Scotch Eggs - they can be breakfast food

Recently, we've been changing our diet to one with a more paleo-ish leaning.  While it's a change to dump the pasta, beans, rice, its not that big of a deal. Sure, I cheat and still eat oatmeal, but instead of filler carbs, I've got to eat filler vegetables.  We've discovered kale and I think its great and am a little bummed if we don't eat kale at least once a week.  But that's not the topic I want to write about today.

I've been surfing the web checking out paleo recipe sites and have seen mention of Scotch Eggs. Evidently, they're a common treat at UK convenience stores and picnic fare. I've never seen them in the US, but when you wrap things in meat, they can only get better.  As they're supposed to be breaded and deep-fried, I had to change a few things to make them paleo friendly.

Last night, I hard boiled the eggs and made my sausage mixture. It took a while to wrap the eggs in the sausage and don't forget, they need to be peeled first.  The scotch eggs need to refrigerate for at least an hour, but I let them chill overnight.

Scotch eggs waiting to chill - picture by Heather

This is the recipe I started from, but didn't want to use any grains.  As its a baked recipe, I could avoid some of the additional fats.  I'd seen fried cauliflower used as a substitute for bread crumbs, so I decided I'd give that a try as well as finely chopped almonds as the "breading."

I took a head of cauliflower and chopped it finely with the food processor. In a pan with butter and olive oil (yes, I was channeling Ree Drummond here), I fried up the cauliflower crumbs. They browned nicely and had a good crispness.

The three on the right side are with fried cauliflower, the two in the back with almond crumbs and the white ones on the left are with raw cauliflower. I decided to try that and see how they'd brown in the oven.

After 20+ minutes of baking (and they might have been a little red on the inside), I had a tray of Scotch Eggs.

They were pretty big and almost a meal in itself.  We ate them warm for breakfast and when the kids came home from swim practice, they polished the remaining 4 off!

There went my lunch plans for Monday. Scotch Eggs seem like a good paleo lunch and portable food.

I made my own sausage mixture of ground pork and turkey and spices (from the recipe) but I think that this could be made with chorizo or with some kind of chopped up bacon "sausage."  I'm going to have to check out what sausages might be available that I could use for a different flavoring outer shell.