutes, or until wilted and heated through. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Remove the spinach from the skillet. Spoon the mustard sauce into the warm pan and cook for about a minute until heated through.

Arrange two polenta slices on a plate. Top each slice with 1/8 of the spinach and a poached egg. Drizzle the sauce over the egg; repeat for each polenta slice. Sprinkle with freshly ground pepper. This recipe will serve 4, two eggs each.

I love a nice runny yolk, but if it's not your bag, simply cook your egg longer.

Not sure how to poach an egg? Watch Alton Brown do it here:

How easy was that? And thanks to the Saucy Mama mustard, the sauce is tasty, gluten free, and low in calories. In fact, you can eat two of the eggs with sauce for about 325 calories! Not too shabby.

Now, how about that giveaway? Saucy Mama is generously giving away a three pack of mustards to one of my readers. Simply leave a comment telling me what kind of recipe you would use your Saucy Mama mustard in and you will be entered . On Wednesday, February 29th, Saucy Mama will open the voting polls on her Facebook page, and you, our readers, will decide which 10 recipes will be in the final judging. For additional entries, simply vote for the recipe that you like best, and come back here to let us know you voted for your favorite. Winners will be chosen using Rafflecopter on or about March 7th, 2012. Good luck and enjoy all of the creative entries!

Disclaimer: I was given a Saucy Mama box of condiments in order to create this recipe. All opinions, as always, are my own.

Quinoa Salsa Salad....three ingredients.

I love Trader Joe's. Yesterday, Pete and I made our weekly grocery store rounds and just had to stop in to get some of their tortillas. Have you seen them? They are called "hand made" tortillas and I'm guessing they are as close to homemade as you can get from store bought. Just a guess, though, since I've never made them.

My new favorite tortillas....

 At any rate, the first thing we usually do when we get to Trader Joe's is to hustle on to the back of the store where they are giving out product samples. Yesterday's sample was a quinoa salad. I was disappointed, at first--healthy food? I did have a box of it at home that I had been reluctant to try. You know what? It's really good! They had it prepared with black beans, roasted corn and sun dried tomatoes. I was shoveling it in my mouth when another customer asked if they used a recipe or if it came made that way. It was a recipe, and a pretty darn easy one.

Ok--here it is: Prepare 1/2 package quinoa (about 1 cup) per package directions, stir in one package of Trader Joe's sun dried tomatoes and one container of Trader Joe's Black Bean & Roasted Corn Salsa. Finished. Period. The End. Oh--I did squeeze a little orange juice in it, just because I never leave well enough alone.

The quinoa only took about 15 minutes to cook

Quinoa is gluten-free, high in protein, cooks up fast, and doesn't have a heavy flavor so it pairs well with almost anything.

My sister and my niece were on their way over...I simply threw some biscuits in the oven and whipped up the quinoa. Lunch was ready when they got here.

The quinoa went over well. I served it warm for my sister (who even heats up her ice cream--she needs everything warm), but you can eat this cold or at room temperature, too. There weren't too many leftovers...for dinner I made myself a quinoa burrito with one of those handmade tortillas. :)