Made this quiche a few weeks ago.  It was SPECTACULAR, PERFECT!!

Started with a pie crust recipe I hadn’t tried before (Pate Brisee from the old Silver Palate Cookbook). Also pre-baked the crust for 10 minutes before adding fillings.  Don’t know why I’ve always skipped that step (laziness probably).  Made all the difference in the world.  The crust was perfect, no soggy bottom.

Ingredients

• 1 pie crust (store bought, your favorite, or use Pie Crust/Pate Brisee recipe here)
• 8-16 oz. bacon, fried until crisp (I like to cook mine in a cast iron frying pan in a 375°F oven.  Takes longer, 30 minutes or more, but never burns and you only need to turn it once.)
• 1 cup shredded swiss cheese
• 1 small jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained and chopped into small pieces
• 6 eggs
• 2 cups heavy cream (or cream/half&half/milk combination)
• salt and pepper to taste
• paprika to dust

Directions

Preheat oven to 400°F.  If you have a pizza stone, preheat that too.

Prebake the pie crust for 10 minutes in a 400° oven.  (see Pie Crust/Pate Brisee recipe for details on how to do prevent the crust from puffing up)  Allow to cool slightly before adding filling.

Turn oven down to 350°F.

Place pie pan on foil-lined cookie sheet.  The foil is to catch spills and to fold up over the crust if it starts getting too brown.

Sprinkle half of the cheese over the partially cooled pie crust.  Add bacon and artichoke hearts, distributing evenly.  Sprinkle with remaining cheese.

Whisk together the eggs and cream.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Pour over filling ingredients.  The pie plate should be full, but leave some room for everything to expand (and so that you don’t slop it all over as you transfer it into the oven).

Bake at 350°F for 50-65 minutes.  Check custard by inserting a knife into the center to see if it comes out clean.  If the crust gets too brown before the custard is done, fold the foil up over the edge.

Allow to cool for 20-30 minutes before cutting.

Enjoy!

Note: Quiche recipes range from 3-6 eggs and from 1-1/2 to 2 cups of cream.  Much depends on the size of your pie plate.  Mine is large (10″ pyrex).  If yours is smaller, adjust the egg/cream mixture accordingly.

Copyright © 2010, Lucinda DeWitt

Caesar-style Salad Dressing

adapted from a recipe from Ley Clifton in the Penzey’s Spices catalog, Spring 2010, p. 37

1 cup mayonnaise
1 Tbls. Diron-style mustard
1 Tbls. Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbls. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. onion powder (optional)
3 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1 Tbls. Penzey’s Italian Herb Mix (or your own blend of oregano, basil, marjoram, thyme and rosemary)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (the fresher, the better)

In a medium bowl, whisk together all the ingredients.  Blend well, taste, and add more spices as desired.  Toss with bite-size pieces of romaine lettuce.  Sprinkle with additional parmesan cheese, if desired.

(For more details and notes, consult the separate recipe page.)



I’m also trying a new format for posting the recipes.  I’ll be including them within the post (which makes them easier to find via search), but will still include them on separate permanent pages as well (which makes them easier to print without all of my commentary).  The links to the separate printable recipe pages appear in the column on the right and on the Recipe Index page.

Chicken Filling for Flautas or Enchiladas

(could probably use in burritos too!)

Ingredients

2-3 cups cooked, diced chicken (see note below)
3 Tbls oil, plus more for frying (if making flautas)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 (4 oz.) can diced green chiles
1-2 jalepenos, minced (or 1 large spoonful of canned diced jalepenos, NOT the pickled kind)
1/2 to 1 can (15 oz.) diced tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
black pepper, to taste
tortillas (see note below)

If making enchiladas you will also need Red Enchilada Sauce (recipe below), shredded cheese (cheddar or Monterey Jack or colbyjack), and anything else you like to put in or on enchiladas (lettuce, avacado, black olives).

