quiche, pronounced keesh

if the recipe is good and i made it and it wasn't one of my mother's recipes, i got it from betty. betty crocker. in the pies/pastry section there is a recipe for a generic pie crust and this has served me well for quiches. without further ado, here is the recipe for the homemade quiche, with adjusted instructions for the fillings.

Quiche: noun

a pielike dish consisting of an unsweetened pastry shell filled with a custard and usually containing cheese and other ingredients, as vegetables, seafood, or ham: spinach quiche.

Pie Crust                                                      Quiche Filling
1 cup all purpose flour                                    4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt                                           1 cup whipping cream
6 1/3 tablespoons butter, softened              1 cup rice milk
2-3 tablespoons cold water                          freshly ground salt & pepper
                                                                         red pepper flakes

mix the flour and salt in a medium bowl. cut in butter. my interpretation of this is to use my hands to mix it all together until it turns into pea sized clumps. or thereabouts. sprinkle cold water 1 tablespoon at a time and toss until it is moist and pastry almost leaves the sides of the bowl. what does this mean? "almost leaves the sides"? should i ask it when it would like to leave and then stop adding water two minutes before that time? anyway, this is probably why i have trouble getting the dough to roll out nicely in step 2 really but more on that later...(i realize i should have taken a picture of the dough in its "pea size" state, but i'll be honest, it very rarely gets pitcuresque. it's more clumpy than pea sized.) gather the pastry into a ball. shape into a flattened round and wrap in plastic wrap. put it in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm it up.

while your dough is getting firm gather all the filling ingredients you want to put in the quiche(s).  i chose: turkey breakfast sausage (honeysuckle white has a good one), an italian cheese blend, green onions, turkey bacon (oscar mayer), cheddar and monterey jack cheeses, and feta cheese.

remove the dough from the fridge and let it warm up a bit before rolling it out onto a lightly floured surface. supposedly you can roll this into a nice flat, cohesive piece of pastry, however i have not had quite that much success. sometimes it rolls out ok and i can pinch a few pieces together to make a pastry large enough to cover a 9 inch pan. typically i end up flattening the pastry in the pan and pressing it out to cover the bottom and up the sides a bit. thankfully this does not lead to sticking to the pan since there is so much butter involved. if it comes to this, no worries, it's still a delicious crust.

from here on out it's cake (or pie). add the ingredients to the crust that you previously laid out. i made three different quiches: sausage (1/2 pound) and italian cheeses (1 cup), green onion (4) and feta (1 cup), and bacon (8 pieces) with cheddar/monterey jack cheeses (1 cup).

now beat 4 large eggs in a large bowl. beat in 1 cup whipping cream and 1 cup rice milk (you can do 2 cups whipping cream if you like but i have found the 1/1 allows for a great consistency without being too rich). add a bit of freshly ground salt and pepper and a dash of red pepper flakes. pour this into the pie dish.

bake at 425' for 15 minutes. then lower to temperature to 300' and bake for an additional 35-45 minutes, until it is firm and a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. this becomes a little tricky as the cheese sometimes makes you think it's not done. rest assured it is after 45 minutes.

one of the best things about this recipe is that you can make and bake it a day ahead and stick it in the fridge overnight. in the morning (or whenever you plan to serve it) put the quiche in a cold oven and let it warm up to 325'. check the quiche until it's warmed through. how long is that? i'd say about 15-25 minutes, but you be the judge.

One of my favorite smells? Baked goods in the oven.

I don't have a picture of this recipe, so I'm including a picture of the woman who taught me that if you can do it ahead - do it.

Like dipping your food in chocolate. Why wait?

Okay, so here's the coffee cake recipe that we cut out of The Kansas City Star. Delicious for breakfast, but its true brilliance is that you make it the night before. No mess in the morning; just pop it in the oven and let the good smells roll.

Overnight Coffee Cake

2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup butter, softened (10 2/3 Tbsp.)

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

Topping:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped pecans (more if you actually want to taste them)

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder and cinnamon. Set aside. Stir together topping ingredients and set aside.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Alternately, mix in buttermilk and dry ingredients, stopping occasionally to scrape. Pour batter into a greased 9 x 13 pan. Sprinkle topping evenly over the top. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Hot Mess

So I had a craving for waffles on Saturday morning, however, I really was not up for all the fanfare that comes with make waffles (see picture for more details) on Sabbath. I woke on Sunday morning with the same aforementioned craving and decided to make it happen. Making waffles from scratch is pretty straightforward and there are a lot of fun variations you can do to make it special for a day you have time to actually sit down and enjoy breakfast with a cup of coffee.

The Waffle Iron is a great invention that supposedly makes the actually cooking of the waffles simple, easy, and 'clean'. However, this was not my experience. Obviously, in light of my graphic illustrations, I would recommend erroring on the side of under-filling the griddle..... other than that, it is in fact fool-proof to operate.

We (and by that I mean Micah and myself) went all out by topping the waffles with sliced strawberries, a few chocolate chips, and dusted them with powdered sugar. Micah was not interested in the concept of taking pictures of the food BEFORE we ate it.

My personal favorite highlight of the waffles, aside from cleaning up the kitchen afterwards (kidding), was the fact that Micah insisted on being in the picture WITH said waffles. The plate was too heavy for him to hold, so he settled for a spot behind them...

WAFFLES

makes 6 large waffles

2 large eggs

2 cups all purpose or whole wheat flour

1 3/4 cups milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 tablespoon brown sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Optional add-ins: 2 cups mashed ripe bananas (4 medium), 1 cup chopped toasted pecans, 1/2 semi-sweet chocolate chips.

(obviously, you wouldn't want to put all of this in there... I mean you could, but it would get pretty intense.... and I don't know if you can handle that?!)

Directions:

Heat Waffle Iron

Beat eggs in a standing mixer (or large bowl) until fluffy with the wisk attachment. Beat in the remaining ingredients until consistent.

Pour batter into the hot waffle iron (sprayed with non-stick cooking spray) and close lid.

Bake for 5 minutes or until it looks done (is that vague enough?)

We used whole wheat flour. I don't really know that its healthier for you?(feedback welcome) I tend to use whole wheat flour more for the texture than the health benefits. I mean, lets be honest, waffles with chocolate chips and syrup isn't exactly a 'healthy breakfast'...... so the wheat flour isn't going to save you. But I enjoy the 'rustic' texture of the wheat flour in baked goods. Maybe it's becuase I like the idea of something being 'rustic' as it reminds me of Colorado, even though I'm just eating waffles in my kitchen in Kansas.....