Hobo Mondays: Bacon-Broccoli Quiche

This is my first Hobo Monday [and my post-graduation return to attempting to blog].  For those not familiar with the concept, check out the explanation at Thursday Night Smackdown, a funny albeit profane [in the sense of full of profanity] food blog.  

I happen to be neither particular budget-conscious when it comes to food nor capable of not making at least one meal's worth of leftovers.  What does this mean when it comes to Hobo Monday?  It means that I am a CHEATER, but I will do my best to kinda sorta play by the rules.

Let's talk about quiche, then.   I shall start with the crust.   I want to let you know that just because the lady across the street uses white whole wheat flour in place of all-purpose in everything, it doesn't mean that you have to follow suit.  I mean, it works great in a variety of things, but there was a reason I was hesitant to try it with pie crust and it is the same reason why I'll be going back to my all-purpose after this complete and utter failure.  

While you're making the crust, a broccoli-quiche requires both broccoli and bacon.  The broccoli should be chopped up and blanched.  The bacon should be burnt severely.  

OK, I'll admit, it would almost definitely taste better if you chose not to burn the bacon, but for me it happens the same way every time: I put the bacon in the pan, I get distracted by the broccoli or the crust or the dog, the bacon burns, the fire alarm in the hallway starts yelling "Evacuate! Smoke in the hallway! Evacuate!", I pull the burnt bacon off the stove, I open up the front door and the back window, and the dog gets exceedingly alarmed at the shouting.

So, now I have a crust, blanched broccoli and burnt bacon.  I need the egg custard part, which consists of eggs, milk and pepper (and salt if you're not all low-sodium style).  The milk I used is skim milk.  I'm aware that some/many recipes call for say, cream, at this point.  That would certainly defeat the Hobo Monday part of this recipe for me, since cream is not a pantry staple at our house, but the skim milk certainly is.  This works out ok though with a combination of replacing some of the fat with cheese and baking it for a little longer.  

So, I layer the broccoli, bacon and cheese (here, a pre-shredded Gruyere that's definitely interfering with my price point) in two layers of each and pour the custard over the top.  

Then, it bakes until you end up with a lovely quiche, which I recommend that you serve with a lovely green salad with a nice mustardy vinaigrette.

I apologize for the blurriness of this photo.  I apparently decided that focusing my camera is for losers yesterday.  This is the least blurry photo I took.  Clearly this whole blogging thing is going to take a while to get back into.

Bacon-Broccoli Quiche

Crust:

1 1/3 c. All-purpose flour

1/2 c. Crisco or other shortening

1/2 tsp. salt

2-2.5 Tbsp. ice water

Filling:

4-5 slices bacon, crumbled (here, Wegman's Uncured)

2 small broccoli crowns, cut into small florets and blanched

 shredded swiss cheese (here, gruyere)

3 eggs

1 1/2 c. skim milk

salt (to taste)

pepper (to taste)

Instructions:

Cut shortening into flour/salt mixture.  Add ice water and stir with fork until the dough can be made into a ball (try to add as little water as you can and still achieve this). Roll out into a circle, move into pie dish.

Whisk together eggs, milk, salt and pepper. Layer broccoli, bacon and cheese in the crust.  Pour egg mixture over the layers.  Bake one hour in 375 degree oven.  Serve warm or cold.

Hobo Monday Money Tally:

Crust--entirely pantry staples

Broccoli--$1.22

Bacon--$2 ish (I bought that bacon a while ago, it's been in the freezer)

Gruyere--$2.50

Eggs--$-0.75

Milk--pantry staple

Total: $5.97 (ish).  I'd say that on it's face it's a total failure (only twice what it should be!) except the quiche does have 8 servings instead of two (and it makes such a lovely lunch because it's excellent cold)--so the actual cost for dinner tonight including the green salad with the mustardy vinaigrette will definitely be below $3 for the two of us.  I'm hoping that works out to some kind of passing grade of Hobo-osity.

Sausage and Apple Pasta Salad

I decided to take a quick break from the flower parade to talk about cooking once again. Given that it's Summer, it's pasta salad time chez Moore. Both Matt and I appreciate its many qualities (quick, minimal heat output, good to take as a lunch).

I recently read an article on slate about the (apparently) much-maligned pasta salad. (And I would malign it too, if it were covered in mayonnaise (I call that macaroni salad, as though there's a difference). I disagree with the author, however, when she contends that a vinagrette is always the wrong sort of dressing for a pasta salad. On the other hand, I'm willing to consider her advice that generally fewer ingredients are better and that vegetables should be roasted or otherwise treated before finding their way into the pasta salad.

That said, this particular pasta salad includes raw bell pepper, (and five total non pasta/dressing ingredients). We were inspired to experiment by the presence of sweet apple and maple syrup chicken sausage in the sausage case (we usually buy the roasted garlic ones). Note that these are the big hot dog sized sausages, which I don't typically associate with breakfast, so we decided to try a variation on our standard pasta salad using these sausages.

