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!