Fun With Quiches

If the name sounds French, I am cooking it lately.
We had a work pot luck today and the theme was supposed to be “Thanksgiving Breakfast”. Peeking at the sign up sheet I discovered that most of the items consisted of store bought baked goods. I decided to make a quiche.
My only fancy egg dish experience is making a few frittatas in the past. My quiche was a hit at the pot luck.
I pretty much followed the recipe below….

Ingredients

frozen pie crust
5 slices thick cut bacon, chopped
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 cup half-and-half
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup grated gruyere

How to make it

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line pastry shell with foil. Bake in oven for 12 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 10 minutes, or until crust is set and dry. Remove from oven.
In a large skillet, cook bacon until crisp. Drain on paper towels. Crumble the bacon and set aside.
In a large bowl, mix together milk, salt and eggs. Stir in bacon and cheese. Be sure to mix well. Pour egg mixture into pie crust.
Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until knife inserted in center of quiche comes out clean. If necessary, cover edge of crust with foil while baking to prevent burning or overbrowning. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.
Note: I cannot find the original recipe I used when searching online. The recipe comes from a Spring 2009 issue of The Nest Magazine. However this recipe is similar and I used it when documenting the recipe here.

What I want to do different in the future
Use whole wheat crust or attempt to make my own crust out of healthier flour.
Use less or no bacon.
Use chives, roasted red peppers.
Add more eggs….it could have been thicker.
I tried this recipe once more and cooked the bacon in the microwave. It made the bacon very tough and chewy – best to stick with pan frying.

What did you make for your pot luck?

And More:
After eating crap food for the past week, it has become very difficult to run. I must get my diet back on track if I am going to meet my running goals. There might be a half-marathon that I will be walk running in the future. I will keep you posted.

O Tomato, Tomato, wherefore art thou Tomato?

From Photo Challenge

I am waiting patiently for you my love but I fear we have little time. The chill will come and it will be sudden death. If you want to share your love with me, come to me soon. Perhaps I can spread the love to all with an abundance of red.

From Photo Challenge

Tomato, you would be nice on a bed of green….

From Photo Challenge

Alternative Tuna Salad

From Photo Challenge

We frequently have that last minute conversation of “What is for dinner tonight?”. We had that last night. We almost ended up walking to our local sushi place (I dream about their seaweed salad). Ultimately, I came up with the idea of a tuna salad.
I basically took a can of tuna, leftover lentils and added in whatever seemed appropriate from what we had in the refrigerator. What we got was a tasty and quick main dish that we served with (leftover) steamed yams with sprinkled cinnamon.

Here is a (hopefully) complete list of ingredients:

1 can white albacore tuna (or whatever tuna that has the lowest mercury levels)
1 cup (approximately) cooked leftover plain lentils
1 sliced roasted red pepper, organic from jar
1/2 cup black olives
1/2 key lime juice
some feta cheese

I didn’t add salt because the feta and olives add salty flavor but you may want to add pepper and other herb seasoning. Also, I would have added tomatoes to the salad if we had any in the house.

I am not a runner

I am not a runner. I do not like running. I don’t get the runners high.
These are the messages I hear myself repeating in my head and when I speak to others concerning running.
Earlier this year, I started a couch to 5k plan to help myself become more physically fit. Some health and family drama happened around that time and I quit my training. The dust has settled in my personal life so a couple of weeks ago I decided to try training for a 5k again. I decided to start a few weeks or so in the program because after all, I wasn’t a complete beginner, right?
It is a struggle at first but each run does get easier. I am now up to 5 minute running intervals (5 minute run, 1 minute walk). Every time I bump up my minutes, there is a temporary struggle but then it does get easier.
Today when I was walking home from my “run” with my latte reward, I walked by an older couple who saw my 5K shirt from 2005 and asked me about it. I told them it was a race from 2005. The lady then exclaims “Oh you are a professional”. I about dropped my latte. To this I replied with a giggle “not exactly…I walked the race”. Her response to that was “oh that is good too”.
While I certainly don’t think I am a professional, it is all about perspective. To this lady who probably has never done a race in her life, I was a professional. Maybe I am not yet a runner today, but I can be a runner. Something that I thought was out of my reach can be really easily achieved. I can keep training and run an entire 5K just like that lady could walk one (barring any major health issues).
Hopefully when you see in a month, I will have run my first 5k (completely by running). Perhaps someday I can do a distance race, who knows?

Coq au Vin

From Photo Challenge

I finally made that Coq au Vin I have been taking about for a while (and a reason why I bought that fancy pot with the rooster on the lid). The recipe from Williams Sonoma worked well. I only had to make a few substitutions. For one half of the chicken I used boneless, skinless chicken breasts and for the other half I used the bone in thighs. I see button mushrooms in many french recipes but I can never find them in my grocery store so I substituted with baby bella mushrooms. In addition, I did not buy enough shallots for the recipe. Instead, I ended up adding colored boiler onions that we had at home. Finally, when it said skim the fat off the sauce, I didn’t need to – no visible fat could be found. It was very good, and even better as leftovers. It was a very successful cooking evening.