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Archive for the ‘good food’ Category

Kitchen Roselli, 131 Main and Greek couscous salad

Something in the Thai Steak Salad dressing at 131 Main in Cornelius (NC) tugged at the corners of my palate. Something familiar but unusual in an entrée salad. A blast of  summery green not usually keeping company with butter-tender bits of filet mignon. They added fresh mint to amp up the beef, mango, noodles and green onions. Good thing I’d started with the wild mushroom-artichoke soup because the Thai flavorings would have blown that mild-mannered soup out of the water, taste-wise.

Three days after that Stoic the Vast and I made our winding way to Kitchen Roselli in East Bend (NC), another taste treat from start to finish. I know it was really good because Stoic didn’t go ballistic over the bill. The service was lovely, it was the best antipasto I’ve ever eaten (good cheeses and salami are key), they make their own bread, pasta and desserts. Stoic had a gargantuan cream puff drenched in dark chocolate and I (virtuous smirk) had lemon sorbet. Of course, I also drank about half the bottle of Sicilian wine that tasted like Michael Corleone’s bee-buzzing honeymoon  looked (but without the nasty explosions).

Easy to put together, this couscous salad makes 10 servings -- enough for several lunchboxes.

Easy to put together, this couscous salad makes 10 servings — enough for several lunchboxes.

Then Monday we finally had a sunny spring day and I felt like cooking, not just like eating (a key difference). I tried the Greek Couscous with Olives from a recent American Profile newspaper supplement, and both I and Stoic were enthusiastic. The thread here is fresh herbs — mint in the Thai salad, basil in the penne with vodka sauce and rosemary on Kitchen Roselli’s focaccia and mint in this salad.

A tiny piece of Krusteaz’s honey cornbread, a dish of applesauce and the last of the Villa Pozzi Nero d’Avola made a terrific supper. I’m struggling to keep myself on the diet wagon, and with food and drink like this, I feel as though I’ve eaten something, not just anything. I’d suggest tasting your red onion before adding it. If it’s got as much of a whammy as ours did, you might want to soak it in ice water for an hour or so before combining with other ingredients. Either that or chop it into pieces big enough to pick out!

Shirley Herb from Northumberland (PA), about 25 minutes from where I grew up, submitted this good recipe to American Profile. Take it to picnics this summer because it’s good, it’s different and it has no easily perishable ingredients.

Greek couscous with olives

1-1/4 cups water

1 cup couscous (whole wheat if you like)

1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and diced

1/2 cup chopped red onion

6 ounces marinated artichoke hearts, drained and quartered

1 cup ripe olives, minced

3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

1/3 cup fresh mint leaves, shredded

2 large garlic cloves, minced

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 generous pinch salt

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (I used slightly less)

1/2 cup good-quality olive oil (make sure, because this is what you’ll taste)

Romaine lettuce

Tomato wedges

3 tablespoons toasted pine nuts**

Bring water to boil. Pour over couscous in heat-resistant pan or bowl. Cover, remove from heat and let stand 5 minutes.

Add bell pepper, onion, artichokes, olives and cheese to couscous and toss.

In glass jar with lid combine mint, garlic, pepper, salt, lemon juice and olive oil. Shake well to blend.

Pour dressing over couscous mixture and stir to combine. Refrigerate, covered, until chilled.

To serve, line salad bowl or individual salad servers with Romaine leaves. Garnish couscous mixture with tomato and sprinkle with pine nuts. Serves 10 at 250 calories, 17 g fat each.

** I like to say I’m not a Wal-Mart fan, but their pine nuts cost a fraction of  others’ prices. Also, have you tried their Cara Cara oranges? Seedless and the taste is somewhere between that of a naval orange and, a blood orange.

Category:

Couscous, good food, healthy cooking, Olive oil, Salad, Simple foods, Spring, Tomatoes

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Best crockpot potatoes ever

Plug, plug, plug. This is what I do every day. Work at turning eating in a healthy way into a way of life. A lifestyle even. Keep track of my calories. Measure food with scales, cups and spoons. Exercise. Exercise more. Drink quarts and quarts of water. Sleep.

On the plus side my flowers look as good as they’ve ever looked in the almost 23 years we’ve lived up here on our hilltop. On the minus, I’m not much fun, collapsing into my recliner before it gets dark and trudging to bed not long after that!  Today I did my 15 minutes worth of yoga,  rode my newly tuned-up bike for 45, then weeded and clipped irises for two hours. Whew!

