Asparagus and Mushroom Quiche

I've always wanted to try making a quiche, but for some reason, I never had the guts to do so. I don't know why the idea of making quiche intimidated me so much. It's a very straight forward dish. Chop veggies. Cook meat if you want it in there. Throw everything into a pie crust. Bake and serve with a fruit to round the meal out. Now what's so threatening about that?

This recipe was so easy to make and tasted so delicious I'll be making it again this week.

Asparagus and Mushroom Quiche
6 slices bacon
1/2 cup chopped shallot (or about 2 bulbs)
1 cup mushrooms, stem and ribs removed, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup chopped fresh asparagus
1 (8 inch) unbaked pie shell
1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
3 eggs
3/4 cup half-and-half cream or whole milk
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
Fresh ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
1 egg white, lightly beaten (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

1. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, nutmeg and pepper until smooth. Set aside.

2. Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until just cooked. Drain on paper towels, chop and set aside. Don't drain the bacon fat from the pan.

3. Add onions to bacon fat; cook and stir until translucent. Add the mushroom and asparagus, and cook until asparagus is barely tender.  Mix the chopped bacon into the cooked vegetables.

4. Brush the pie shell with the beaten egg white, if using. Place the vegetable and bacon mixture into the bottom of the pie shell. Sprinkle the Cheddar and feta cheeses over the vegetables. Pour the egg and milk mixture over the vegetable and cheese filling.

5. Bake uncovered for 35 to 40 minutes, or until firm and lightly browned on top. Let cool to room temperature before serving.

*This recipe was adapted from one on All Recipes.

Waffle Wednesday - Gingerbread Waffles

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. One of my earliest kitchen memories was making pancakes for my family. Well, to be honest, I wanted the pancakes for myself, and had to make them if I was going to get them, and my family just happened to benefit from my cravings. I make pancakes all the time. I have a special griddle that I use only with pancakes. But pancakes aren't the topic of this post--stay focused, girl!

Anyway, on Wednesday's, my 8 year old's school starts an hour late. At the beginning of the school year, I decided to start "Waffle Wednesday's" as a way to a) get my baking and sweets fix in, and b) give my boys something besides cereal and oatmeal for breakfast.

I usually just whip up a batch of Bisquick's waffles but I'm getting pretty tired them (and Bisquick in general). I tried another basic waffle recipe that wasn't anything worth writing home about, and then I came across Gingerbread Waffles. What? Cookies for breakfast, and with syrup? LOL Sold!

So where are the step-by-step pictures I've been doing so far, your asking? Well... I did take a few pictures, and they either came out blurry or just not that visually appealing... OK, fine. I'll give you one:

 

DH said they would taste good with powdered sugar. "They'd look good with powdered sugar," I replied... So, the next time I make these, I'll be sure to update this post with more tantalizing pictures.

My 8yo gobbled these up, and the house smells like Christmas! I can't wait to make these again next Waffle Wednesday...

Gingerbread Waffles

3 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup molasses (I only had ~1/3 cup, and couldn't tell it was lacking)
1 cup buttermilk ( or 1 TBS lemon juice, fill the rest of the 1 cup with milk. Let sit for 5 minutes)
1 and 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 tablepoon (3/4 stick) butter -- melted and cooled (I used canola oil to save time)
Preheat waffle iron to medium.

In a small bowl, beat eggs until light and fluffy. Add sugar, molasses and buttermilk, then beat.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Add to batter and stir until smooth, then add butter and combine.

Pour about 1/2 to 3/4 cup batter into very hot waffle iron and bake for four to five minutes. Serve hot.

Momma's Slow Cooked Creamy Chicken Soup

In my last post I talked about the egg noodles I made to go with my chicken soup. I've been making this soup for years, and make it a little different every time depending on what's in my fridge that needs to be used up. I don't know what the original recipe is anymore. I just throw a bunch of things together, so I think I can call this one my own creation!

Throw all of your ingredients into your slow cooker. You can use frozen or thawed chicken breasts, but frozen makes for quicker prep work. Stir it all up, put the lid on, and let it cook.

 

Shred the chicken.

 

Put the shredded chicken back in your crock. If you're serving with dumplings, add them to the soup at this point.

 

 Nom!

 

*The quantities and ingredients for this recipe can easily be adjusted to meet your own chicken soup preferences*

Momma's Slow Cooked Creamy Chicken Soup
4 - 5 chicken breasts
2 - 10.5 ounce cans condensed cream of chicken soup (I use Campbell's Healthy Request soup)
Refill 1 emptied can of soup with chicken stock (I use Swanson's Natural Goodness broth), or water, or 1/2 stock or water and 1/2 white wine
3 celery stocks, chopped
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 large sweet pepper, chopped
1/2 - 3/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
a few dashes of black pepper
a few dashes of hot sauce or cayenne pepper (optional)
1 can Pillsbury Grands Buttermilk Biscuits, each biscuit quartered, or noodles or rice


Throw it all into your slow cooker, put the lid on, and cook on low for 8 hours, or medium-high for 4 - 5 hours.

