Friday, October 31, 2014

Stuffed Mushroom Salad

This dish was actually inspired by the dinner we had the night before, my wife and I had been trying to figure out what we wanted for lunch, and she said "the only thing I want is more of that spinach stuff from last night" unfortunately we had used our entire supply of spinach in that one dish, and no, this was not a small amount either.  We started talking about the different components of the dish, and she reminded me that we had some fresh lettuce from our garden. And then this was born. 


Friday, October 17, 2014

Quiche

It’s been a long time since I actually posted anything, so I was looking for something to write about that might really get people excited to go cook something. Scanning though my images I stumbled across this Quiche, which I had nearly forgotten about (of course that is a clever way of saying I had forgotten it, and only remembered about it because of the picture) I was surprised a little by the fact that it had not already made its way onto this blog, surprised because when I had first made it, I had been extraordinarily excited about the prospect of sharing it with all of you. not to mention the picture is nearly perfect.

The inspiration behind this dish is not all that exciting. I had been wanting to make a Quiche all week, so when I got a morning off, I turned to my wife and said “how do you feel about quiche for breakfast” naturally she agreed so off to the kitchen we went.  
Now Quiches a pretty simple in concept and construction, and this one is no different, so I’ll just walk you through the steps. To begin with a quiche is basically an egg pie. This one is eggs bacon green bell pepper, onion and cheese, stuffed in a pie shell and baked.  The pie shell is very important because without that it’s a frittata, and there are much more fun things to be done with frittatas then this. Hopefully we will get into that someday, maybe after I finish the mozzarella post I promised. Anyways, the best pie shells are home made of course, what I usually do when I want to make a Quiche is make a pie for dessert the night before, make a double batch of dough and keep it in the fridge. You can also freeze pie dough without really hurting it, but you do have to wait for it to defrost.
Once you have your Pie shell, preferably baked so it doesn’t get soggy on you, and you don’t have to overcook your eggs (this is a very important point as there a few crimes as severe as over cooked eggs). Blend you eggs with some cream (Milk works too) and whatever fillings you like, broccoli is pretty traditional, and you can never go wrong with bacon! I like my quiche stuffed pretty full with veggies, but simple and plain always works as well.
Here is the part where I wish I could be more specific, unfortunately eggs are extremely delicate, and ovens are temperamental, you will have to do some experimenting with yours to find what works best for you. Generally I set my oven to 350 and let it preheat, then put my quiche in for 8-10 minutes, at this point I check it and judge if it needs to cook longer or not. Sometimes that enough, other days my oven is less cooperative, you will just have to do some experimenting and see where yours lands. Yes that means you, now! Always remember to have fun with it, never get so caught up in the direction that it stops being your own.