Ten 01 Anniversary Dinner

• Oysters on the half shell - apple-pink peppercorn mignonette
• House made duck prosciutto salad - date puree, toasted oregon hazelnuts, endive, smoked oregonzola
• Pea tendril salad - lemon ricotta, pickled ramp, radish, oranges
• Crudo of hamachi - grapefruit-green peppercorn vinaigrette, shaved fennel, radish, orange
• Crab salad - fava beans, English peas, cucumber noodles, caviar
• Sweet corn bisque - maitake mushrooms and scallops with brown butter and truffle foam
• Lorinon Rioja Reserva 2003
• Bacon wrapped braised pork belly - pickled spring onions, chorizo, lentil-parmesan vinaigrette
• Foie gras mousse - blood orange pistachio moutarda
• Sauteed Alaskan halibut - poached shrimp, chickpeas, asparagus, green garlic broth
• Pan roasted sea scallops - spring vegetable-farro risotto, shaved asparagus salad, crispy sage leaf
• Roasted spring lamb chops - confit artichokes, garlic puree, goat cheese gnocchi, lam jus
• Roasted palmetto squab - stuffed with foie gras, bacon-wrapped with a barley-turmeric vinaigrette
• Flight of ice creams - salted caramel, Dutch chocolate with toffee crumbles, mint chocolate chip, dulce de leche
• Chocolate peanut butter mousse with caramelized bananas
• New York cheesecake - balsamic roasted strawberries and hazelnut scone

Big thanks to Chef Jack Yoss, Sous Chef Arturo, Sommelier Erica Landon, Pastry Chef Jeff McCarthy, mixologist Kelley Swensen, Didier, Meghan and all the staff at Ten 01 for making it a special, wonderful evening.

My favorites were the halibut, scallops, foie mousse, corn bisque, hamachi crudo and ALL the desserts. Seriously, I'm not much of a dessert person, but I ate all of mine and most of Bf's.

Funny: my notes on the sweet corn bisque say it includes "scappol". That's one way to spell scallop..

Two Anniversaries!

Stupid me forgot my blog-iversary, which was May 25! Happy Blog-iversary to me.

Bf and I celebrate our two-year anniversary today. We are going to Ten 01 for a special dinner that bf arranged with Chef Jack Yoss. I am looking forward to an amazing meal and a wonderful time with my honey. And many more...

Pastry cream from hell

Pastry Cream: 3
LadyC: 0

For Easter I was asked to bring dessert to my family's dinner. No problem, I'll make the Chocolate Cloud Cake and a blueberry tart. I still have blueberries in my freezer from last summer. I made the pastry cream the night before, using the recipe from my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. I have made pastry cream before with this recipe. It turned out fine, like a thick vanilla pudding. This time, when I had risen the next day, baked the tart shell, rinsed the blueberries and picked through them, got out the pastry cream from the fridge where it was chillin' all night, it was still runny. Okay, well I'll just use it anyway. It will probably be fine. Nope. Not fine.







First I overfilled the tart shell. Probably only needed to use about 2/3 of the cream. Then I arranged the blueberries prettily on top of the cream. It's more time-consuming than one would think. It looked pretty for about 15 minutes, then we had to transport it over to my dad's house. The runny pastry cream sloshed before we had even reached the car. I was screeching with anxiety about it, yelling at bf not to spill it as I was driving (as smoothly as possible). Once we reached my dad's, I looked at the tart and realized it was no use worrying about it anymore. The blueberries had sunk into the cream and there was cream spilled over the edge of the crust. I set it on the counter and fussed over it a little bit, then let it go....it's just a tart, just a dessert, after all. When it was time to cut into it, it was a soupy pile of creamy blueberries. Everyone did seem to enjoy it, though. At least it tasted good.



A few weeks later I was making a fruit tart for a lady at work. I found a different recipe online for pastry cream and decided to use that instead. Well, this one had a different problem. It seized up so fast it was like hard jello, all in one molded clump. Okay, so I went back to the BH&G version. After all, I had made that successfully before the Easter disaster; maybe I just forgot the cornstarch? Uh, no. I made it, chilled it and it was still soupy the next morning. At that point I gave up and went for my backup plan.

That's right, I had a feeling this might happen.

So, I got up at 5 AM and combined mascarpone cheese with heavy cream and vanilla in my mixer till it was very thick. I spread that in my perfectly baked tart shell and topped it with sliced strawberries, red plums and blueberries. For a shiny effect, I melted apricot jam with water a saucepan over low heat until it melted, strained and cooled it, then brushed the cooled glaze over the berries. It looked perfect and was a hit.