Directions

Saute onion in 3 Tbls oil in large pan.  Add chicken and saute.  Add remaining ingredients except tortillas.  Cook over low-medium heat until everything is combined nicely and most of the liquid has evaporated.  (If you are going to be frying flautas you will want the filling nearly dry.  For enchiladas or burritos you can leave it more moist.)  Remove from heat.

Soften tortillas by (1) warming briefly, 30 seconds a side, in a dry, hot frying pan or (2) dipping briefly, 5-10 seconds, in hot frying oil or (3) wrapping in foil and placing in a warm oven for 10-15 minutes or (4) wrapping in damp paper towels and heating in the microwave on high for 60 seconds.  Everyone has their thoughts/preferences on the best way to soften tortillas. The purpose is to make them easier to roll without breaking or tearing. If they are REALLY fresh, you may be able to skip this step altogether.

For flautas: Roll heaping Tbls. of chicken into each softened tortilla.  Close with toothpick. Fry 2 at a time in hot oil for approximately 90 seconds (or until lightly golden brown).  Drain on paper towels.  Enjoy!  I love these dipped in Chile con Queso (gringo/cheaters recipe below), but salsa and sour cream would work as well.

For enchiladas: Preheat oven to 350°F.  Place a thin layer of red enchilada sauce in the bottom of a 9×13″ baking dish.  Spoon 1-2 heaping Tbls. of filling onto a torilla.  Add cheese (if desired).  Roll and place seam side down in baking dish.  Continue with remaining filling and tortillas.  Once they are all in the baking dish, pour some red enchilada sauce over them (how much depends on how dry/wet you like them).  Sprinkle with shredded cheese.  Cover the dish with foil.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Remove foil and bake a few minutes more until cheese is nicely melted.  Serve with rice and beans if desired.

Easy Red Enchilada Sauce

Over medium heat in a medium saucepan, blend 2 Tbls shortening with 2 Tbls flour. Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup chili powder until oil is absorbed.  Slowly add 2 cups liquid (water or broth or tomato juice or tomato sauce or a combination).  Salt to taste.  Simmer 20 minutes.  See note below about chili powder vs. ground chili peppers.

Easy Chile con Queso

Yes, the secret ingredient for an easy creamy chile con queso is Velveeta.  It really does make a wonderful cheese sauce . . . You can try this with “real” cheese, but you will need to be very careful about keeping it at just the right temperature so that the oil doesn’t separate out from the cheese curds . . .

1/2 cup butter
1 small/medium onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup flour (Wondra works well, but AP is fine)
2 to 2-1/2 cups milk
2-3 4oz. cans chopped green chiles
12-16 oz. Velveeta cheese, diced (look for it near, but not in, the dairy section
3-4 fresh Jalapeño peppers, chopped (or a big spoonful of canned diced Jalapeños, not pickled)

Saute onion in butter until tender.  Add flour, gradually, stirring constantly.  Cook for 2-3 minutes over med-low heat.  Gradually add 2 cups of the milk, about 1/2 cup at a time, continue stirring.  You should end up with a thick, creamy white sauce (see note).  Add chiles and jalapeños and simmer over low heat for 5-10 minutes.  Add cheese, stir until melted.  Add remaining milk if needed for thinning.  Note: the cheese will thin the sauce so be sure the white sauce is thicker than desired for dip and reserve some of the milk so you can adjust at the end.

Notes

• Chicken: I usually make this filling with chicken or turkey left over from a roasted bird.  If you haven’t roasted a chicken lately, no worries.  You can use 4 small cans of chicken meat (sold near the cans of tuna) or  3-4 chicken breasts (or other pieces) salted and poached in water or broth.  I suppose you could also dice raw chicken and just increase the time on the saute in the recipe above.  Just make sure the chicken is cooked before adding the other ingredients.
• Tortillas: I prefer flour tortillas, though I think corn are more traditional for flautas and enchiladas.  If you are making flautas you will need tortillas small enough to fit in your fryer (I have a small fry daddy, so I use the small. 6-8″ flour tortillas for flautas, but larger ones for enchiladas and burritos).
• The chicken filling recipe is great and versatile as is (the way it was taught to me), but could probably use some additional spices: cumin, corriander, chili powder.  Start with 1/2 tsp. of each and see what you think.
• Chili Powder is NOT the same as Ground Chili Peppers.  Chili powder contains ground chili peppers PLUS spices like cumin, garlic and Mexican oregano.  If you use plain ground chili peppers for the Red Enchilada Sauce, you will probably want to spice it up with some spices.  For a discussion of “chile” vs “chili” see http://itsfiveoclocksomewhere.blogspot.com/2007/08/chile-vs-chili.html; I’m not very good at using them consistently . . .

