The Magic of Quiche

I love quiche - it is my favorite comfort food. I mean, a pie filled with breakfast food - what's not to love? But that is just for starters ... it's tasty hot or cold, works for any meal, easy to prepare and can transform leftovers into something new and wonderful! You can change the cheeses and fillings and choose from an infinity of flavors by doing so. The only constants in my quiches are the eggs and the presence of onions - outside of that, anything goes!

On Monday night, I made a quiche for dinner - not only was it tasty and satisfying, it utilized a lot of leftovers hanging about. Back in May (the 21st to be precise - the day they predicted the Rapture) I hosted a ham dinner (which I, and unrepentant heathen, christened Hampocalypse or Hammageddon in honor of the Rapture.) Yes, the primary reason was to get together and share food with some really good friends, but my secondary purpose was to stock my freezer with leftover ham! All of the leftovers from Hammageddon were sliced and then chopped into cubes for future appearances in omelettes, home fries, pasta dishes and, of course, quiches!

But there were other delicious leftovers, too. What about the sharp white cheddar left over from when I made the Cheddar Buttermilk Biscuits the other day? Now, I only had 4oz of cheese left and I would normally use up to double that amount, but with the flavorful ham, I really didn't think it would be missed. And I normally use caramelized onions in my quiche, but instead of carmelizing onions just for the quiche, I found a great way to make use of the delicious Onion Confit I made! Easy quiche just got easier! I tossed all of my fillings into the pie crust and then tossed it into the oven - there is no standing over a quiche, you can relax while it cooks.

Scott and I enjoyed it hot (along with some Butternut Squash Soup!) and then I packed away the leftovers. I had a slice for breakfast the next day, reheated at about 350 for 7 minutes in the toaster oven at work - my coworkers get insanely jealous when they are pouring cereal for themselves and I whip out a quiche that looks and smells divine! But I think it tasted the best when I ate it cold last night for dinner.

The temperatures in NJ have been absolutely ridiculous for the last few days - in NJ, we should not be hitting triple digit temps in early June! Gah! As a result of the excessive heat, humidity and sudden weather changes, I had a nasty sinus headache all day yesterday - when I could finally leave work for the day and escape to my apartment to lay down, food was the last thing on my mind. But around 9pm, still too headachey and miserable to cook, I needed to eat something. I scarfed down a few mini-pretzels while thinking of something easy and cold - I felt too crappy to make anything even the slightest bit complicated and it was too hot to eat anything warm! And then I remembered the quiche. Comfort food as simple as grabbing a slice from the fridge and attacking it with a fork - winning!

And it freezes like a dream, too. In fact, I brought the two remaining slices with me to work today - one will be lunch (along with some leftover and frozen Tomato and Roast Red Pepper Soup) and the other will go into the freezer for a future lunch or breakfast. I just wrap them in foil and toss them from the freezer into the oven/toaster oven when I want one!

So there you have it - easy, tasty and convenient - quiche!

I've been thinking ...

I think about food ... a lot.

I usually start waking up long before Scott does - I make a point of lounging around in bed, reading and napping and thinking for a few hours until he wakes up. I swear, his ability to sleep is contagious - before he came into my life, napping was impossible, I was typically unable to sleep past 6am and I had never even heard of blackout curtains. In a mix of joy over being able to sleep so much better and happiness being around someone as wonderful as he is, I like to have a hot, fresh thermos of coffee waiting for when he opens his eyes.

Yesterday when Scott opened his eyes, I offered him coffee, snuggled up while he took a sip (and sighed "Mmmmmmmmm" at the taste of it!) and said, "So - I am already thinking about dinner - how does chicken dinner sound?" Scott makes me happy in a billion different ways, but one of my many favorite things about him is his enthusiasm for the food I make - his reaction to the words "Chicken Dinner" are about the same you would expect to the words "All epense paid month-long island getaway with $1 million in spending money." And this is one of the many reasons why I spend so much time thinking about dinner - I have an appreciative audience!

When I think of food, I am thinking of applying new techniques and flavors to make a delicious meal that is straightforward to put together and memorable. I am a girl on a budget - I need to make my meager ducats go as far as they can and make sure everything I spend is well worth it. I want to maximize my returns - I want to feel like I am making the most delicious use of every ingredient and that everyone who eats it feels like the million bucks I would love to lavish on them if only I could.