I aim to try again. Pastry Cream, I will not let you defeat me!

Here's some pictures of my beautiful tart crust. At least I got that part down.

Confidential to Uncle Brian

Through a little Googling, I found this interesting tidbit:

From Freaky Trigger, a UK blog:

"Sweetbreads: culinary term for the pancreas or thymus. However a lot of people (myself included) still think sweetbreads are testicles...But the culinary term for testicles is sometime sweetmeats.

Wikibooks has the best definition I have ever seen: Sweetmeat is the culinary name for testicles. Despite the name, sweetmeat is not sweet and is usually not considered to be meat."

The moral of the story is sweetbreads = glands &
sweetmeats = testicles.

I Won! I Won!

My dear Lizzy from Lizzy Dishes Portland hosted a contest giveaway and I won! I won a $50 gift certificate to the new Pearl restaurant Mercato.

Thanks, Lizzy!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

The WCC Vintage Cookbooks entries are due tomorrow! I'm sorry to say I probably won't make it and haven't even cracked the book.

My time has been spent cruising the farmer's market every Saturday, cooking pot roast after pot roast (bf can't get enough of it) and doing a little baking for some nice residents at work (Hi Lynne!)

Last week I bought some heavy cream at the market, intending to make butter with it. But, I haven't gotten around to that, either.

It's the season for change in the LadyConcierge/bf world. Bf has decided to take a break from cooking professionally and has landed a sought-after position with good benefits. Who knows, it may turn into another career entirely.

I had a pretty nice dinner last week with the Portland Foodies at OCI. No one can really beat that deal: 4 courses for $14. At lunch it's 3 courses for $9. Of course, students are cooking and serving for you, so there's some missteps that go along with it. But at $14, who cares? I chose the oysters on the half shell, romaine salad, veal saltimbocca and chocolate dream tort. We were treated to a tour of the kitchens, where mini chefs-to-be were cooking up stock, perfecting grill marks on eggplant, and baking oodles of bread.

Tonight I hit up Biwa for some ramen and pork belly skewers with my friend Allie. She was another pork belly virgin converted. Whoo hoo, that makes two for me! The ramen was good as usual, but not as good as the first time I had it. The noodles are very creamy-tasting and rich, and I loved the addition of the Chinese BBQ pork. It's the broth that was a little off. Just not as charred-tasting as before. Still really good, though.

Next weekend I'm heading to Rockaway Beach for a little getaway. Can't wait.

Bambuza

A new Vietnamese restaurant opened down at the South Waterfront near work. Having a third option for lunch is cause for celebration in of itself, but that it's Vietnamese and I can get my beloved pho, well, break out the fireworks. So far I've just had a few things: crispy spring rolls, salad rolls, fried shrimp, lemongrass beef bahn mi, and green papaya salad.

The restaurant just opened on Tuesday (2 days ago) but I was lucky enough to be invited to the sneak preview last Saturday. Both the crispy spring rolls and salad rolls were great - I missed the dipping sauce, tho. The salad rolls had a generous portion of herbs. I did not like the bò lá lốt (grilled steak wrapped in grape leaves) though - too dry and bitter. I don't know if I've ever had them before, so it might just be my taste. The fried shrimp had a little bit too much batter, but it was tasty and hot.

My lunch yesterday was the lemongrass beef bahn mi and the green papaya salad. The bread was awesome and crispy crusty outside and the beef was flavorful if a teensy bit tough. It had lots of cilantro, carrots and daikon, not enough jalepenos for me, tho. There was a little too much mayo on there. I don't know if that is the norm. The mayo is made in-house according to the menu, and tasted good. The whole combination was tasty and filling. It is a 'premium' bahn mi in size and value. The papaya salad was really good, too. It came with 4 "Tiger Prawns" on a skewer (I would call them 3-inch shrimp), crushed peanuts, fried shallots and basil and cilantro in a fish-saucy lime vinaigrette. It was a very generous portion, but at $6.50 I hope so. I had half of it left over, making it a good deal for me.

Today I'll order the pho.

**Update: Just came back from lunch. Got take-out combination hanoi beef pho with lean steak, brisket and meatballs. Very nice overall - good broth, lots of meat and lots of noodles. Garnish a little skimpy - no culantro. :( Noodles were a smidge overcooked. Pho Oregon still has the #1 place in my heart, but this one is pretty good, plus it gets a billion punk-rock points for convenience.

