Quiche at last

photo by Marylise Doctrinal

We've been all about quiche lately. Ever since my good friend Erika brought us a delicious broccoli quiche after Eden was born, we've been wondering where this has been all our lives. First of all, we love eggs, and have a wonderful source for pastured eggs that have beautiful, dark-orange yolks that are full of protein and healthy fats (great for pregnant and breastfeeding women--and their hungry husbands). Second, anything I can whip up and bake while I tidy up the kitchen is awesome. Lastly, we are huge fans of anything that is subject to endless variations--remember hummus?--and quiche definitely fits the bill there. So far we've incorporated broccoli, tomatoes, summer sausage, and onions; this week I'm planning to make an asparagus and mushroom quiche. I've found the basic starting point is 3-5 eggs and around 2 cups of milk, along with whatever lightly sauteed vegetables or meats you have in mind. Whip up a basic crust (I like Betty Crocker's) and press it into a glass pan or pie tin (we use our cast-iron skillet), bake at 350 for around 40 minutes or until set in the middle.

This time, I'm also going crustless, mainly because I don't have the time or inclination for pastry right now (it also eats heavily into our precious store of lard). This will be our first crustless quiche and so we'll see how it goes. My understanding (gleaned from three minutes of Googling) is that you just grease the pan well and omit the crust.

Other ingredients we're planning to try out include:

Bacon
Sausage
Green/red peppers
Salsa
Salmon & dill
Various herbs

This fits well into our latest menu-planning strategy, which basically revolves around a central set of dishes that only changes in specific. Here's the outline:

Fish
Sandwiches
Egg dish
Casserole
Soup or salad
Meat dish
Ethnic/pasta/pizza

Within the fish category, one week we might have tuna steaks, the next salmon fillets. Sandwiches are often cheese, tomatoes, and greens, but could also be bologna, roast beef, or whatever else we have on hand (often leftover from the "meat" day). The egg dish is usually quiche but could be strata, omelets, egg salad, or a souffle. Casseroles include Hamburger Mushroom Medley, macaroni and cheese, etc. Soup or salad is self-explanatory. Our meat dish might be chicken pot pie (which I realize is somewhat of a crossover with casseroles), hamburgers, or hot dogs. And ethnic, pasta, or pizza is just what it sounds like. We started this shortly after Eden was born (once we realized that we wanted to get quiche into our lives on a regular basis) and so far, it's served us really well.

Updates

Boy, having a baby really cuts down on your blogging time! I'm just getting around to posting a couple of pictures from last weekend. Matt and I both signed up for the email club at Mimi's Cafe, a sort of French/American-style restaurant that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In exchange for doing so, we each got a coupon for a free breakfast, you can imagine how willingly we took advantage of those! I got a crab, corn, and asparagus quiche, while Matt got crepes. The food was good--not amazing, but tasty and filling. My favorite part of the meal was the fresh-squeezed orange juice, which was, happily, included in the meal.

Adding Eden to our family has required a slight adjustment in the camera angle when performing self-photography, but I think we've got it:

Of course, getting her to look at the camera is a different matter.

After that we drove to a couple of local antique stores--mainly just browsing. We happened to drive past the natural foods store below:

and of course we had to stop for a picture. They seemed like a really nice little store, too, and the cashier appropriately made over the store's namesake.

This weekend, I think we're going to hit one of Matt's favorite antique stores about an hour and a half away, in Pennsylvania. We bought some farm-fresh sweet bologna this week and so we'll probably pack sandwiches and fruit for lunch. We've also been attending the Episcopal church just up the street--Matt is even singing in the choir, Eden lends her voice from the pews--so we'll be doing that on Sunday.

I started back to work officially on Tuesday, and unfortunately Eden gave Matt a run for his money with a four-hour screaming jag. Here's hoping that it was a one-time thing and she does better next time...

Visitors!

We've been fortunate to have a nice stream of visitors since Eden was a couple of weeks old. My parents came in mid-July, followed by Matt's at the end of July/beginning of August, and now my brother and sister-in-law are here for almost a week. It's been fun for Eden to get to interact with some of her family, and we also always enjoy showing off what there is to see and do in this area. Which is tons, though it's gotten a little bit trickier with an increasingly opinionated baby in tow!

Baked berry French toast

We recently made this unbelievably delicious baked French toast with mascarpone and blackberries. Matt's parents had brought the local mascarpone and black raspberries from Wisconsin, and we also happened to have some milk that needed to be used up, so this was a frugal dish for us as well as being absolutely heavenly. We even had some rum in the back of the cupboard that I'd forgotten about until now. Here's the recipe, and here is how we did it:

French Toast with Mascarpone and Black Raspberries

* 1 cup of fresh black raspberries
* 1/2 cup mascarpone cheese
* 1 egg yolk
* 1 large or 2 medium eggs
* 1 cup milk
* 1/8 cup melted butter
* 1 1/2 cup whole milk
* 1/2 cup of brown sugar
* pinch of cinnamon
* 2 tsp vanilla
* 1/4 cup rum
* salt
* 1 loaf bakery bread, sliced

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325°F.
2. Combine eggs and yolk with milk, butter, milk, brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and rum. Add a pinch of salt for taste.
3. Take bread and soak in egg/milk mixture.
4. Place bread in a buttered 9 inch baking pan. Squish each piece in until pan is full.
5. Top with a layer each of fruit and cheese. Repeat with remaining bread, x 2-3 layers. Pour remaining egg mixture over the pan.
6. Bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown. Top with more berries, and/or maple syrup.

Food for thought

I missed the boat on World Breastfeeding Week last week, but here's a related video, a little late:



Breastfeeding is interesting. Eden has nursed all over the place, from Bed Bath & Beyond to in front of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum to a grassy hillside at Harper's Ferry to our favorite Indian buffet. I've always been a proponent of the right to breastfeed in public, but it wasn't until I had a baby myself that I realized on a pragmatic level just how much less conspicuous it is to breastfeed than to try to pacify a screaming, hungry baby. (And given that breastfed babies typically eat 8-10 times a day, the only option besides breastfeeding in public would be to essentially retreat from public life entirely.) We were out to lunch the other day, and I was doing the former and could hear someone across the restaurant trying to do the latter. Nobody noticed what I was doing, but every person eating lunch was aware of what she was doing. I felt bad for her. So far, I haven't had anybody raise an issue, and when people have noticed (like in the hallway at church), they're more apt to smile than anything else, which is nice.

We've also given Eden a bottle of pumped milk on occasion, in preparation for my return to work part-time. While I'm thankful she'll take it pretty easily, it still makes me a little sad to see her do it--but it also makes me even more thankful each time I do get to breastfeed her, even when that's at 4am.