This week I’ve also weeded around the rhubarb and realize we probably have some of those lovely red stalks out there now, ready to eat. I’ve picked huge heads of broccoli and found them full of small jade-colored worms that have crawled in to spin their cocoons (a saltwater soak disposes of them most efficiently). I’ve picked lettuce that’s somehow stayed green and crispy in this summer heat (90s today), cleaned up around our two apple trees, pruned 3 gigantic mock orange bushes, several shaggy harlequin glorybower and forsythia bushes. I’ve made an impatiens bed for coral and salmon-colored blossoms and planted 14 basil babies ($2 at Walmart) in the herb bed. I am gardening woman, hear me moan.

The upside here is I lunched on our neighbor Anne Cain’s amazing goat cheese terrine with pesto, sun-dried tomatoes and green olives spread on good garlic crackers. Even with a lime fruit bar (70 calories) for dessert, I still haven’t eaten as many calories as I’ve burned. (Remember, I track calories in and calories out for free on livestrong.com.)

I think I decided (!) yesterday that I’d like to lose 30 more pounds and that it will probably take at least a year, but that’s OK. I don’t want to give up all things tasty, just plan to continue moderating how much I eat. This morning’s breakfast, for instance: One serving of a 277-calorie per serving blackberry cobbler with 1/2 cup of plain Greek yogurt (another 70 calories).

With these potatoes, which were devoured before I remembered to take their picture, I trimmed fat from the recipe (original recipe called for 1 pound bacon, among other mind-boggling extravagances) and ate no more than 1/2 cup per meal, much as I wanted to devour the entire slow cooker-full!

Best crockpot potatoes ever

3 pounds potatoes, peeled and cut into slices, cooked in gently boiling water until done, about 15 minutes

2 ounces Cheddar cheese

3 ounces Parmesan cheese

5 ounces reduced-fat ricotta cheese

5 slices bacon, cooked, drained and crumbled

Salt and pepper to taste

Mix 3 cheeses. Layer in slow cooker with potatoes and bacon crumbles. Cook on low for 3 to 4 hours and try not to eat the whole thing

 

Category:

good food, Rural life, Simple foods, Weight loss

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Baby onions, grown-up onions

Baby onions have stems no bigger than the stick on a Q-tip. The easiest way to slip them to their 1-inch recommended depth is to use a dibble planter with inches marked on it (like the one made for me by my friend Jerry Keys out of poplar wood). Poke a hole to 1 inch, plop in the onion and firm the earth around it. Just make sure that your onions can enjoy all-day sunbathing — I put a few in a shady nook  to see what would happen (and because I was out of onion room) and they haven’t grown a bit, just moped.

Baby onions waiting to go in ground. The established plants in each hill are garlic and leeks.

If your onions do something more productive than mope in the shade, someday you can enjoy this onion tart from the April 2011 issue of Cooking Light.  A rustic crust like this (no pan) is also called a galette. This one is heady with the earthy flavors of roasted onion, feta and Swiss cheese and fresh thyme. My thyme plants are also mopey (or deceased) so I used 2 teaspoons dried thyme instead of 2 tablespoons chopped fresh. The magazine suggested an arugula and walnut salad to accompany since neither of those ingredients will be overpowered by the  onions and cheese.

Onion tart

1 tablespoon olive oil

2-1/2 pounds onions, peeled, trimmed and thinly sliced

2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 14.1-ounce package refrigerated pie dough (1 crust)

1/4 cup crumbled reduced-fat feta cheese

1/4 cup shredded reduced-fat Swiss cheese

1 large egg, lightly beaten with 2 tablespoons water

Heat oven to 425º. Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, thyme, salt and pepper; cook 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Roll or stretch out dough on parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle feta cheese in center, leaving 1-1/2-inch border; top with onion. Sprinkle with Swiss cheese. Fold piecrust border up and over onion mixture, pleating as you go, leaving a 6-inch-wide opening.

Combine egg and water; brush over dough. Bake at 425º for 25 minutes or until golden. Cool for 10 minutes. Makes 4 servings, 402 calories, 9 g fat each.

Onion galette with the last of our 2011 onion crop.

 

Category:

good food, healthy cooking, Local food, Rural life, Simple foods

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Set points, sloppy joes and settling points

I think I’m happy to have found this article by Joseph Hooper in the March issue of Elle magazine. It explains why I went at weight work this morning with a bang that’s left me still breathing hard 20 minutes afterward.