**Update 4/18/2008: Tried the wonton noodle soup for lunch today. From the menu - "shrimp and pork dumplings, fresh garden vegetables and egg noodles in chicken stock". Overall a good dish. The dumplings were the best part - so flavorful and plump. I was pleasantly surprised to see the egg noodles were akin to vermicelli noodles in size. I like skinny noodles! In this case the noodles were perfectly cooked, but maybe too many? Bright carrots and broccoli along with bok choy made up the veggies. My only quibble is with the broth. I needed more salt and I thought the broth wasn't hot enough. Those are both very minor and easily fixable things, tho, so I would definitely recommend this soup. Next time I might order extra dumplings and fewer noodles.
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Bambuza Vietnam Bistro
3682 SW Bond Ave.
Portland, OR 97239
503-206-6330

Open Mon-Thurs 10am-9pm
Fri-Sat 10am-10pm
Closed Sun

Lunch is limited menu/take-out only.

Weekend Cookbook Challenge Round-Up

Hey, everyone! The round-up for WCC26: Pressure Cookers, Dutch Ovens and Crockpots is up. Thanks again to Lis from La Mia Cucina for hosting (and for thinking my pot roast looked good!)

April's theme is Vintage Cookbooks and is hosted by Carla of Chocolate Moosey. Pick a recipe from a cookbook written earlier than 1980, make it, blog about it, and send it all to Carla at mooseymoosecc AT hotmail DOT com. All entries are due Saturday, April 26.

I'm especially excited about this theme because I received Mastering the Art of French Cooking for Christmas and haven't cooked anything out of it yet. Guess I got some reading to do...

Mom's Mac-n-Cheese

My mom did all the cooking when I was a kid. Good, homemade meals where nothing came from a box and there were no concessions to finicky kids’ developing taste buds. We ate a lot of baked chicken and fish and steamed veggies. There was salad at every meal. My favorite food was artichokes, steamed whole and eaten with melted butter and lemon. I still like anything with melted butter and lemon. Mom was a health nut, though, so we didn’t see a lot of fatty comfort foods. When she did bust it out, she did it in style.

My brother’s absolutely favorite dish was and still is Mom’s Mac-n-Cheese with salmon. We always had crates of jarred salmon in the pantry, courtesy of family fisherman friends happy to share. Tucked in amongst cheese-cloaked noodles, the salmon elevates the humble dish to rock-star status.

Mom's Mac-n-Cheese with Salmon

6 tbls butter
6 tbls flour
1 1/4 tsp salt
3 cups milk
3-4 cups (i use 4) grated medium cheddar cheese

1 tsp (or to taste) Tapatio hot sauce
3 cups cooked noodles

1 tall can good salmon

1 cup green onions (optional)

Melt butter in large saucepan over low heat (add salt). Add flour. Cook for a minute until a little bubbly. Add milk slowly! Turn heat to medium.

Meanwhile, cook noodles.

When the sauce thickens and starts bubbling, take off heat! Now add the cheese and the hot sauce.

Finally, combine cheese sauce, macaroni noodles, green onions (if using) and de-boned salmon together in a large oven-proof bowl or casserole dish.

Sprinkle top with another cheese layer. Or just use slices of cheese like I did.

Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

We cut the middle out cause it was fun.

A couple suggestions...Next time I make this, I would cut down the noodles to 2 cups. 3 cups of noodles made for a dense dish and I like a lot of sauce. Also, I think adding garlic and topping this with toasted breadcrumbs would be tasty.

San Francisco eBay

My new camera arrived in the mail today. I'm no photographer, so it's not a fancy one, just another point-and-shoot. It's got some more megapixels so hopefully that will translate into better detail and quality. Or maybe I just have to practice. I got it brand-new on eBay for less than 1/2 of the retail price. Yay!

Speaking of photos, here's a few from bf and I's trip to San Francisco:

























(Why don't we have public toilets in Portland?)

It was a nice trip. Bf has all the food photos; I still have to get those.
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Just being lazy about writing up the Mac-n-Cheese. I'm almost done, I swear!

WCC#26: Not Too Romantic

...but it's pot roast.

It's supposed to be something using a Dutch Oven, Slow Cooker or Pressure Cooker, according to the rules of Weekend Cookbook Challenge Number 26. So, I pulled out this random piece of meat from the freezer and gave it a go.

The recipe is loosely based on this one from Tyler Florence's Ultimate series. I guess I'm not really following the spirit of WCC by not using a cookbook, but I'm doing it in the spirit of making something I've never made before! Plus, I got to use my wonderful Lodge Dutch Oven that bf gave me for Christmas.

