Bacon quiche

Why have I never made a quiche before? Don't let it's French nature make you think it's complicated.

I made a fritata a while back and I thought that quiche would be more or less the same just with a crust. No, no, no. This quiche was amazing, much better than a fritata. It was one of those times I was glad to live alone, so no one was around to see how much I ate.

I adapted a bacon quiche recipe because frankly, I wasn't willing to purchase two different milk products. What am I going to with all the leftover half and half and cream? Also, I'm just saying half and half is part cream and part milk, am I wrong here? So the simpler much Lacey version is below, so this might not be super authentic but I assure you, it was delicious.

Lacey's easy bacon quiche

1 frozen pie crust, 9" deep dish, thawed
5 eggs
1/2 pint light cream (aka 1 cup but the package at the store says a 1/2 pint)
2 Tb flour
8 strips of bacon, cooked, crumbled
1 cup shredded cheddar
1 cup shredded swiss
1 Tb of Tradder Joe's 21 seasoning salute *this is great in eggs but if you don't have a TJs around, you can substitute another seasoning blend
dash salt
dash pepper


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat eggs and cream thoroughly. Mix in flour, cheeses, bacon and seasonings. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until center of quiche is firm.

I cannon stress enough how good this quiche was. It does take quite a while to bake all the way through, mine was in the oven at least 45 minutes, so be prepared for that. Also, the pie crust will be really full, I spilled it all down the cabinet, my dog had a great morning licking it up while I was putting the quiche in the oven. The (very limited) leftovers are going to work for lunch tomorrow. Now, go be fancy and make yourself a quiche!

One strange thing that happened, possibly because it was so full, the crust popped right out of the plate! I've never seen that happen!

Cheesecake brownies

If you've been on pinterest ever, you've probably seen some of these brownie + other dessert recipes (mostly they're brownie cookie combos). I recently saw one for cheesecake brownies. I love cheesecake and I love brownies. Cheesecake because it's delicious and brownies because they're easy and delicious.

The inspiration for the cheesecake brownies came from this recipe for frosted cream cheese brownies but to be honest, it looked a little complicated and I thought that frosting brownies was overkill on the sugar.

My version went like this:

Brownie mix, family size, prepared

Cheesecake mix*
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
dash of salt

*You might want to double the cheesecake mix.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 9 x 13" pan. Prepare your brownie mix according to the package directions and set aside. In a medium sized bowl beat the cream cheese, egg, vanilla and salt together. Pour brownie mixture into your pan, reserving 2 cups. Scoop the cheesecake mix on top and then the remaining brownie mix. Using a knife swirl the brownie mix and cheesecake together. Bake for 30-40 minutes.

The cheesecake was a little lacking in the brownies, so you might want to double that. The pan will be full so definitely use a 9x13 pan, you'll get pretty thick brownies even with the larger pan.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin cupcakes with buttercream icing

It is officially Fall. Alright, it's been Fall for a while but the weather has been surprisingly warm during early Fall in DC so I wasn't feeling very Autumnal. However, that has changed now and I'm ready to bake with pumpkin, make butternut squash soup and drink hot coca!

Plus I've been seeing pumpkin recipes on Pinterest since at least July.

Pumpkin Cupcakes
adapted from Martha Stewart's pumpkin cupcakes

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree

 

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly (be sure the butter mixed in well). Fill  muffin cups with paper liners and then fill 1/3 full with batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Makes 2 dozen.

Buttercream icing

Ingredients*

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

2-3 cups of powdered sugar, divided

1 tsp vanilla extract

In medium mixing bowl, beat the stick of butter, 1 cup of powdered sugar and the vanilla until well mixed. While mixing, add additional powdered sugar until it reaches the desired sweetness.

*Note: You can also add 1-2 Tb of heavy cream to get a fluffier icing

These cupcakes were amazing. I already want to make more. The biggest compliment was my boyfriend (who doesn't eat) eating 3 before 1pm. My biggest mistake was taking them to work and giving a bunch away instead of eating them all myself. Unfortunately the photos did not turn out well but trust me - they were so, so good.

