Real Men Do Eat Quiche

I fixed Quiche Lorraine for dinner tonight.  This is the classic quiche with bacon, onion and swiss cheese.  In my mind, it is the only real quiche.  The Old Farmer actually had seconds.  Over the years, I have found the perfect recipe for it.  You have to follow the instructions exactly, even if you cannot possibly believe it will work.

Printable Version
Before you begin, Preheat Your Oven to 425 Degrees.
Crust:
Prepare a pie crust recipe of your choice.  You are going to be using a 10" pie plate.
Line the pie plate with your thinly rolled pie crust.

Layer in the crust:
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup (about 4 oz.) grated swiss cheese
12 slices crisp-cooked bacon, crumbled

Filling:
4 eggs
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. cayenne
Beat well together and then pour over ingredients in crust.

Now this is the important part.  Bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees.  Turn oven down to 300 degrees and bake an additional 30 minutes.  Remove quiche from the oven.  Let it stand 15 minutes before serving.  When you take it out of the oven, it might seem a little jiggly.  Do not freak out.  It does not need to be baked longer unless a knife inserted comes out with runny egg on it.  Runny. Egg.  It is going to be soft and jiggly.  This is why you let it rest 15 minutes before serving, so that the custard can set (minimum, it's very good refrigerated and served later in the day as well).  Trust the recipe.  It is good.

 And yes, we did already eat half of it.

Potatoes

Yes.  We are of Irish descent.  Potatoes are big around here.  We live in a valley where seed potatoes are grown.  Today, we purchased seed potatoes from our neighbor, Art.  We have red norlands, German butterballs and a type of Yukon that is more disease resistant and easier to grow than regular Yukon golds.  We also have some red fingerlings that we bought at the farmer's market last week.   The Old Farmer had to move a big portion of the haystack (oh how sad, not), because our potato patch alone is going to be enormous.

The most delicious thing to make along about mid-summer is creamed potatoes and peas with new potatoes and garden peas.  Boil potatoes (skins on) and peas until just tender, then make a nice buttery classic white sauce to cover them.  White Sauce Recipe: Printable Version

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

• 2 cups milk
• 
  
• Directions
• In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add flour and stir until the butter and flour are well combined. Pour in milk, stirring constantly as it thickens. 

Hamburger Tomato Soup Casserole

This is a plain sort of hamburger casserole dish that the Old Farmer's mother always made.  It is his favorite.  My daughters sort of groan about it, but when it is served, it is always heartily partaken of, despite its plebeian status.

To serve 6 hungry farmers: Printable Version

3 lbs. ground beef, uncooked
1 family-sized can condensed tomato soup
6 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced thin
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375.  Mix the beef, tomato soup and salt & pepper very well (if you don't, there will be meat lumps and your children will gag).  Layer meat/soup with sliced potatoes in a greased casserole dish with potatoes on top layer (leave room at the top because it WILL boil over).  Cover and bake 60-75 min.  Do not under cook, the edges should start to look a little crispy.

Good with spicy green beans or cheesy broccoli.

And yes, that is a  Campbell's Soup baking dish.  The inside of the dish bottom is inscribed with the recipe for Green Bean Casserole.  This dish alone perfectly describes our redneck farmer-woman status.

Two Recipes: Chicken Curry and Potato Soup

This recipe is a complete bastardization of a recipe at sweetannas.com  Please forgive me, Anna.  This is a really nice recipe for kids because it doesn't have chunks -- it was a stroke of brilliance on her part to puree the veggies in the blender.  Hers called for pineapple chunks, but the OF would not eat it if I put pineapple in it.  You may feel free to do so, however.  I also used more chicken and doubled the coconut milk as I had a large crew to feed who are suspicious of anything that is too spicy.  As I said, it was perfect for kids.
Chicken Curry~ Printable Version
Saute in large, deep skillet or dutch oven:
6 boneless skinless breasts, cut into bite size pieces
1 tsp. sesame oil
2 T. canola oil
In Blender:
1/2 green bell pepper cut in large chunks
1/2 large yellow onion cut in large chunks
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 can coconut milk  (you will also need one more can for later)
2 T. sweet red chili sauce
1 T. ketchup
1.5 tsp. salt
1 T. garam masala (I made my own, recipe to follow)
1 T. curry powder
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes (I truly only used a quarter teaspoon so the grandkids would not complain)
1/4 tsp. black pepper
2 T. basil (I used dried)
Blend on "liquify" speed until smooth.
After chicken is lightly browned, pour blended sauce plus one more can coconut milk into the pan w/ chicken.  Simmer on low about an hour.  A few minutes before serving, turn up the heat to medium and add:
2 T. corn starch dissolved in 1/4 C. water. 
Heat until thickened.
Serve over rice.
Here is the easy garam masala from allrecipes.com:
1 T. ground cumin
1.5 T. ground coriander
1.5 T. ground black pepper
1.5 T. ground cardamom
1 tsp.ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
Mix together (I used an empty spice bottle and just shook it up well). 