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Enjoy!

Apologies for long delay between posts.  Ho Ho Ho drained all my energy.

Much of my attention right now is directed toward the earthquake in Haiti (7.0 on Tuesday January 13, 2010), but I will need some more time to process before I blog about that . . .

Not much news on the cooking front.  Haven’t been exploring many new recipes and have already posted most of the old favorites.  Speaking of . . . I made my favorite Turkey Mushroom Rice Casserole a few days ago and discovered that the recipe I had posted was missing a few steps. (I had listed herbs and S&P in the ingredients but never mentioned when to add them.) You can see the corrected version at: Turkey Mushroom Rice Casserole.

I also made another batch of my Black & White Burritos. This time I cooked dried beans instead of using canned. I used the oven method suggested by Marcella Hazan that I described with my Minestrone recipe.  The surprise was that even though Black Beans typically take at least 90 minutes to cook on top of the stove, they were done in less than an hour using the oven method (I used 1-1/2 cups beans and the same 3-quart casserole mentioned in the instructions in the Minestrone post.  I’m going to be eating lots of rice, beans, and pasta in the next few months (due to winter budgetary restrictions), so I’m thrilled that this method works with a variety of beans.

Time to go heat up a bowl for myself!

I don’t like to post recipes stolen from other sources, but I can give the basics for this soup without much guilt. For the specific details, buy Marcella’s book . . . (my paperback copy cost $5.95 many years ago and may no longer be available . . . her newer edition is called “Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking” but I’m betting it includes a pesto recipe.

Minestrone Soup

Put some oil and butter in the bottom of a big soup pot. Thinly slice half of a large onion (or a whole smaller onion) and add it to the pot at medium heat. Add to this some chopped carrots, celery, potatoes, zucchini, and green beans (I used 1 cup each of the carrots, celery, and green beans and 2 cups of the potatoes and zucchini). For this recipe don’t bother to prep everything ahead of time, just chop and drop each veggie into the pot, give everything a stir each time, and keep the heat low enough so nothing starts burning.

(Once all the veggies have cooked for several minutes, I would usually add several cups of chopped kale and cook until it wilts a bit.)

Add 6 cups vegatable broth (or a combination of broth and water) and one 15-oz. can of diced tomatoes. Cook at a slow boil until thick (90 minutes – 3 hours). About 15 minutes before serving add 1-2 cups cooked pasta and/or cooked white beans (see instructions below). Just before serving (or in the individual bowls) add a large pinch of parmesan cheese and/or a big spoon of pesto.

Cooking Dried Beans

I’ve always had trouble cooking dried beans. Either they boil too rapidly and split and/or boil over OR I set the heat too low and they don’t cook. Here’s a method I had never heard of before (adapted from Marcella Hazan).

1. Soak beans overnight covered in 2″ of cold water. (I used 3/4 cup of small white beans for my soup.)

2. Preheat oven to 325°.

3. Rinse and drain the beans and put them in a large casserole dish or pot that can be used both on the stovetop and in the oven and has a lid (I used a 3-quart corning ware casserole dish). Cover with 2″ of water.

4. Bring the beans to a boil on top of the stove. Cover and transfer to the preheated oven. Cook for 40-60 minutes. Leave in their water until ready to use.

This method worked GREAT! Nice tender beans with much less hassle.