Hurricane baking

Hurricane Sandy is currently dumping rain on the East Coast. Thankfully, DC is further inland than a lot of other cites and we don't (so far at least) have any high winds, just lots and lots of rain.

What to do when there is a hurricane and you can't go outside? Why bake of course! Gotta use all the eggs in case the power goes out. Plus, baked goods are already prepared and make a great high calorie food source should the need arise (hopefully, it won't).

Alright, I was planning to make banana bread anyway, I just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Since I really can't (and shouldn't try to) go anywhere, I found the time!

There are hundreds of banana bread recipes out there. Why do I like this one? It makes one loaf. Most quick bread recipes make at least two. Now, breads do freeze very well so if you want to make more, go for it.

You can find the recipe here. If you want to add chocolate chips (like I did), mix 1 cup of chocolate chips into the batter.

Make pudding with almond milk!

You may have noticed a small notice on the back of instant pudding boxes warning users that instant pudding can't be made with soy milk. The internet tells me this is because something in cow's milk it what causes the pudding to set up.

I unfortunately noticed this little moniker after coming home from the grocery store, intending to use almond milk to make pudding for dirt cake. There was no way I was going back to the store.

Enter cornstarch.

You can make instant pudding (I made butterscotch) with almond milk! This is what you need:

1 (small) package instant pudding
2 tsp corn starch
1 1/2 cups almond milk

Mix the corn starch in with the pudding mix and slowly add the almond milk while whisking all of the ingredients together. Allow the pudding to chill.

Scallops in white wine sauce

My infatuation with Asian cooking did not seem to last long, I'm back to the Mediterranean! Though, I am still planning on giving Pad See Ewe at try (even though everything I've read says you need a commercial gas oven to make it taste right) and something with peanut sauce.

Anyway I randomly bought some bay scallops (ie the little ones) a while back. In the US it seems we eat a lot more jumbo scallops, normally grilled, but in Italy they would show up in the delicious seafood medley pasta dishes with very light wine or butter sauces. Heaven? Heaven.

I thought, I could do this. I make mussels in a wine sauce, why not some scallops? Earlier that day, I was looking at my garden, specifically the rosemary and it seemed like it might just go nicely in this sauce. Plus the parsley at the grocery store was looking pretty sad that day.

Ingredients
Bay scallops, 8 oz
linguini, 6oz (~1/2 box)
2 cups white wine
5 Tb of butter, separated
3-4 sprigs of fresh rosemary (remove leaves from stem)
1 tomato, diced
Garlic, to taste
Salt to taste

Heat 1 Tb of butter in a large sauce pan on med-high to high heat. When the pan is hot and the butter melted add the scallops and sear for 1-2 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.

In the same pan, add the remaining butter and the wine. Stir occasionally until the butter is melted and add the tomatoes, rosemary leaves, garlic and salt. Simmer on med-high heat and reduce the sauce for about 20-25 minutes or until it reaches desired thickness (should reduce by about half).

When the sauce has been reducing for approximately 10 minutes, begin preparing pasta according to the package directions (ie start boiling water around this time or the sauce won't be reduced enough). When the pasta is al dente, drain it and put in the sauce pan with the wine sauce and add the scallops. Toss the pasta and scallops in the sauce and allow to simmer for 1-3 minutes (this will give the pasta a nice flavor and heat up the scallops a bit). Serve immediately. Makes two adult-sized servings.

In the photo you will notice I had a bunch of scallops, I actually made this with a 16 oz package and the ratio was just too much, so I scaled it back.

Also, you don't want leftovers from this dish - it just won't be that great the second time around, mostly because re-heating will over cook your scallops and make them chewy. They cook very quickly - don't over do it, really a minute or maximum two is plenty.

One final note, this sauce is a basic wine-butter sauce and almost exactly like this one for mussels - try it on both pasta and mussels and expand your repertoire!

Enjoy!

Working on Thai food

I'm working on learning more about Asian cooking. About six months ago, I had Pad See Ewe for the first time and I'm a little obsessed. I started this week by making an impromptu rice noodle stir fry, my first time cooking with rice noodles. Be on the lookout for some Asian cooking recipes!