There’s no reason for this piece to be titled “Sexy and I Know It,” unless that hed is for a monthly column because the piece itself is about keeping weight off after you lose it and how very, very tough that is (only 2 to 20 percent of losers manage). Mostly, because our bodies themselves are fighting our good intentions. (I nominate myself for a place in what he calls the “one-woman hunger museum.”)

Science is pretty clear by now that anyone losing more than 10 percent of her/his body weight “experience(s) a corresponding change in crucial appetite-regulating hormones.” In other damn words, lose weight and feel hungrier.

And while I’m losing weight, science also says my metabolism is slowing down. Curses! As if it weren’t already comatose. So I can only be successful by doing as the author’s wife — paying “undying attention to what she eats and how much she exercises.”

The silver lining in this big, purple cloud is “outfoxing our uncooperative physiolog(ies) with exercise. ” Weight training and sprint work seem to help, but “The most important priority is to get regular exercise and plenty of it,” as much as one hour daily.

This is a really well-written and researched piece (why I keep lifting quotations). Hooper cites Dr.George Blackburn as recommending that we lose no more than 10 percent of our weight, slowly, then simply maintain that loss for six months “to let your body metabolically recalibrate.” Jury’s still out on whether our bodies actually do that, but I like the idea of just staying for a bit at this weight of 198, which is probably what the authors call my set point. My settling point, which they also use, is probably more like it. Eventually, I’d like to not settle and continue on my way to 174.

In the meantime, I’ll eat a diet heavy in vegetables and fruit, curtail sugar (maybe even dairy and gluten when I can without being a diet diva), and exercise, exercise, exercise. Oh, and get plenty of sleep. Hoping someday to, paraphrasing Hooper, embrace healthier new habits as real pleasures.

I know you can use protein crumbles in your same old, same old sloppy joe recipe, but I’m not supposed to eat soy (too much estrogen) so I  really enjoyed this variation from the April issue of Parenting magazine. My best guess is about 400 calories per sandwich with an onion hamburger bun, 1 ounce of grated cheddar and 1/2 cup of the sloppy joe mixture.

Black bean and salsa sloppy joes

I used a corn and black bean salsa which ups the protein content ever so slightly.

2 teaspoons olive oil

3 minced garlic cloves

2-1/2 cups rinsed, drained canned black beans

1 15-ounce jar mild chunky salsa

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon Dijon-type mustard

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon salt

Cheddar cheese, shredded

In large skillet, heat oil and add garlic, sauteing until golden (don’t leave — it chars in the blink of an eye). Stir in beans, salsa, brown sugar, Worcestershire, mustard, cumin and salt. Bring to simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Spoon onto buns and top with cheese. Stuffs 4 sandwiches.

Category:

good food, healthy cooking, Maintaining weight loss, Sandwiches, Simple foods, vegetables, Why overweight?

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Neuroses, chocolate bunnies and tuna casserole

I will never be able to eat everything I want to eat. I will never be able to eat enough to make me “happy” (read: numb). I will never be able to eat enough to make me feel loved, appreciated, beautiful, fill in the blank (and this I mean literally — the hollow that is within me is like that of a chocolate bunny).

OK, having realized that, can I now move on with my life? Please? Millions of privileged, normal-weight people do that daily, hourly even. Look at a cupcake, the rest of the tortilla chips, whatever, and hear an internal voice that says, simply, “No, I can’t.” And that’s the end of it. There’s no tussle back and forth between the lean conscience and the chubby devils on the shoulders. Just: I can’t.

No problem for me with alcohol, drugs and cigarettes. Just the peanuts in the pantry, the ice cream in the freezer.

Years ago as a struggling single mother of two, I remember rushing home from work to a beer or two while I fixed supper. Then the moment that I realized how much I was looking forward to that beer or two and that I couldn’t drink alone and lonely. That was the end of it. Now, I’d like my Easter miracle, please, to be that this is my end of over-eating to make myself “feel better.” I do believe in fairies, I do, I do, or anything else that will help me take this huge step.

Except that nothing can help me. Only I can take it. Again and again. And again. The bunny never feels full, only complete or devoured. I’m aiming at my version of complete, which is the best I can be. Happy Palm Sunday.