I’ve roasted many a chicken in my day. Typically I rinse and dry the bird, salt & pepper the whole thing, stuff the cavity with lemon, garlic, and a few herbs if I have some, then place it on a rack in a roasting pan and pop it in a hot (450°F) oven which I then immediately turn down to 350°. After an hour or so (during which I might baste it once or twice with a bit of chicken broth if I have some–or not) roasted chicken.

Yesterday I decided to try this recipe (see link above) I read in Saveur. It involves making an herb butter and placing it in pockets you make under the breast and thigh skin. WOW! By far the best chicken I ever roasted.

Of course, I didn’t follow the recipe exactly. For the herb butter I combined the recipe’s lemon (which I zested rather than peel and chop) and garlic with a mixture of parsley (leaves from a couple of sprigs), sage (about 10 leaves), and rosemary (about a sprig’s worth) [for those of you following along with the song, fear not, the thyme is coming]–all of which I grinded together in my mini-chopper before blending with the butter. Then I stuffed the cavity with the quartered lemon, some sprigs of parsley, thyme, and marjoram, and about 1/4 of an onion (no more would fit!).

I skipped the veggies in the bottom of the pan, because I prefer to use a rack. Followed the rest of the recipe, though when the smoke detector went off because the oil in the pan was burning, I basted with a bit of broth and lowered the temp a bit more.

Like I said–WOW!

I’ll post pics once I transfer them from the camera, though they look pretty similar to the one included with the recipe at the Savuer.com site.

Served the chicken with green beans and a mashed turnip/potato/garlic dish recommended in Lynne Rosetto Kasper’s weekly newsletter. As someone who HATES most root vegetables, I’m happy to say that I’ve discovered that if you combine them with enough garlic and/or orange juice, they taste pretty good. This recipe has you parboil peeled turnips and potatoes, then transfer to skillet with whole garlic and some chicken broth. Once everything is soft, it’s all mashed together. Yummo!

Happy Mother’s Day!

[Update: Adding pictures on May 12, 2009]

Roast Chicken 01

Roast Chicken 02

I served it with rice and Sesame Green Beans borrowed from a simple Rachel Ray recipe: toast 1 T. sesame seeds in a dry pan until lightly browned. Set aside. Steam green beans in 1/2 inch boiling water for 2-4 minutes, until bright green. Drain in colander and rinse with cool water to stop cooking. Heat a frying pan or wok over high heat for 20 seconds, add a thin layer of oil and a dash of sesame oil. Toss in 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes. Cook for 10 seconds, then add beans and cook for 2 minutes. Toss with sesame seed and coarse salt. Enjoy!

I actually typed up a bunch of recipes just before New Year’s, but apparently I forgot to post them . . .

I made Spinach & Ricotta Stuffed Shells for Christmas dinner, which included making homemade tomato sauce, which got me thinking about Deep Dish Pizza (because my tomato sauce recipe was developed, over 30 years ago, from one included in a recipe for Deep Dish Pizza).

I should mention that it’s been a few years since I made this Deep Dish Pizza, but I used to make it quite a bit. Growing up outside Chicago in the 60s and 70s, Deep Dish Pizza was all the rage. Making it yourself takes all day, but the result is INCREDIBLE! The crust, from a buttery egg dough, is so yummy that many people prefer to save it and spread it with butter as a separate treat. A great party can be had from doubling the dough recipe and having guests bring their favorite topping ingredients. Back before I owned a pizza stone and deep dish pizza pans, I used to bake these pizzas in any oven-safe frying pan (cast iron is good, or anything that doesn’t have a handle that will melt in the oven). Using different size pans also allows you to personalize the pizzas for different guests.

Nothing else much new on the cooking front, though I just placed an order from King Arthur Flour, so my search for the perfect Italian Bread recipe will be on again soon. I ordered Duram Flour, Semolina and a special Italian Style Flour in the hopes that some combination of these will do the trick!

Of course I’m very excited about the recent inauguration of President Barack Obama. I have to refrain from singing “Oh Happy Day!” everywhere I go I posted lots of inaugural links to my Facebook page, but will try to include some of them here for those of you not on Facebook.

But all this writing about food has made me hungry, so I must go get some lunch!