When your chicken is cooked or 30 to 60 minutes before serving, take the chicken out and shred. At this point you can add the quartered biscuits on top of the soup. Replace the lid and let the dumplings cook. If you have an oven-safe crock pot, you can put the crock in the oven at 325 for 5 - 10 minutes to cook the tops of the dumplings. This will give them more of a biscuit-y texture.

As I mentioned in my noodle post, I'd never served them with this soup before, so to avoid ruining them, I cooked them separately. I put them in each bowl, and spooned the soup over the noodles.

Enjoy!

Adventures in Noodle Making

Yesterday I made a slow cooker chicken soup, and instead of adding the usual dumplings on top, I decided to try my hand at making egg noodles. I've never made noodles or pasta before, so I had fun with this task.

Stir the flour and salt, then add the remaining ingredients and mix. You can use your stand mixer or food processor for this step.

I put latex gloves on and used my hands (my nails are long). Mine was still pretty gooey...

 

 ...so on to the floured surface! Our countertop is tiled (so silly) so I use an extra large textured cutting board. I actually prefer this to a smooth surface because the flour spreads out more evenly.

  

 When DH was hanging outside with the boys, he snuck a pic of me.

  

 Separate the dough into sections and roll. The rings on the rolling pin are nice for people like me who are horrible at estimating correct thickness and rolling evenly. I rolled the dough 1/8inches thick.

  

The Better Homes and Gardens cook book gives a few different cutting methods.

  

I didn't really like the roll and slice method. My dough was still sticky enough on the inside that the noodles stuck together. I'm also not the greatest at even slices.

  

Cutting with a pizza cutter gave much better results--except for the uneven noodles lol. Separate noodles and let air dry. Or you can cook right away if you're in a hurry...

  

I wasn't sure how the noodles would turn out if I added directly to the slow cooker, so I cooked them separately. They took about 2 minutes to cook.

 

This was a great change from the usual dumplings!

I chose this noodle recipe because it uses milk instead of water...

Egg Noodles
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 pinch salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter

Stir the flour and salt together. Add the egg, milk, and butter. Knead dough for about 5 minutes. Let rest in a covered bowl for 10 minutes.
On a floured surface, roll out to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into desired lengths and shapes.
Allow to air dry before cooking.
To cook fresh pasta, in a large pot with boiling salted water cook until al dente.

A few storage tips from Better Homes and Gardens:

"Spread on a wire cooling rack. Let noodles dry overnight to until completely dry; place in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to three days. Or let the noodles dry for at least one hour and seal in a freezer bag or container; freeze up to eight months."

Homemade Bread

As I get older more mature, I am taking harder looks at the foods I buy and serve my family. I'm not an all natural, all organic fanatic by any means (I think I like my Oreos and my Eddy's full-fat ice cream too much), but with all of the things in the media on an almost hourly basis about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), pesticides, and artificial everything, I have been taking gradual steps to reduce them in our diets.

One of the first things I decided to change was our bread. I took a look at the ingredients in the whole wheat store-bought bread I'd been serving the boys. When I discovered HFCS along with other things I couldn't pronounce, I made the choice to begin making bread from scratch. I mean, if this is a food item my children eat on a daily basis, the least I can do is make it healthier. Fortunately, I already had the bread machine collecting dust at home...

I've been making home made bread for almost a year now, and would like to share our family favorite plus a few tips I've learned on the way with you. I am not a bread expert, and I know some of my methods are perhaps unconventional and nontraditional, but they work well for me...

My Work Horse

Ingredients

You may need to scrape the sides of your bread pan.

Check the dough's texture to see if more flour is needed (like mine did below). I've found that adding vital wheat gluten* to my dough makes the dough slightly stickier overall.

My bread machine has 3 rises so that's what I do (most recipes state bread should rise 2 times before baking). After the 2nd rise, I place the dough on a lightly greased cutting board, use a long serrated knife to cut in half. I grease my hands then place the dough in 2 lightly greased 1.5 quart bread pans.

The dough rises for a 3rd time in a barely warmed oven for 20 minutes before I turn the oven on (leaving the dough in the oven), and bake for 25-30 minutes.

The finished product--almost. By now your mouth is watering, right? Well, take your loaves out of the pans immediately so they don't become soggy. There's a lot of moisture in there that needs to escape.

Also, don't I repeat, DON'T cut into the bread right away. I know, it's sooo hard to resist eating piping hot bread slathered in butter and jam, but if you do, your bread will become gummy. Wait at least 30 minutes before slicing.

Honey Whole Wheat Bread
I set my machine to the "two pound" setting.

2 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup honey
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups bread flour
1.5 teaspoons vital wheat gluten
1 tablespoon active dry yeast

*Vital wheat gluten helps with the elasticity of the dough, and IMO, makes the final product lighter and fluffier in texture.

Welcome!

I've always enjoyed cooking and baking... Growing up, I used to help my mom cook things like tacos and pancakes, but I didn't really start learning about the components of it all until I started cooking for my own family over eight years ago. It brings me great joy in sharing food and culinary tidbits I've learned, so I'm starting this blog as an extension of that.

Most of the things I cook and bake come from others, but I really enjoy altering what I find to suit our tastes and items on hand. I'll be sure to give credit where credit is due.

I hope you enjoy, and thanks for visiting!