And in a lurching segue (oxymoron alert!), this is the best tuna casserole I’ve ever tasted. The recipe says it makes 4 servings, but they are huge. Can easily be 6 or 8 with a huge serving of spring greens beside. And a blood orange is the perfect capper to make you forget you might “need” a cookie or two.  Use reduced-fat sour cream, mayonnaise and milk, and it still has a decadent mouth feel.

Tuna noodle supreme from Ellen Proctor of Great Barrington, MA, on allrecipes.com several years ago:

1-1/2 cups sour cream

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

4 cups cooked small pasta shells (I hate it when a recipe doesn’t give you the amount of UN-cooked pasta — I used 3 cups uncooked, and it made a little more than 4 cups of cooked small shells.)

2 cups broccoli florets

1 12-ounce can tuna, drained and flaked

1/2 cup chopped sweet red pepper

1/2 cup sliced green onions

Heat oven to 350º. In large bowl, combine sour cream, mayonnaise, milk, cheese, mustard, salt and pepper. Stir in cooked pasta, broccoli, tuna, red pepper and onions. Transfer to oil-sprayed 2-quart baking dish. Cover and bake for 40 to 45 minutes until hot and bubbly. If you like a little crunch around the edges of your pasta, finish with 5 minutes of uncovered baking time. Note: For either fresh or frozen broccoli florets, throw into pasta cooking water for last minute or two of pasta cooking time. Drain pasta and broccoli together and continue with recipe.

 

Category:

Casseroles, Chocolate, Fish, Food addiction, good food, healthy cooking, Self control, Stress eating, Weight loss, Why overweight?, Willpower

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Seduced and abandoned

Spring, that brazen hussy, sashayed through the open windows yesterday without a care that soon we’ll be ravaged by summer’s awful heat. Every year I forget. Every year I throw open those windows and smell the turned earth, the pear blossoms and the cows. Every year I hear the meadowlarks and the peepers and think, “This year she’ll stay like until fall.”

Matt sheds his winter coat.

With spring’s arrival, the horses let go of their shaggy winter coats. Boom! Just like that, I can pull/brush out enough handfuls of hair from my 34-year-old buckskin Matt Dillon to leave the ground looking as though many furry bunnies have had a violent set-to (the Dead Rabbits perhaps?). The nesting birds will be so happy — horse hair is to to birds what Tyvek insulation is to human builders.

Along with the bluebirds, the beloved college students arrive on spring break. We like the students much more than the bluebirds which tend to develop obsessions with particular mirrors, windows and blue cars and leave behind really messy mementoes of their passion. When the students leave, it’s not messy, but dimmer as though someone put lower wattage bulbs in all the lights.

Red-haired daughter and horses, green grass, blue sky.

We’ve eaten, walked, eaten, watched movies and eaten. Their first night here we ate this Woman’s Day magazine frittata made with baby “bellas,” ricotta and the last of our 2011 leeks.

Leek, mushroom and ricotta cheese frittata

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 leeks, slivered, washed and drained

Salt and pepper

8 ounces mushrooms, sliced

8 large eggs

1/2 cup part-skim ricotta cheese

1/4 cup grated Parmesan (12 ounce)

Heat oven to 400º. Heat oil in large, oven-safe skillet. Add leeks and 1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook, tossing occasionally, until they’ve released their liquid and turned golden brown and tender, 4 to 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in bowl whisk together eggs, ricotta and Parmesan. Add egg mixture to skillet and stir to mix. Transfer to pre-heated oven and bake until knife inserted in center comes out clean, 16 to 18 minutes. Serve with salad and crusty, whole-grain bread. One-fourth of the frittata has 307 calories and 20 grams fat.

Clean skillet by adding a little water, heating and scraping up leftover bits. Dump water and wash as usual.

Category:

Breakfast-brunch, Family, good food, healthy cooking

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Mindful eating of perfect cornbread

Every once in a while I stumble upon a recipe so perfect that I know I’ll never try another version of that particular food.

The Silver Palate brownies with cinnamon and instant coffee (I added those two ingredients) is one. Rhonda Mellott’s baked corn recipe is another, although I’d call it cornbread because it’s more structured than the dish I associate with corn pudding. I started to say “drier”, but dry is the last word I thought when eating this lusciously moist bread with a real corn taste.

