A Quiche to Appreciate

Last week was teacher appreciation week at the kids' preschool. As part of the appreciating, the parents provide breakfast for them every morning before school starts. Because I have the word "sucker" tattooed across my forehead (dumb spring break move--I tried to have it taken off later, but it's in there too deep), the director of the school asked me to take care of the brunch Thursday, and because I'm a sucker I said yes. It wasn't until like two days before the brunch that I realized my kids weren't even going to be in school that day--they were going to be in Omaha with my husband. But suckers never quit, so what did I do? I made quiche, that's what. And you should to. Here's an easy and seemingly idiot-proof method of quiche concocting. We're going to make two here, cause when you're making quiche, what the hell?

Here's what you're gonna need:

2 frozen/refrigerated pie crusts that you bought from the grocery store because you prefer drinking gin and doing crossword puzzles to making your own

1 small-medium onion, finely chopped

6 eggs

3 cups of some form of cow's milk*

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp cayenne

2 cups shredded cheese and your choice of filling
Filling ideas:

• swiss and spinach is a classic (use frozen spinach but make sure it is thawed and thoroughly squeezed dry so you don't jack up your idiot-proof quiche)
• feta and spinach (again with the thawing and good draining thing)
• cheddar chopped broccoli (frozen, again, is cheap and words great)
• swiss and asparagus (steam or roast asparagus in the oven until crisp-tender before putting it in quiche)
• BACOS and anything
  
• just cheese (You might want to up the cheese to 3 cups and use a mixture of cheeses, such as mild cheddar, colby and swiss for a fuller flavor.)

*If you weigh ten pounds or you're having the Queen or the Easter Bunny over for brunch, then use half n' half or whipping cream as this makes a quiche worthy of Jesus. Or the Easter Bunny. If you're only having say, a duchess or a lesser prophet over, then use half half n' half and half 2%. If it's just you and your dog, go with all 2%. Unless you have a magical golden dog that poops gold bars. You should probably use the half n' half for him.


And here's what you're gonna do:

Preheat oven to 425. Line a cookie sheet with foil and put your crusts on there before you fill them so you don't slop egg-stuff all over your oven.

Saute onion in a little bit of butter until tender.

Sprinkle cheese and onion in bottom of your pie crusts.

In a mixer beat eggs, salt, pepper and cayenne.* Pour on top of your filling, dividing evenly between your quiches.

*My mom makes up the egg mixture a day or two ahead of time and keeps it in giant ziplock bags in her fridge. I find this practice to be totally disgusting, because I find both raw eggs in bags and organization to be disgusting, but that's just me. Maybe doing the eggs ahead of time would be helpful to you.

Now when it comes to baking you have two choices. The perfect quiche method, or the tipsy-kitchen ADD method. Let's do the perfect one first. While you're reading it, have a drink or two then execute the second choice--who wants a perfect quiche, anyway?

Bake 15 mins at 425, then reduce oven to 350 and bake 30-45 mins longer, or until your quiche looks pretty set and your stick-in-food-to-see-if-it's-done stick isn't all yucky when it comes out. Cool and enjoy refrigerated or at room temperature.

--or---

You can do like I did for teacher appreciation quiches and invite a friend over for drinks and quiche making. Follow the directions above, but after the two of you get it in the quiche in the oven, pour yourselves big fat glasses of gin, set the oven timer for 15 mins, and then go sit on the patio and don't listen for said timer. After about an hour, remember about your quiches (possibly because of the smoke coming from your windows), pull them out of the oven, and come up with idiotic ways of making them look edible. We went with the saw-the-singed-crust-off-with-a-bread-knife then drive it over to the school and put it in the fridge without your name on it method. Nothing says teachers, weappreciate what you do for our children like a crustless, well done quiche. Bon Appetite!

Crimes against Potatoes

Okay, this was originally for Just Barely, but it has to do with vodka, and vodka is made out of potatoes, therefore, this is a vegetarian issue. One that I think you need to hear about.

Last week my husband found the following "tip" on Google's blog: Freshen Laundry with Vodka. It was under the link, www.tipsandtricks4me.com. Why he would click on such a thing, I don't know. Perhaps he thought it was about how to tip tricks. In which case, he must have been very disappointed. Unless he wanted to spritz a trick with vodka--then this was the site for him.

Anyway, the person who left this tip suggests you use a few spritzes of vodka to "freshen" your clothes instead of washing them. Their rationale:

"We all need clean clothes, but actually doing the laundry uses a lot of resources and cuts into our free time."