So what brought this on? I have been thinking of food again ... specifically pork schnitzel and some fat, gorgeous bone-in pork chops sitting in my freezer, waiting to be enjoyed. Schnitzel calls for boneless cuts pounded thin, not thick bone-end chops ... but I can't get the breading used in pork schnitzel out of my head! So, along with the numbers from my morning reports and fragments of e-mail conversations, pork cooking methods and breading ingredients have been dancing around in my head. And I think I have it!

Baked Schnitzel Chops

Preheat oven to 425
Bread thick, bone-in pork chops as in Schnitzel recipe
Pan fry on both sides until breading starts to get golden, then transfer to baking dish and finish in oven, about 15 minutes, give or take, depending on thickness. (Edit - I did it! I totally tried it and it worked! About 2.5 minutes of frying on each side and then into an oven at 425 for 20 minutes - could have probably been in less time!)

Now, I am sure that I am not the first person to think of this. In fact, I am not even sure I got it right - there could be a serious flaw in my thinking! But that is part of the fun - thinking about the food, anticipating cooking it, troubleshooting limitations with technique, space or ingredients!

I am thinking of making these, alongside some Yukon Gold oven fries with a some of the leftover onion confit as a garnish and some simple veggies to round out the plate. Always thinking ...

Spending Time in the Kitchen

It's been a busy few weeks for me ... I still spend time in the kitchen, but not nearly enough and when there is little time to go around, I skip writing about it in favor or more time in the kitchen! But yesterday found me with some free time, cool enough weather to use my oven and inspiration!

I finally paid my library fines and checked out a few cook books to get some new ideas and perspectives. The first is an old favorite that I have borrowed several times - Harumi's Japanese Home Cooking - I like to revisit it as I get more and more facile with my Japanese cooking. I also picked up Tom Colicchio's Think Like a Chef and Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics - these are two of my favorite chefs and it is always a treat to spend some time learning how they think about food and create incredible meals.

Scott had a busy weekend - he was working an extra shift on Saturday and needed to spend some time doing some yard work at his place on Sunday. Usually we have incredibly lazy weekends that involve sleeping unreasonably late and taking the day at a snail's pace - this weekend was the exception that made me miss the rule! So, to make up for the lack of lazy and to make good use of time to myself in my apartment, I decided a full chicken dinner was in order.

Recently a friend confided that she would never attempt to make a roast chicken because she heard it was really hard and that you had to - gasp - remove the giblets from the cavity. Without leaving time for my filter to engage, I answered back "Roast chicken is what I make when I am too lazy to call for take out." Snotty, but true. Roast chicken is ridiculously easy, but so incredibly satisfying - I happened to have 1 more left in my freezer and figured that this brief break in the temperature is my last shot at slow-roasting a bird until temperatures become reasonable once again in the late fall! This chicken was very basic - salt, pepper, Montreal Steak Seasoning and olive oil - but the skin was crispy and it tasted incredible! I also made mashed potatoes and green beans - old favorites that always go well with roast chicken!

New to the menu were a dish each from Tom and Ina. Scott loves breads and baked goods, so when I saw Ina's Buttermilk Cheddar Biccuits, I knew that these were exactly what I wanted to make for him after a lot of hard work in the yard! They came out perfectly! (Well, perfect considering that I forgot to brush them with egg wash and top them with sea salt!) They were flaky but moist and even the nest morning, there was a subtle crispness to the crusts - fantastic! They remind me a lot of the Cheddar Bay biscuits you get at Red Lobster (I spent some time working there - they are burned in my memory!) - if I were to bake them as drop biscuits instead and brush them with garlic butter as soon as they come out of the oven, I think I would have a dead ringer!

Tom's Onion Confit grabbed my attention when I read the recipe and stayed with me - couldn't stop thinking about it and knew I had to try it! I love carmelized onions, but these are something very different! The white wine vinegar makes them so flavorful and the stock/broth makes the onions soft and buttery feeling! I made these to go along with the mashed potatoes as a sort of condiment, but I know these will now make an appearance alongside pork chops and as early as tonight will serve as the onion component of a quiche. These are unbelievably good and if you like onions at all, you are going to go insane for these!

