Quiche!

People were asking me this weekend for my quiche recipe, but since I don't usually use recipes it was kind of hard to answer. But here I'm going to type up my basic method and then a more detailed version of what I did Saturday and hopefully that will help!

SUPER BASIC RECIPE/TIPS

The basic method I follow is cook up whatever veggies/meat/deliciousness I want in my quiche until it is cooked well enough to just eat on its own, toss it with whatever cheese I want and about half fill a frozen pastry crust with it. I beat together eggs, milk, salt, pepper (sometimes other stuff like onion/garlic salt or oregano) and sometimes additional cheese and pour it over the "stuffs" to just about fill up the rest of the crust (keep in mind the eggs expand), and cook in a 350F oven until the center is set (about 35-45 minutes).

Have fun mixing and matching your fillings. Below I typed up the quiche I made this weekend with the most "stuffs", but the other one just had steamed broccoli with a bit o' garlic and a ton of cheddar cheese.

ACTUAL DETAILED RECIPE

Ingredients:

Frozen pastry crust, deep dish means more STUFFS! (optional if you don't like crusts)

Butter

Onion, maybe a half or less depending on how much you want, cut into long thin strips

Garlic, 2-3 cloves minced

Mushrooms, about a cup, chopped into about 1/2" pieces

Sausage, 3-4 links or patties, fully cooked and chopped up

Feta

Eggs, 3-4 depending on how much stuff/how deep your crust is

Milk, about a half cup

Baby spinach, handful of leaves, chopped or torn into slightly smaller pieces

Shredded cheddar

Salt, pepper

Preheat oven to 350F.

Cook the onions in the butter over low heat for a while until they start getting really soft (you want them to end up caramelized or near enough by the time your whole veggie mixture is done). Add the garlic and cook a bit longer. Toss the mushrooms in and cook a bit more. Everything should be getting slightly golden/brown and soft. Toss the baby spinach in and cook just long enough to wilt it/coat it with butter. Note: I usually end up constantly adding butter in small bits to make sure it gets on everything. You don't want the food to burn but you don't want it to be swimming in butter either.When it looks good and cooked, remove from heat.

Toss your cooked veggie mixture with the chopped up sausage and feta and put it on the bottom of your pastry shell, or if you are going the crustless route, on the bottom of a greased pie dish. You want the filling stuff to about half fill your dish, if you have more than that it might not hold together with the egg, if you have too little it won't be overbrimming with delicious stuffs.

Beat your eggs and milk together with salt/pepper/any additional seasonings you want (I put in a little oregano on Saturday). Pour over the stuffs until your crust/dish is just about full. Sprinkle some cheddar over the top.

Pop the whole shebang in the middle of your oven and cook until the center is set (when you wiggle it, the center doesn't look liquidy). About 35-45 minutes.

Happy quiche-ing!

Oktoberfest Treats Part 1- Kielbasa in Beer and Onion Pie

So this past Saturday my parents hosted an Oktoberfest/beer tasting party. The idea came about during a wine tasting party they held a month prior, at which I had gone a bit overboard in terms of the food I prepared (including a layered goat cheese spread, mini-artichoke tarts and lava cakes). So of course I had to make some more themed food. I ended up making four dishes, which I'll cover in two entries.

First up is the first dish I made and by far the easiest. What you see below are literally all of the ingredients I used. I chopped up three pounds of kielbasa and put it in the Crock-pot with three pounds of sauerkraut and two bottles of Sam Adam's 'Oktoberfest" (seemed fitting). Done and done!

If you want to make it, just keep in mind how much sauerkraut you want. If you just want it as a bit of flavoring, I would cut it down to half or even less the total amount of kielbasa. Then again, I don't like sauerkraut at all, so I'm biased. The kielbasa came out wonderfully moist and flavorful. The taste of beer was certainly present but not overpowering.

Next up was "traditional" German Onion Pie. I put traditional in quotes only because our neighbor is from Germany and she had never heard of it before. Regardless, the dish was a tasty success. The first order of business was to chop up roughly 5-6 pounds of onions. Even though it was a bit chilly out, I decided to do the chopping outside. Didn't really feel like destroying the kitchen with the noxious fumes from a zillion onions. I had to cook them up in two different batches because I couldn't fit them all in the pan at the same time.

I chopped up and fried some bacon to start the cooking. I used a bit more than the recipe calls for cuz I like bacon, then cooked the first batch of onions in the bacon grease for added flavor. The second batch I cooked up in butter and added some chopped garlic (not in the recipe, but everything is better with garlic!). All the bacon and onions were mixed together with some sour cream, eggs and cheddar cheese (also not in the recipe, but how could I make something like this without at least a little cheese in it??). The whole delicious mixture fit almost perfectly into two frozen pastry crusts.

Allrecipes said to add some caraway seeds on top. I ended up grinding up some caraway seeds with a bit of pepper and some various onion/garlic seasonings in the motor and lightly sprinkling the whole mix on top.

I think The temperature and/or time on the recipe is off quite a bit. I ended up turning down the heat and also cooking the pies for less time than the directions called for and I was still sad to see they came out darker than I wanted. Ah well.

The pies/quiches were very good. It was literally like a big pile of caramelized onions with just enough "stuff" to hold it all together served on top of a crust...with bacon in it. Delicious! I will probably go have a big slice of the leftovers as brunch when I am done with this entry.

Stay tuned for part two where I talk about the pretzels and my black forest cake!