Potato Soup~Printable Version
On the way home from Bozeman yesterday, Christine and I were smelling the incredible aroma of the breads we had purchased at the farmer's market.  We decided a nice creamy soup would be perfect for supper, so we could have dipping material for the bread.  I put a pot of potatoes on to boil as soon as we got home; well, after I stopped in to play with the chicks and watch them chase the crickets we brought them.  And yes, I washed my hands.  ;P

Boil in large soup pot:
8 medium sized potatoes (I used a mix of golden and russet), peeled and quartered

In Blender (copying Anna's idea here):
1/2 C. diced onion
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped (fortunately I had the other half from the curry)
2 garlic cloves
1 T. chopped parsley
1.5 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
3 C. whipping cream
Puree until smooth.

When potatoes are cooked to fairly soft, remove from heat, drain off water and add:
 1/2 C. butter
 1/2 C. flour
Quickly mash this together (I used an immersion blender, but if you have a good potato masher, you can use that). 
Add:
1/2 tsp. better-than-bouillon beef flavor
2 C. milk
Blender liquid
Return to heat, bring almost to simmer, stirring constantly until thickened.  Right before serving, stir in 1/2 C. grated parmesan cheese.
Serve with good bread.

Frozen Waffle Icecream Sandwich Recipe

Sometimes I just have a craving for these delightful little treats!  Maybe not the healthiest lunch but the icecream does have calcium right?  I prefer the bryer natural icecream, and maybe once I have time I can use some of my homemade fruit icecreams.  Pretty simple recipe! ~Printable Version

2 frozen waffles
several spoonfuls of icecream
Toast the waffles, you want them nice and crispy. Stick as much or as little icecream as you want on the waffle and top it with the other waffle. TaDa!  These also make great after school treats.  You could use any combination of icecream and waffles you wanted.  If you have smaller children you could also cut these into fourths.  Eat right away, and have napkins ready!

Feeding the Branding Crew

Today Aiden and I prepared dinner for 11 -- the branding crew.  We baked a chocolate cake with white icing, baked honey-oat dinner rolls, made baked pork chops with whiskey barbeque sauce, heated some "cowboy" beans and made the infamous Hash Brown Casserole that everyone who has ever cooked for a church potluck knows the recipe for.  But just in case, here it is: ~Printable Version

2 lbs. frozen potatoes O'Brien, thawed (just a little jazzier than regular hash browns)
1/2 c. butter, melted
2 c. American cheese, grated, 1/2 C. reserved for topping (I used cheddar/jack today, but you end up with stringiness -- the American is better, but it's expensive to buy the big brick and then what do you do with it after you make the casserole).  
1/2 c. chopped onion (yes, more onion.  is there such thing as too much onion?)
1 tsp. salt
1/2  tsp. pepper
1 pt. sour cream

1/2 C. milk
1 small can cream of chicken soup (not the big giant can unless you double the recipe).

Mix all together (except for reserved cheese) and put in 9 x 13 inch pan. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 45 min.  Remove from oven, sprinkle with remaining 1/2 C. of cheese, and bake uncovered an additional 15-20 minutes.

We doubled the recipe for hungry college boys who had been chasing calves all morning.  

It did not occur to me to photograph it before the hungry crew demolished it, so here is a photo from Betty Crocker.  I'm pretty sure Betty herself took the picture (remember, we did not have ham, we had pork chops, so try to envision that -- and of course the cowboy beans instead of starfruit, 'cause, you know, cowboys).

A Sweet Anna's Dinner and Dessert

I came across Sweet Anna's on Facebook and decided I must try some of her recipes.  Here is the first meal that I made.  Slow Cooker Lemon-y Chicken Noodle Soup and Scrumdiddlyumptious bars!  I did make a couple revisions.  I didn't make the soup in the crock pot, just didn't have time. And I added a bit of curry to the soup as well.  Which as it turns out was too much, the kids thought it was way to spicy.  But I love love loved it!  Mom brought her homemade bread and the meal turned out fabulous!

I love my pampered chef tools too. The zester makes easy work of the lemons, and no the recipe didn't call for zest just the juice but I needed zest from 2 lemons for a later recipe so I just went ahead and zested them.  Then the juicer thingy majig, lol.  Makes it easy to core and squeeze the lemons.  We had mom and dad over for dinner tonight and it was a hit!  Thanks so much for sharing your recipes Anna. If you haven't already done so go check out her blog. www.sweetannas.com