More Than Quiche Lorraine

I love quiche. It is so easy to make and you can put nearly anything in it, making it a perfect dish for those Old Mother Hubbard days when the cupboard is mostly bare. Today I woke up wanting to make a quiche and while I was considering what to put in it I realized that all I really had was some frozen asparagus stalks that I had saved to flavor soups and stews, some goat cheese crumbles, a jar of Parmesan cheese (the real stuff, not the powdered stuff), onions, two tomatoes from my patio, garlic from a jar, and carrots. So this is what I used.


I think that all quiche needs a green vegetable, onions, garlic, carrot and cheese. Because Ishtiaq is Muslim, we don't eat pork meaning bacon is not an option for us. Bacon is probably the most popular quiche ingredient in the world but it isn't necessary as long as you have something else salty and savory to take its place. If you look at quiche recipes you will see that they vary widely in ingredients, measurements, and cook times. This recipe is influenced by my reading of many different recipes and then just inventing one that is easy for me. You truly can put whatever you want in quiche.

In regards to eggs and milk, we get our eggs from a local farmer and they are really strong. So I only use about four. I've seen recipes that call for six but that's too many for us. Also, I find that quiche is better is you use a mix of heavy whipping cream and milk. I keep heavy cream on hand because my son really likes scrambled eggs and adding a dash to the eggs before scrambling makes them nice, light and fluffy. You could certainly use Eggbeaters and milk instead of cream. Again, quiche is really forgiving and versatile.

I use a store-bought, deep dish pie crust because I am terrible at making them. Recently I was visiting Boot Hill in Dodge City, Kansas and an old woman who runs a gift shop there told me that the tricks to a great pie crust are vinegar and ice cubes. Maybe so but I am currently content to let the nice people at the grocery store provide me with my pie crusts.

My ingredients are going to be estimates only because I just tend to dump things into my pan and bowls during preparation. Don't let that throw you because exactness also isn't necessary when making quiche.


Quiche Bercha (Collected from Lots of Different Places)

Remember that all of these ingredient measurements are to taste.

4 large eggs
1/2 cup heavy cream (heavy whipping cream is heavy cream)
3/4 cup of milk
2 ounces of goat cheese crumbles
1/3 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon of chopped garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
8-9 cranks of black pepper from the pepper mill
1/4 teaspoon of Tabasco sauce
1/4 cup of asparagus, diced
3 cherry tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup carrots, diced
1 very small onion
A few splashes of chicken broth (optional)
1 deep dish pie crust
Olive oil


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a skillet heat olive oil and add carrots. Add salt and pepper. Cook until slightly soft, add asparagus and onion. Cook until all vegetables are soft and add garlic. During the cooking process I like to splash in a little chicken broth to keep my vegetables from getting too brown. This also deepens the flavor.

While vegetables are cooking, place pie crust on a cookie sheet for support and to catch bubble-overs while baking. To pie crust add the cheeses, tomatoes, and, when cooked, the vegetables.

In a bowl mix Tabasco sauce, eggs, milk, and cream. Mix well and pour over the things in the pie crust.

Bake until set. Mine took about 25 minutes to bake. It is set when it no longer jiggles. Quiche needs to sit before cutting for about 15 minutes at the very least or it will fall apart. My husband usually cannot wait that long so we cut our after about five minutes and eat it as a casserole instead of a pie. But it's quiche! You can do what you want!


(I am still figuring out how to get photos set into these blog posts so figure my poor layouts.)

How To Make Southern Fried Chicken

This week my son and I are visiting my parents in Mississippi. I've always loved fried anything but I have never been good at frying. My fried foods always come out greasy or soggy or underdone or burnt or so funky looking no one is willing to try them. Frying is truly an art form and to do it right you have to be taught by a Master. So, I got Mama to show me what to do.

Mama's ingredients aren't measured so I am going to guess at these measurements. It seems like exact measurements aren't really necessary anyway. It's the frying process itself that makes the chicken great so you could add whatever spices suit your tastes. Also, you could use any chicken parts that you like best. I like thighs and Liam likes legs because they have a "handle". The frying process will be the same for whatever parts you use.