World’s best cornbread ever

1 15.25-ounce can whole kernel corn

1 14.75-ounce can cream-style corn

1/2 cup sour cream

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, melted

2 eggs

1 12-ounce package corn muffin mix

 Heat oven to 350°.Combine the whole-kernel corn, cream-style corn, sour

This rich "pudding" is somewhere between cornbread and spoonbread.

cream, melted butter or margarine, beaten eggs and corn muffin mix. Mix until ingredients are just moistened, let stand for 5 minutes and then pour into oil-sprayed 9-x13- inch baking pan. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until firm and beginning to brown. (As you can see, I got carried away last night and revved the oven up to “scorch”.) Serves 10 to 12.

 
Having set down those precise ingredients, I should probably tell you I used half light butter to cut the fat content, took the kernels off 9 ears of corn and used them with about 1/4 cup whipping cream in place of the canned corns.
 
It is so good. I tried to eat it “mindfully,” but I’m afraid I’m just not “mindful eating” material. I’ve promised myself I’ll try and eat more slowly, putting down my utensils now and again and even appreciating what I’m chewing. But the idea of paying to go to a Buddhist monastery to learn how to spend 10 to 20 minutes eating 3 raisins just strikes me as hilarious. At the same time, of course, I realize that if I could do that, I would be reedy.
 

 

Category:

good food, Quick bread, Simple foods, Weight loss

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Roasting/sauteeing produce just past its prime

 

The pitbull's idea of sharing a chair

Nothing like a nice relaxing 20 minutes of yoga on the floor with a 70-pound pitbull who thinks I’m down there to play and a brain-damaged, chatty cat who thinks I’m down there to play pillow.

The yoga and 15 minutes of weight work, plus a 30-minute bike ride in the freezing rain let me tuck into salmon-soy-ginger patties and whole wheat Israeli couscous with currants and toasted pine nuts for supper. Exercise is the surest way I know to avoid snacking in the late afternoon, and the earlier in the day I do it, the more likely I am not to squander that work on some refined carbs.

While I was “relaxing” in savasana (corpse pose), I was remembering being a gleaning coordinator for the Society of St. Andrew, a hunger ministry, and how the gleaners and I used to talk about we knew “how to use a paring knife.” Bruises and blemishes, in other words, didn’t deter us from using the produce we picked from farmers’ fields and orchards.

But without playing fast and loose with food safety, there’s another trick to using produce that’s just past its glory, and that is roasting or sauteeing. Baby carrots, for instance, which so often taste like chair legs

Carrots are charred in spots, tender and sweet.

or fire wood. Heat the oven to 425°, toss in a bit of olive oil, a little salt and pepper, on a rimmed baking sheet, roast, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 15 to 20 minutes, and then add a couple tablespoons balsamic vinegar, along with 1 packed tablespoon brown sugar. Toss again, and you’ll forget you thought those carrots didn’t taste like a thing.

Or apples.  I had 4 boring Granny Smiths that were beginning to soften and shrivel. I put 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter in a saute pan and peeled and sliced the apples. When the pan was warm and the butter melted, I added the apple slices, along with 1 packed tablespoon brown sugar and a generous half teaspoon of apple pie spice. Had the apples been even more boring than they were, I’d have added the juice of half a lemon. Stir fry over medium-high until the apples soften. Technically, these are fried apples, but I choose to ignore that. They are wonderful. Apple pie without the crust and ice cream.

Now all I have to do is clean off the cat hair and dog spit so I can go to choir without smelling like a pet shop.

Cat in search of padding

Category:

Exercise, Fruit, good food, healthy cooking, vegetables, Weight loss

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Chicken corn soup and cranberry-orange bread — who I am

Plump pieces of chicken and hard-boiled egg give this soup a satisfying "mouth feel" beyond the combination of ingredients.

My father’s mother was so Pennsylvania Dutch she spoke it. My mother’s mother, so Northeastern WASP she spoke that!

 My father loved Pennsylvania Dutch food so my passive-aggressive mother never fixed it. (Her friend Doris G. made this soup.) She loved struggling with cranberries to see if she couldn’t get her smooth sauce to gel just like her Great-aunt Helen’s. When she couldn’t (and I can’t figure out what was so tough about it), she turned it into cranberry juice for a palate cleanser, I guess, at the wooden picnic table and benches where we ate most of our meals when I was young and miserable.