Sausage and Apple Pasta Salad

Ingredients:

1 box multicolored rotini

1 pkg (four sausages) apple and maple syrup chicken sausage

1/2 bag frozen corn

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 Granny Smith apple, chopped

4 oz. extra sharp cheddar cheese, cubed

olive oil

1 lemon

salt, pepper, herbs

Directions:

Cook rotini as directed on package.  Corn may be added along with the rotini.  

Meanwhile, grill or otherwise cook the sausages.  Slice into 1/4 inch thick circular pieces.

Drain rotini-corn mixture and rinse with cool water.

In a large bowl, assemble pasta, sausage, peppers, apples, and cheese.  In a small dish, make dressing with juice of one lemon, olive oil (about the same amount), salt, pepper and herbs to taste (I used my Penzey's Country French Vinagrette mix which has little of everything in it).  Coat pasta/veggie/meat/cheese mixture.  Serve or cover and refrigerate.

Review:

I think it's generally good but I think I would prefer this same salad with a plainer type of sausage.  This sausage is a little too sweet for me.  Matt likes it the way it is.

Heliopsis

I'm a big fan of the heliopsis. I find them quite cheerful (as I am apt to find any yellow flower) and I appreciate that they don't smell awful the way daisies do despite their generally daisy-like appearance. These heliopsis are planted in the front yard in a huge mass with the echinacea. The bees and butterflies seem generally to like them. They are, in my limited experience, quite low maintenance.

Roses

Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out a proper way to maintain my blogging schedule in addition to everything else. I'm still hopeful that I can find a solution.


Today, I have roses to present. On the left, we have a lovely bud and below an open flower. Both pictures were taken on a rainy morning almost two weeks ago. The variety is Tahitian Sunset, and it's really quite lovely. The bush is currently huge, leafy and covered in buds to bloom again (the first four blooms have already passed). I am experiencing a bit of a beetle problem, so I broke down and sprayed it with some pesticide-style stuff.

Peonies

First and foremost, I'd like to apologize about the length of time since my last post. My readers (Hi Mom!) certainly know that it's been a hectic month, with my thesis proposal, Keisha's graduation, the cold Keisha gave me and our new addition to the family, a beautiful Newfoundland puppy named Iorek after the armored bear in Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass (and the rest of the trilogy).

Last weekend we had a rather unpleasant heat wave, but the upside is that we have been jolted into summer, so I begin a series of posts about my summer flowers. We begin with the peonies, which are one of the very few flowers that neither Gue nor I planted at our house. Unlike all of the flowers I have featured so far, these lie in the bed on the East side of the house. They're contained by those metal cage things but clearly far exceed the size of them and are flopping all about the place (and over the irises, which I believe Gue planted). I may need to get brave and split these whenever that would be appropriate.

Here's the accompanying detail shot of the peonies. These weren't a flower I had a previously formed opinion on, but I have to say that they have won me over; it's largely the scent, I think, although it may be how little work I've done for them to be this way. I desperately need to weed their bed though (ugh).

Crabapple and rhododendron

Unfortunately for me, the crabapple tree was at peak last weekend while I was in Claremont for my five year reunion. Luckily for you, however, my wonderful husband obliged me by taking pictures. I tried taking a few more yesterday, but they were so obviously inferior to the ones he took (in the beauty of the tree, hopefully they were comparable in quality of photography) that I deleted them from the computer. As you can see in both the pictures of the whole tree and the details, the flowers on this beauty are fuschia: gorgeous, bold and striking. By now, about a third are on the ground and the remaining blossoms have started to fade to a nondescript pink. Nothing lasts, but I do know what I'm looking forward to next year.



The rhododendron had just started to bud before I left for California, but when I came back I was greeted by the welcome sight of its delicate pink blossoms. We bought and planted this rhododendron last July, so I didn't know exactly what color it would be. I find it to be quite lovely (the blossoms remind me somewhat of those of the pink cherry tree we planted). Unfortunately, the leaves are a bit brown at the edges (and have been since the end of winter...or more likely since sometime during the winter). I'm not quite sure how to rectify this particular situation.

Various dinners from a while ago

Pictured on the left (on the fine china!), we have lemon-rosemary chicken (grilled) with roasted potatoes and balsalmic asparagus.  This meal took place almost a month ago and I've been too busy to write it up.  The chicken recipe is from the (small) Williams-Sonoma Grilling book (which is highly recommended by Matt & I--we haven't had a single bad thing from it).  The chicken had great flavor and the marinade was fairly easy.  If you're interested in the recipe, I'd be happy to pass it on.  The potatoes are quartered red potatoes, roasted in olive oil with garlic, salt, pepper and rosemary.  The asparagus is cooked the way I cook asparagus (sautéed, with balsalmic vinegar drizzled over it at the last second of cooking.

Another entrée from Grilling is pictured here on the right.  This shrimp is grilled on skewers (see below) alternating with big chunks of blanched garlic (the recipe calls for cloves of regular garlic, we used thirds/quarters of elephant garlic cloves) and basted with a spicy tomato sauce.  It's delicious and fun.  As pictured, we served it over a wild rice blend and with asparagus (I cooked it the same way described above--I like it that way).  As with the chicken, I'm happy to pass on the recipe if you actually want it.