All told, I was in my kitchen working steadily for a little more than 2 hours - time well spent in my opinion! I watched a movie and listened to some music while I sliced onions, massaged seasoning into the chicken, chopped potatoes and kneaded dough - I honestly can't think of a more enjoyable way I could have spent the time and the true rewards came when it was time to eat and I got Scott's wonderful reaction to all of my creations. For me, cooking is not a means to an end or a chore, but an enjoyable process - it's easy to create incredible and involved menus when your heart is truly in the kitchen.

More Paninis

This past week saw temperatures in the high 90's - my small 2nd story garden apartment is boiling hot throughout the winter ... you don't even want to imagine what it gets like in the summer! I have one air conditioning unit in the entire apartment - it is located in the living room - but even with the air conditioning working as hard as it can, it doesn't even begin to touch the heat in the kitchen. In the summer I am forced to stop using the oven and I avoid the stove top as much as possible - I turn to my George Foreman grill to do most of the cooking and try to dream up as many no cook meals as possible to avoid heat stroke!

This past Tuesday night I made paninis with fresh mozzarella, fresh sliced roma tomatos, fresh basil and grilled eggplant - I cut kaiser rolls in half, splashed both cut ends with balsamic and piled on the toppings before tossing the sandwiches on the George Foreman grill for a few minutes on each side - ridiculously good!

Panini

I have an unholy love for panini sandwiches - grilling a sandwich, IMO, makes the end result exponentially more delicious! A few months ago, I was contemplating my George Foreman grill (for which I also have an unholy love) and realized that among the millions of other things it could do, it could also make a bangin grilled cheese sandwich. Since then I have had many panini experiments, each more delicious than the next! One notable sandwich was inspired by one of Scott's favorites - sliced turkey, Swiss cheese, bacon and cranberry relish on rye. Well, last night's sandwich ( ... which will most likely see a reprise tonight!) was also unbelievably tasty - grilled veggies and goat cheese!

It was ridiculously simple to put together and required only a knife, cutting board, a bowl and George! I started by grilling the vegetables - my vegetables for this sandwich were zucchini, yellow squash and eggplant. My friend, Mara, came by for dinner and catching up, so she obliged me in slicing up the zucchini and squash on a bias (to increase surface area), unpeeled in 1/4" thick slices. From there, they were tossed in a bowl with some olive oil to coat. Meanwhile, I busted into the eggplant - I peeled the eggplant and cut it in 1/2" rounds. I laid those slices out, sprinkled them with kosher salt (both sides) and rinsed them off after about 20 minutes. (If you are unfamiliar as to why I would do this, it helps draw out the extra moisture and bitterness in the eggplant.) The eggplant, too, was tossed in the bowl with the olive oil.

I allowed George to preheat and then grilled the vegetables one grillful at a time. Grill time will vary by vegetable and thickness - about 6 minutes per batch worked well for me and left the veggies with great grill marks. Once all the veggies were grilled, it was time to assemble the sandwiches. I split the kaiser rolls open and began to build the panini!

First, I spread some chevre (goat cheese, the soft crumbly kind) on both sides of the roll, and then topped the bottom half with a nice big spoonful of bruschetta! Now, if it wasn't a Wednesday night that didn't have me arriving home until after 7pm, I would have probably made my own tomato, basil, and onion bruschetta to use on these sandwiches, but the grocery store had a really tasty premade version, so I took the shortcut. (But I do love to make my own brushcetta - especially in the summer when it is too hot to use oven and stove!) On top of the bruschetta, I layered the grilled vegetables and then popped the top of the roll on. From here, the sandwich was tossed on the already hot George until it was grilled to perfection.

The panini was delicious - crispy bread, flat squashed down sandwich, flavorful vegetables, tangy bruschetta and rich, delicious goat cheese that had melted into everything! I haven't been able to stop thinking of it!

Lime Madaleines

I have made Madaleines in many different flavors: traditional orange, lemon, grapefruit ... but even though the lime is perhaps my favorite citrus fruit, I have never made lime madaleines before. Last weekend, Scott picked up some really nice limes and brought them over. Just fat, juicy limes with really nice rinds. I replaced the orange zest that the recipe calls for with the zest of 2 limes.

Scott says that they tasted more lemony than anything else, and he made a great point - they tasted more lemon than the lemon ones! but they were really tasty and the green zest really looked neat in the cookies. So fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside.

We may or may not have housed the whole tray.