Peanut oil works best because it "fries hotter", which I think means it doesn't burn at a very high temperature. On this day we didn't have any peanut oil so we used canola oil. When I was a kid, Mama used Crisco, but now I only use my Crisco for make-up removal and moisturizing (my skin is really dry). One tip for buying peanut oil, which can be a little pricey at Walmart and other fancy stores, is to go to a Middle Eastern or Indian grocer. Peanut oil and even nice, rich and dark olive oil is much cheaper in these places.

Iron skillets brown the chicken best but sometimes Mama fries her chicken in a stew pot, as it is deeper than a skillet the oil will cover more of the chicken.

Typically Mama gets breast pieces, de-bones them and cuts them into strips. We eat those strips at room temperature on Christmas with sausage balls, Pancho's cheese dip, home made biscuits, and spinach dip with Ruffles for the vegetable in lieu of a fancy A-Christmas-Carol-type of meal.

Southern Fried Chicken (collected from Mama)

1 package of thighs, skinned
1 package of legs, skinned
1 egg
1 cup of milk
2 cups of flour
2 tablespoons of salt
1 teaspoon of pepper
1 cast iron skillet
2 large tall tupperware bowls
Canola oil

Wash and dry your chicken on paper towels.

Mix the egg and milk together in one of your tall bowls. Put as much chicken as will fit into your bowl and let it soak while you mix your other ingredients and prep your pan. Mama says you can soak it for up to an hour before you cook your chicken. It helps to flavor and tenderize the meat.

Mix the flour, salt, and pepper (spices to taste, obviously) in the other bowl.

Prep your pan by putting the oil in the skillet about 1/4 deep, maybe a little less. The oil is going to bubble and move. Too much oil will cause it to overflow when the frying gets good and going. So be careful not to add too much.

To begin with, heat over medium-high heat. When oil starts to "dance" a little it is hot enough.

For this part you need one of your hands to be the "wet hand" and the other hand the "dry hand". Remove a piece of chicken from the milk and egg wash with your wet hand and put it in the flour with your dry hand. Coat the chicken in the flour. It isn't necessary to make the flour coating super thick. There will be more flour clinging to the chicken than you realize. So don't worry it to death in the flour.

Turn the temperature down to medium. Shake off the excess flour and gently place the chicken in the oil. If you do not hear a sizzle then the oil isn't hot enough, meaning you need to wait until you do hear the sizzle before adding more chicken to the pan. This will probably take about 20 seconds. If your oil isn't hot enough the batter will soak up all the oil and your chicken will be greasy. So watch this step carefully.

Your oil should be about 1/2 way up the side of your chicken.

At this point, you've just added cold chicken to hot oil which reduces your oil temperature a bit. Even so, leave the chicken on medium heat. Do not give in to temptation to turn your heat back up. It will quickly get hot again and if you had turned up the temperature you would have burned the outside of the chicken before you noticed it was burning.

We put our chicken in the oil at 5:17 and at 5:23 it was ready to turn. You have to watch for the browning on the sides of the chicken. Do not touch the chicken once you put it in the oil, or you will start knocking off the breading. Leave it alone and let it cook. Your chicken might not cook in this amount of time and time isn't the right factor to judge by when it should be turned. I was just making a note of the length of time our chicken needed. Watch carefully for that browning on the edges. When it looks crispy and brown, you can turn it over. When the second side appears crispy and brown you can turn it over again, but try not to mess with it too much. Give it time to cook and don't lift it up out of the pan to check it every minute.

The chicken is done when it has dark brown spots in some places and lighter brown in others. Remember that it is hot and when you take it out of the oil it is going to continue cooking a bit. Also, note that when you take it out of the oil and put it on a newspaper and paper towel-lined cookie sheet the chicken will have an oily sheen to it. This will disappear in a minute so do not be tempted to blot it off.
If you were worried about fat you wouldn't be eating fried chicken, so leave it be.