The roast I used was a shoulder roast, I think. Actually, I'm not sure at all what cut it was. It was on sale and I grabbed it up for the freezer. Use any big bone-in roast. I took it out of the freezer 2 days early and it still wasn't completely thawed, so I stuck it in the sink under running cold water for 20 minutes. (I also overflowed the sink and flooded my kitchen doing this, but that's another story.) Then I patted it dry with a multitude of paper towels and let it sit for about an hour to warm up.

Now, I was ready to rock! I generously salt-and-peppered the meat on all sides and rubbed it in a little. Then I set the oven to 200 degrees and set my Dutch Oven on the stovetop over medium-high heat. I dumped some olive oil (NOT EVOO) in it, enough to coat the bottom, plus a little more. I let that heat up a few minutes, then got ready to brown the roast.

Problem. It was a little too big for my Dutch Oven. Oh well, I just smooshed it down with my tongs and hoped for the best. Anyway, it browned up just fine and smelled good, too. Go me.

After the browning, I turned the heat down and added one big can of crushed tomatoes, a cup of water, two onions, a couple celery ribs, a bunch of baby carrots, an equal amount of button mushrooms and plenty of baby Yukon Gold potatoes to the pot. The onions and celery I cut into big chunks, but the rest I left whole. I grated a couple-three garlic cloves and tossed them into the pot as well. I seasoned it with rosemary and thyme and more salt and pepper. Use fresh herbs if you've got 'em, but I didn't and it was fine. Also add 2 bay leaves and another glug of olive oil and kinda stir the best you can to try to coat the veg.

I covered it with my tight-fitting Dutch Oven lid and slid that heavy thing into the oven. You probably should cook it 4-6 hours or so and baste it a lot. Mine wasn't quite done after 3 hours and I had to go to bed, so I just left it overnight.

What? Pot roast is good for breakfast, too.

And it was good. The meat broke apart and combined with the tomatoes and liquid from the veg and created a kinda stew-like mess. I loved it. I was going to give some away, but bf refused to let me. It'll be gone by tomorrow.

Thank you to this month's host of Weekend Cookbook Challenge, Lis from La Mia Cucina!

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I know I said it was Mom's Mac-n-Cheese next, but I had to get this up before the deadline of March 26th! So forgive me, please.

Also waiting in the wings are Shrimp and Andouille Gumbo and a Blueberry Tart.

Coming soon...

All right, Mom's Mac-n-Cheese up next.

Bf and I had a great time in San Francisco. Went to Alcatraz, Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown, the Ferry Building and had two great dinners at Boulevard and Postrio. Bf took some pictures so I'll try to get those up soon.

Tom Kha Gai

This is the best soup I've ever had in my life - at least how Jack Yoss at Ten 01 made it last month. It is tangy, smooth, complex and a little sweet. He created it for family meal and made quite a lot; so, knowing I love soup, he offered me some in a take-home container. I took it home and opened it as soon as I stepped in the door. Lemongrass and chiles and lime and coconut, oh my. I didn't bother to heat it up again but slurped it up. Jack made his with some roasted pork still clinging to the bone and left the inedible bits of lemongrass and ginger in the broth. Oh, the broth! My favorite part of any soup, this broth shone with citrus cut with coconut creaminess and finished with a spicy kick.

I tried to re-create it with this recipe, but the results were not the same. Oh - it makes a good soup, though, don't get me wrong. It was easy and flavorful and I would make it again. But, I'm working on getting Jack's recipe.

This recipe is based on one from another blog I recently discovered: Tigers & Strawberries. It's a cinch to put together after you locate the ingredients.

Tom Kha Gai adapted from Tigers & Strawberries

2 14-ounce cans coconut milk (I used the 'lite' version)

1 quart chicken stock

3 stalks lemongrass, the bottom third only, outer layers removed, cut into 2-inch chunks and smashed slightly with the back of a knife

5 slices galangal, 1/4 inch thickness

5 kaffir lime leaves

5 dried red chiles

fish sauce

6 shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, thinly sliced

2 chicken breasts, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

juice of 2 limes

1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

green onions for garnish

In a large pot combine the first 6 ingredients and bring to a boil. Add fish sauce to taste. (I used about 4 teaspoons but could have used more. This soup has no salt in it, remember, all of the salty taste comes from the fish sauce.) Reduce heat and let simmer for one hour.

Remove lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and galangal from broth. Take out the chiles and squeeze the insides into the soup. You can add the pods back in, too, or discard them - it's your choice.

Add chicken and mushrooms and simmer until chicken is cooked through. I cooked mine 10 minutes, but less would probably do it.

Remove from heat and add lime juice. Ladle into individual bowls and top with cilantro and green onions.