Last Udon of Spring

Not the best pictures I have ever taken, but I think you get the idea! :)

Thursday night has been Udon Night at my place for the fall and winter months, but last night we had the final Udon Night until it fall circles back around. That is not to say I won't randomly decide to make some udon before then, but for the warmer months, it won't be a weekly feature in the menu. It kind of warms you up when you eat it - my teensy apartment gets ridiculously hot in the warm months ... I will most assuredly NOT need warming up then!

Ever since I got my little veggie shapes cutters (4 different flowers - I love them!) I have been thinking of differently colored vegetables and how to cut them into flowers and include them in a meal. I decided to do carrot flowers again, but also ... Purple Yam Flowers!

I waited until I was just about ready to bring the udon broth up to a simmer, then busted out my mandoline slicer and sliced up the yam. It has a beautiful purple and white interior! When I had sliced the whole yam, I used the cutters to cut the flower shapes. The slices with the cutouts were pretty whimsical, too, so I tossed the carrot and yam flowers as well as their slices into the udon to bring to a simmer. When the meal was ready, the yams had cooked and I think their flavor brought A LOT to the broth!

This udon was made of: udon noodles, shiitake mushrooms (browned in a pan first), scallions, carrots, purple yams, wakame seaweed and naruto (kamoboko).

Stromboli

Of course I forgot to take a picture :)

On Friday night, I was organizing my fridge a bit while waiting for Scott to come over. I came upon a bit of leftover roast chicken breast, I still had a bunch of bacon hanging around, I had a little Cheddar Jack cheese leftover and a ball of whole wheat pizza dough that needed to be used sooner rather than later. The chicken and bacon stromboli was born!

This is a ridiculously easy and satisfying option for dinner! It took care of a lot of leftovers that might have gone to waste and it was so tasty! And I was able to prep it ahead - Scott doesn't get out of work until fairly late on Friday nights and then he likes to head to his place for a shower and to spend some time with his cats. While he was giving some love to the kittehs, I put the whole thing together and there it was, all set on its baking tray, ready to go as soon as we wanted dinner!

The premade whole wheat dough at my local grocery store is fantastic and was on crazy-sale last week ... there happen to be 3 balls lying in wait in my freezer and since the warm weather is coming (along with my refusal to use the oven in an already hellaciously hot apartment), looks like I am going to have to make them sooner rather than later! :) I have made my own (very tasty!) pizza dough in the past, but sometimes it's worth it to buy pre-made - no shame in a shortcut!

Butternut Squash Soup

I love soup and this is one of my favorites. This Butternut Squash Soup is the perfect blend of sweet and savory - the sage and chicken broth give it a roast chicken flavor aspect and the honey and apples really bring out the sweetness of the squash!

The biggest pain of making this is dealing with the squash, but I have it down to a science. you can always buy a pre-peeled and halved (or sometimes even pre-cubed!) squash at the grocery store, but I am a girl on a budget and would rather hack into it myself and save a little money. I find that a palm held peeler works best - it is really easy to use! It just seems to work better with the size and shape of the squash - I hate my "normal" peelers for this task. (Actually, I prefer this peeler for ALL of my peeling tasks - the other peelers in my kitchen are relics of the days before I discovered this wonderful little palm held peeler!)

Once it's peeled, I use a large chef's knife to cut the bulbous bottom off - from here I slice the top into 1/2" thick rounds and then further cut them to turn them into the 1/2" cubes I need. Then I stand the bottom piece on its cut end and cut it in half. I like to use a grapefruit spoon to remove the seeds and stringy bits, but you can use a knife or a normal spoon - whatever, so long as it comes out. Then I slice that into 1/2" pices and cube that up, too.

It's very simple and very satisfying - one of my favorites!

Roast Chicken

Roast Chicken is something I do REALLY well. As many times as I make it, each time I tell Scott that I am making roast chicken for dinner he makes the most wonderful "mmmmmmm" noise and praises it as if I had spent all day slaving over it. But roast chicken is EASY - in fact, it is what I make if I am not in the mood to cook. It takes less than 5 minutes to prep and it just camps out in the oven for 2 hours. I give a lot of credit to the roasting pan I use - it seems to raise the chicken to just the right height to get a perfectly browned bird! But the real secret to nice browning and a crispy skin is all in the prep. When I am rubbing the chicken with olive oil and herbs and salt and pepper, I make sure to rub some underneath the skin and as far into the legs/thighs as I can reach. It makes the meat a bit more flavorful and moist and it truly does make a difference in the skin.