After frying up the first pan full you will notice that your oil is filled with cloudy gunk. This is the excess flour from your chicken and it will burn. So you need to pour off the oil into a heat proof dish and get that gunk out of the bottom of your pan. Add some fresh oil and then the pour in some of the old, hot oil trying to make sure you don't accidentally dump the gunk back in the pan. If you don't get that gunk out, your chicken will be black and yucky on the outside and a bright pink salmonella party on the inside.

(Try not to notice the coupon in the background of the picture above for Jack Pirtle's Fried Chicken http://www.jackpirtleschicken.com/ .)

After you fry up all your chicken you will certainly want some gravy to go on top of your mashed potatoes or rice and biscuits. Gravy is easy, easy to make.

Brown Gravy (collected from my Mama)

Pan drippings and gunk
A little flour
water or chicken broth (I prefer chicken broth)

Pour off the excess oil and add back all that gunk. Get it hot and add two tablespoons of flour, more or less, to the pan drippings. Using a flat wooden or metal spoon scrape that flour and gunk around the pan until it turns a medium brown color (incidentally, what you are doing is called making a "roux" in fancy cooking circles). Watch it carefully or it will burn before you know it. When it is nicely browned, add a little chicken broth or water until you have as much gravy as you want. If it seems a little thin just keep scraping it around the pan until it thickens up.

Congratulations! You just made Southern Fried Chicken!

After you eat, you will look like this:

Chicken with 40 Cloves...my way

My house is about to be empty for a week with my husband at a conference and the Monster and I at my parent's home in Mississippi. So, I took the night off from cooking. Actually, that's not completely accurate. I stuffed leftovers in the oven from last night for Ishtiaq (DH), fed Liam a Gerber Toddler Meal, and then made myself a frozen Tostino's pizza with anchovies added. I just adore anchovies! Sigh.

Since I made the Garlic Chicken Legs the other night I thought I should post the recipe that inspired the legs. It's called Chicken with 40 Cloves and, oddly it is one of my toddler's favorites. The finished product is very garlicky, rich and hugely satisfying. The garlic turns sweet with a little bite after all that baking and is useful for the whole week in other dishes. Or, if you have poor will-power like me, you can spread a clove or two on a piece of toast and devour it standing at the stove.

Chicken with 40 Cloves (Collected from Cook's Illustrated)

1 whole chicken (I prefer skin on)
1/4 cup kosher salt
2 cups water, boiling

Brine the Bird: Dissolve kosher salt in boiling water. Take chicken and put it in a stockpot that has a lid. Add enough water to cover the chicken and let sit in refrigerator for 4-8 hours. The salt will not make the chicken salty, I promise! Instead, it will tenderize and deepen the flavor of the bird. Try not to exceed 8 hours. Doing so will make the cooked chicken mushy.

3/4 cup Vermouth
3/4 cup chicken broth
About 3 heads of garlic, skinned with the cloves left intact (meaning don't pound them with your knife to make the cloves pop out)
A brined chicken
salt (yes salt - remember the brining doesn't make the bird salty)
pepper
olive oil

Put your chicken in a roasting pan. Stuff it full of the garlic and don't forget to tuck some in the wings and legs. Pour your vermouth, chicken broth and olive oil over the stuffed chicken. Cover with salt and pepper to taste. Bake on 350 for 1 hour or until done. Sometimes my chicken takes up to an hour and a half. I just bake it until the juices run clear when pierced.

I usually serve this with Hunza rice and green beans. Green beans are just about the only vegetable I can consistently talk my son into eating. The beans are great if you bake them along with the chicken. Just open a can or two, drain them and dump them into the pan. No need to use fresh unless you're just an over-achiever.

Leftovers taste fabulous in a "stir-fry" the next day.

Put the chicken, garlic and rice in a non-stick skillet over medium heat and when it all gets nice and hot add a little chicken broth to keep the rice from drying out. When everything looks heated, make a well in the center of your pan and add a beaten egg. Stir it around slowly to incorporate the egg.

Enjoy! Next time I cook this I will post a picture.