So my lunch today is a salute to that backstory. Even if we never talked at the table, except for my father criticizing us or the food or the time (2 minutes past 5 p.m. for supper was a no-no), I enjoyed the food and I’ve found no-fail recipes for both chicken corn soup (very Pa. Deutsch or Dutch) and a lovely, fragrant cranberry bread (very WASPish) with little sugar and no vanilla but lots of orange.

The Central Market Cookbook (1989) from the same in Lancaster, Pa., was a gift from Ruthie Z., one of my high school heartfriends, and also the source of the soup recipe.

Homemade chicken corn soup

4- to 5-pound chicken, cut up

6 cups chicken broth

6 cups water

1 14-1/2-ounce can yellow corn kernels, rinsed and drained

1 14-1/2-ounce can white corn kernels, same

4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and diced

A handful of minced fresh parsley

6  ounces noodles

Salt and pepper to taste

Saffron to taste (up to 1/4 teaspoon)

1 cup boiling water

Cook chicken in water to cover (or use leftover cut-up chicken). Remove from broth and cool. Skim fat from broth. Chop chicken.

Place chicken, broth and water in 6-quart kettle. In separate saucer pour boiling water over saffron to intensify golden color and flavor.

Add corn, eggs and parsley to chicken in kettle. Break noodles and add, along with salt, pepper and saffron water. Stir and simmer until hot. Serves 12 to 16.

 

 

 

Category:

Family, Family recipes, good food, healthy cooking, Simple foods, Soup

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Gray rainy (grainy?) day quiche

Despite the fuzzy image, the apple-bacon-blue cheese quiche is clearly a treat. Also clearly a smidge overbaked.

OK, any day’s good for a well-made quiche, but it seems particularly appropriate on this gloomy-gus Wednesday while we deal with the last of the germs that accompanied us home from our recent trip to Baltimore, Boston and Gettysburg.

Quiche is easy to prepare and even easier to enjoy. It’s soft and comforting as a baby’s “lovey” (what my kids called their security blankets), gentle on the tastebuds, the digestion and not even too horrible on the calorie count.You can’t eat it everyday, but it can certainly be a once-in-a-while treat at any of the daily meals. And it follows the nutritional guidelines that suggest making cured meat and cheese more like condiments.

Mark Bittman of The New York Times just published this quiche recipe, which includes a flaky crust from scratch. I’m too lazy to make the crust, am almost always happy with Pillsbury. I am in possession of my mother’s no-fail piecrust recipe and it is (no-fail), but I’m not nearly as inclined to suffer for my art as was she.

If you’re a big rosemary fan, you might up the one teaspoon minced. That amount adds to the full mouth taste of this quiche, but you never feel like you’re munching on pine branches. If you like that feeling, mince more!

Bacon and apple quiche

Piecrust for 9-inch deep dish

8 to 10 slices of good bacon (seriously, is there BAD bacon?), cooked to a crisp, drained (1 tablespoon fat reserved) and crumbled

2 large apples, peeled, cored and then grated or chopped (I used Granny Smiths and liked the way they stood up to the other flavors)

Salt (1/2 teaspoon?) and freshly ground pepper (to taste) 

1 teaspoon fresh rosemary needles, minced

1/4 cup blue cheese crumbles (can use reduced-fat)

4 eggs, room temperature

1-1/3 cups cream (might try whole milk next time — this time I was using up the leftover whipping cream from the holidays)

Prepare piecrust however you wish; transfer to pie plate and crimp edges. Heat oven to 425 with a rack in the middle.  Line crust with double layer of foil; cover with dry beans, uncooked rice or pie weights. Bake 8 to 12 minutes or until crust begins to brown, remove from oven and reduce heat to 375.

Add 1 tablespoon reserved bacon fat to skillet and fry chopped apples with salt, pepper and rosemary. Cook on medium-high, stirring frequently to prevent rosemary scorching, until apples are soft and lightly browned, about 15 minutes. Spread cooked apples in pie crust (pie weights and foil removed, obviously), sprinkle with bacon and cheese.

Whisk together eggs and cream. Put shell with apple, bacon and cheese on baking sheet and pour in egg mixture. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until almost firm (it should still jiggle a little in the middle) and lightly browned on top. Cool on rack for a few minutes and serve warm, cold or room temp. Serves 6.

Just because the weather COULD be worse. This is our upstairs bathroom the day after the July 2005 tornado that removed our roof and dumped 10 inches of rain in an hour! My friend Maggie's photo looks like a Dali painting to me.

Category:

good food, Quiche, Simple foods

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