It's called Fabreeze, Mr. Tipsandtricks. It's a hell of a lot cheaper AND less delicious than vodka, and it has the added benefit of making your clothes smell like lilacs instead of hobos.

Appalled by what I had just read, I decided to do a little research on other misuses of vodka. Here is what I found:

The DIY network actually advocates using vodka to kill bugs.

Similarly, some people who use it for keeping aphids off houseplants. (Which begs the questions of why you have aphids in your house to begin with. Maybe it's because they heard you're cleaning your house with vodka.)

You can use vodka to get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke. (Because it's better to smell like an alcoholic than a smoker.)

A British site suggests you apply vodka to your face "to tighten your pores" and tells us that you can remove a bandaid painlessly by soaking it in vodka. (Why not just drink it? Then I bet that bandaid wouldn't hurt so much.)

There are countless sites out there suggesting you use vodka to kill mold and mildew in your shower.

More than one person admitted to using vodka to cure foot odor, and I even found someone who uses vodka to preserve her herbs.

And, of course, there's the old standby of applying it to the gums of teething babies, which is the only one of these wayward applications I approve of.

I always thought vodka was for drinking. Maybe that's why my feet smell bad and there are aphids eating the mildew in my shower. But at least my kids' don't go to school smelling like hobos.


Here's a picture I found of some homemade Bacon Vodka--do you think it counts as vegetarian? I mean, it doesn't have any (noticeable) pieces of bacon floating around in it or anything... Maybe I'll try making some out of bacos...

There is a God! And her name is Bacos.

Fantastic news, everyone. Bacos is not made out of pigs. In fact, bacos is in no way composed of anything even remotely related to meat, a fact which I've always suspected but am elated to have finally confirmed. Now don't get me wrong--there is absoluetly nothing natural about bacos. In fact, I think 45% of the ingredients are man-made, 45% are celestial, and about 10% are of the earth.


These add up to 100% delicious in my book.
--
My God, my husband just revealed something divorce-worthy. He doesn't like Bacos. Says he, "They're gross. They don't even taste like bacon." These are the things you don't learn about in those marriage prep classes you have to take. No wonder the divorce rate is 43%. Forget questions like "Do you want to have children?" and "Whose job is it to replace the toilet paper roll?". "Do you like bacon flavored bits of defatted soy flour?" should top the list.

At least the salad was pretty.

Vegetarian Day 1:
As is our Sunday morning custom, Ella and I made a pit stop at Dunkin' Donuts to fortify ourselves before church. Ella ordered her usual, a doughnut with white icing and all different colored sprinkles. "And I'll have a medium coffee and a chocolate doughnut with bacos sprinkles," I told the lady at the counter. Then I remembered I was a vegetarian now, and glumly canceled my order. "I'll just have an apple fritter instead," I said, punishing myself for my forgetfulness. The fritter turned out to be highly unsatisfying and, actually, a little gross. Next week I'm going back to the jelly doughnut sans ham filling.

For lunch I had a yogurt and three chocolate turtles. They were they kind of turtles that involved peanuts and caramel dipped in chocolate, not actual turtles dipped in chocolate, as that wouldn't be vegetarian.

Sunday night is traditionally pasta night at our house. This seems like it would be a gift from the born again half-assed vegetarian gods, but no. As I rifled through the freezer I realized all I had in there were sauces involving cow, turkey, and assorted sausage animals. As it was too late to start a new pot of moo-free sauce, I settled on some Pesto Tortellini Bowls that I bought from Trader Joes on a wild spree of meatless shopping. They looked pretty lame-o, but ended tasting reasonably good so I decided to stay on the wagon for another day.

A little ghetto looking, yet tasty ghetto.




At least the salad was pretty.

Quick! Get the mutton!

Vegetarian Eve:
At 11:53 last night I realized our vegetarian month was about to begin. "Quick!" I told Steve, "We're about to become vegetarians! Let's go eat a mutton chop before it's too late!" To the best of my knowledge, I've never eaten a mutton chop in my whole life. In fact, I'm not even sure exactly what a mutton is, but I'm pretty sure it's some sort of animal, or at least part of one, and it seemed of utmost importance that I had a chop of it in the next seven minutes. Steve did not share my urgency and he rolled over and went back to sleep. I rushed downstairs to look for some mutton and, finding none, settled on a handful of bacos.