My toddler has decided that I have been on the computer long enough so I cannot spell and grammar check right now. :)

My Favorite Meal

Lamb chops are absolutely my favorite dinner food. Having only had them for the first time about three years ago, it did not take me long to develop a deep and intense love for these succulent little bits of savory meat and bone. I always serve them with corn on the cob baked with spices because the baked spices provide a nice little "dip" for the lamb. Tonight I also made a tabbouleh salad, which my husband loves served with tangy plain yogurt.


Baked Corn on the Cob (Collected from somewhere but I cannot recall where)

This dish only works with fresh corn on the cob. Frozen is just too mushy even when completely thawed out first.

4 ears of fresh corn
1 stick of melted or margarine, or olive oil
2 tablespoons or more of ground cumin
1 teaspoon kosher salt (I like the crunch of kosher salt but table salt would work just as well)
1 or 2 tablespoons chopped or minced garlic
1 handful of fresh cilantro (dried works fine too)
A sprinkle of red pepper flakes, if desired
Fresh cracked pepper
Aluminum foil

To be honest I don't really measure my ingredients when making this corn. We like lots of spices so that we can dip our lamb. I use quite a bit and the measurements provided here are only estimates. You should wrap each ear in an individual foil packet for best results. When I am out of foil or being lazy I do make this in a covered baking dish but you must add a little water if doing so or the corn and spices will dry out.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
In individual foil packets place one ear of corn. Pour some butter or oil over the corn and roll it around to wet it. Be generous with the butter or oil. You need it to keep the spices moist while baking. Add the spices to taste. Bake for about an hour depending on your oven. My current oven takes one hour but my previous oven took about 45 minutes. (It was a beautiful shiny convection oven that we had to leave behind when we moved to Denver. I was very sad.) I've never tried this on the grill but I bet it would be a great.


Lamb Chops or Rack of Lamb (Collected and adapted from The Joy of Cooking)

Lamb chops and rack of lamb seem to be exactly the same thing to me. I'm no lamb expert but it seems that lamb chops are just the already separated rack of lamb. The best lamb is the New Zealand or Australian lamb that you can buy in places like Fresh Market. It is unbelievably tender and less fatty than some other lamb. It is also quite pricey. We only buy Halal meat (Halal is to Islam what Kosher meat is to Jews) and the market that we buy from sells American lamb.

If you by a rack of lamb here is how you prepare it. Open what is usually an incredibly difficult to manage package without slicing off your finger. Pull out the rack and put it on the counter. On one side of the rack there should be this thick white THING. That is called the "fell" and you have to cut it off. So slide your knife under it and slice of off. It should cut away pretty simply. There will be sections of it still left near the bones and it is best to try and get it off because it tastes kind of waxy. But, it still will not ruin the taste if you can't get it all. Don't worry; just try not to eat that part.

If you buy lamb chops there is very little that needs to be done. Sometimes you might have to trim a little fat but a good butcher will have already done so. Our local halal market has cute and flirty teenagers running the butcher's counter. They've probably never cooked so much as a Hot Pocket so I doubt they know to trim off the extra fat.

I like to use my iron skillet because we like a little crunchiness on the edges of the meat. True lamb connoisseurs would be appalled by what I am about to say but here's the truth - we don't like our lamb rare or even medium rare, we like it nice and well done and crunchy.

So, over medium heat melt 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. The butter is for taste and the olive oil can take the high heat. Place the lamb chops gently in the pan and add salt and pepper. Cook on each side for 4-8 minutes depending on how well done you want your lamb. Sometimes our market gives us very thick chops and they need at least 10 minutes on each side. Just cook them until the juice is no longer red. Easy, right?


Tabbouleh Salad (Collected from various different sources and then adapted to fit my needs)

This is a great side dish topped with plain yogurt. The yogurt provides a nice creamy tang to the sharp and deep herb and lemon flavors in this dish. I make it up on Sundays and then my husband takes it to work all week long.

2 bunches of fresh cilantro, chopped or cut with kitchen shears,
2 bunches of parsley, chopped or cut with kitchen shears
3 cucumbers, sliced into bite-sized pieces
5 roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1/2 cup of bulgur wheat
1 cup water
a pinch of dried mint
2 tablespoons of olive oil
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt

Bulgur wheat is kind of like couscous but the two are not very interchangeable. I buy mine in the bulk food section of Whole Foods. I've never had any luck finding it at Target or Walmart.

