Smile for Jamie

On Saturday, myself and many others said goodbye to a good friend and a great human being. It was a difficult day for us all, and I reached out to some of those who were closest to Jamie and invited them over for brunch. I am not going to make this a long post about food, but a simple quick post with a link for the recipe. I did change it a little bit - substituting regular onion for the green onion and poblano peppers for the mushrooms, but otherwise made it pretty much how it says in the recipe.

You can link to the recipe HERE.

Jamie will be remembered for many things, but one of those things was his smile and contagious happiness. He had the ability to bring the mood in the room up with a smile or a witty comment that few people have. I am not able to lighten a mood with my own smile, but I try to do it through my cooking and my food when I am able. So for me - to be able to put a smile on those whom I spent a few hours with eating with and spending time with - was my own way to remember him. I hope he would have enjoyed my food - I know he enjoyed our smiles.

#SmileforJamie

I made a pie!

Recent events in our house have made it difficult for me to keep up with the blog, and I apologize for that to you all. Mostly what is going on is that - for lack of subtlety - is that things are pretty tight around here right now. I don't have the flexibility to experiment with ingredients like I really want to, and cooking the same things night after night makes for some pretty bland blogging. Thankfully I recently had the cause and the ability to break out of this banal cycle for a night and make something that I felt was truly worth writing about.

One of the things that ALWAYS goes over well in this house is pie. Any kind of pie will work, but the three main kinds that really get people excited are Key Lime Pie, Pumpkin Pie, and Apple Pie. It's not quite pumpkin pie season yet, and Key Lime was not on my radar, but we had a glut of apples kicking around the house and a few were starting to look a little peaky, so I decided to use them all up in one fell swoop. 

I ended up with a mix of apples for the pie, and it seemed to work out pretty well that way. I used some Golden Delicious, a Gala, and rounded it out with some Granny Smiths. I made the pie crust myself using a blend of whole wheat flour and white flour, and outside of that I pretty much followed THIS RECIPE exactly. I did end up using my white sugar and molasses trick for the brown sugar in the topping, but as with my other brown sugar substitutions you couldn't tell at all. As for the taste, well...

...there were two pieces gone before I could think to snap a picture. I do have to say that if you are looking for a one-crust apple pie this is a great recipe to start off with. Instructions are simple and clear, there are no crazy ingredients, and the resulting pie is absolutely tasty. I did not include walnuts or raisins in the pie, due to some previous disagreements about the use of raisins, but if you feel like they work for you and your family I would highly suggest adding them in. 

What is the favorite pie in your household? Let me know on Facebook or in the comments below!

So, about that quiche...

Sometimes it's good to remember that old saying - "You can't judge a book by it's cover." Such was the case with the quiche I made last night. You may remember me posting the teaser picture on Facebook. If not, here is the picture again. 

Finished zucchini and onion quiche.

It looked great - until I started to cut into it. It turns out that even though I had cooked it long enough, the inside was still very loose and runny. In an effort to mitigate any potential for undercooked eggs, I baked it for an additional 7 minutes longer than was suggested, but it did not do anything to help the consistency. The quiche just would simply not stay together.

This is not to say it wasn't delicious. Three zucchini and half an onion cooked up and stuck in a quiche with some sharp cheddar cheese was sufficient to make it taste fantastic. And ultimately that's what I am going for - I'm not competing on Iron Chef where I lose points for presentation. Though as I ate my dinner I thought back to what exactly made my normally perfect quiche fall apart this time. Then I remembered my prep, and how much I cooked the zucchini. Zucchini, like many fruits and vegetables, contains a surprising amount of water. When I pre-cooked the zucchini and onion, I did not cook them fully. My thought was that I didn't want them to get overcooked when they cooked again inside the quiche, but when they cooked once again inside the quiche they gave off a lot of water which threw off the balance of the custard and in fact broke it up. 

This was what my slice of quiche looked like...

Well, you live and learn. Tip to all of you that I have learned the hard way - cook your vegetables FULLY before putting them into your quiche.