You must seed the tomatoes or the salad will be watery. To do this, I just slice my tomatoes and then scoop out the seeds with a soup spoon.

In a small saucepan, boil the water. When you get a good boil add the bulgur wheat and remove from heat. Cover and let sit while you make up the rest of the salad.

In a small bowl, mix together the olive oil, salt, lemon juice, and mint. Taste it. It should taste sharp, very lemony and salty.

In a larger bowl, add in the cucumber, tomatoes, parsley, and cilantro. Mix in the bulgur wheat and add the dressing. Mix together well and serve topped with plain yogurt.

I decided that my blog needed a picture or two so the above image is how my dinner looked. It might not be the purtiest thing in a dress but it tasted great.

Dinner with a Stomach Bug.

Today wasn't a bad day but it also wasn't a great day. Yesterday around noon I came down with a stomach bug. After spending the night groaning in agony and generally not sleeping, my toddler decided that it was time for me to get out of bed at 5:45 a.m. Like most days I was able to bribe him to stay in bed a little longer with some Handy Manny, Imagination Movers, and The Wiggles chased with a sippy cup of milk and some snuggling. Our day was spent in some general attitude of sleepiness and laziness. For lunch I decided to feed Liam a nutritious box of Goldfish crackers and more milk. Because of all this, I knew that dinner needed to be healthy but easy. So here is what I cooked:

Garlic Chicken Legs (Collected from Chicken with 40 Cloves from Cook's Illustrated)
2 lbs skinless chicken legs
Minced garlic from a jar, several spoonfuls
Fresh cilantro, to taste
Kosher salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
A dab of olive oil

Wash chicken and place in a baking dish with the dab of olive oil. Liberally sprinkle with garlic, cilantro, salt and pepper. For a little kick you could also add chili pepper but we have a toddler...
Cover and bake slowly on 350 for about an hour and 15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked.

Roasted Chick Peas (Collected from a 30 Minute Meal show by Rachel Ray)
3 cans of chickpeas, rinsed, drained and dried on a kitchen towel
2 spoonfuls of Pickled garlic (like you get from an olive bar) or garlic pickle (like you get in an Indian restaurant), chopped
2 handfuls Fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
kosher salt, to taste
pepper, to taste
olive oil, just enough to coat pan

Don't be tempted to skip the rinsing and drying of the chickpeas. They will be mushy on the inside if you do so. Heat a little bit of olive oil on medium, add chickpeas and stir to coat in the oil. Add salt and pepper. I like kosher salt because it adds to the crunchiness of the finished chickpeas, but table salt will work fine. For that same reason, I like fresh cracked pepper. After about 20 minutes of occasional stirring the chickpeas will turn brownish and start to look dried out. At this point you can keep browning and drying them to make "chickpea chips" or go ahead and add your spoonfuls of garlic/garlic pickle and fresh cilantro. Typically, I use garlic pickle because we always have it in the house but both taste great.


Hunza Rice (Collected from my Sanobar Aman, my sweet Mother-in-Law)
Wash and drain a cup or so of dried Basmati rice
In the bottom of a rice cooker add the following:
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/4 teaspoon table salt
5-6 whole cloves
1 teaspoon black cardamom
Pepper, to taste (Husbeast prefers whole peppercorns, but toddlers can't eat that)

Add the rice and then fill the cooker slowly with water. To measure your water correctly, insert your finger in the pot so that you gently touch the top of the rice. When the water level reaches the first knuckle of your pointer finger, you have enough. Cook until your rice cooker says it's done. You can just as easily cook this in a pot but cover your lid in a clean dishcloth while cooking to absorb the steam. This will keep your rice from being sticky and make it the more flaky kind of rice that you get in an Indian restaurant.


Leftover Green Beans (my own fabulous creation)
Open can, boil.
Wait 24 hours then microwave

Enjoy!