Outta Here

It's been the busiest week! I have a Tom Kha Gai recipe post all ready except for the pictures. Of course, it's been ready for a week and I haven't uploaded the pics yet. And then I have my mom's mac and cheese recipe to share with y'all, too. Well, that one will probably have to wait a week or so. Bf and I are heading to San Francisco next week for a much-needed break and to celebrate bf's 30th birthday. Wow, we are getting old...

I'm planning on getting the Tom Kha up by this weekend, so as not to leave you high and dry while I am gone.

Ciao!

What Kind of Cookie Are You?

You Are a Fortune Cookie

You're a rather normal person, except that you have extraordinary luck in life. People want to be around you (even when they're a little sick of you), in hopes of being lucky too!

What Kind of Cookie Are You?

This is funny because I hate fortune cookies.

Country Cat Revisited

Bf had a burger-and-fries craving. I did some research on PortlandFood.org's Best Burgers Thread and found a couple mentions of the Country Cat's burger being a favorite, with a special note mentioning the exceptional fries. Another popular one was Pause, but we tried Pause once and really didn't like it and weren't quite ready to give it another shot.Country Cat was packed; we only saw one empty table and five empty seats at the counter overlooking the cooking line. I asked to sit at the counter. We always like to watch the cooks bust it out. Perusing the menu, bf latched onto the fried chicken option, tempted in no small way by the view we had of the two cast-iron skillets full of juicy boneless chicken bubbling away on the back burners. What happened to burgers-and-fries, you ask? He's easily swayed. He had passed the craving on to me, however, so we decided to get one order of the chicken and one burger and share. Looking at the menu again, guess what I saw? No fries! The burger came with onion rings. Oh well. I tried the rings last year and remembered loving them.

It was fun watching them put everything together. Bf noted “No salamander” so to melt the cheese for the burgers, they used a skillet. The cheese got all hot and melty and gloopy. Perfect. A small ciabatta (?) bun held the medium-rare burger, along with a smear of garlic mayonnaise and some kind of smoky red sauce and a little lettuce and red onion for crunch.

Yum, look at that. I wish I could eat it again now. The fried chicken was very yummy, too. I have publicly voiced my doubts about boneless fried chicken, but I was very, very wrong. The pieces are juicy and the absence of bone isn’t missed. Whatever coating they use is brilliantly crispy and flavorful. I noted that they twice-fried the chicken – maybe that’s what the secret is. I’ll have to try that at home someday. The chicken plate came with collards and a cream biscuit perched up on top. The usual drizzle of honey came on the side as requested. (It’s good we were sitting at the counter as the menu had no mention of honey. I would have freaked to get chicken with honey on top. Blechh, yucky.)

WCC25: Chocolate Cloud Cake

First things first. WCC25 stands for Weekend Cookbook Challenge Number 25. Each month a different food blogger picks a theme, other bloggers post their recipes and the host collects the results. February's theme is Nigella Lawson, hosted by foodiechickie. Ideally one would choose a recipe from one's library of cookbooks, but I found a great recipe online from her book How to Eat. A word of warning, Nigella is a sassy Brit gal and so uses the metric system. Grams and millilitres don't convert so well to cups and spoons. After consulting an online conversion site, I gave up and purchased a digital scale.

The recipe I chose was a Chocolate Cloud Cake, a version of flourless chocolate cake finished with mounds of flavored whipped cream. I've made flourless chocolate cakes before, however, this one folds in beaten egg whites just before baking. This creates a delicious, light texture to a cake that is usually dense and fudgy. (Not that dense and fudgy are bad!) The cake's texture is smooth and quite similar to the whipped cream topping but with a little more substance.

Chocolate Cloud Cake à la Nigella

250g dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)
125g unsalted butter, softened
6 eggs: 2 whole, 4 separated
175g caster sugar: 75g in the cake, 100g in whites ( I used Superfine Baker’s Sugar)
2 tablespoons Cointreau – optional (didn’t use it)
Grated zest of an orange – optional (didn’t use it)
23cm springform cake tin

Cream Topping

500ml double cream (used heavy whipping cream)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon Cointreau (substituted Kahlua)
.5 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder for sprinkling

Method: (these are pure Nigella with my notes alongside.)

1.Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. (This converts to 356F – I used 350F with great results)

2.Line the bottom of a 23cm Springform cake tin with baking parchment.



3. Melt the chocolate either in a double boiler or a microwave, and then let the butter melt in the warm chocolate. (First time I used the microwave. 30 seconds at a time is a good pace to let the chocolate melt a little, stir, and let it go again.)

4.Beat the 2 whole eggs and 4 egg yolks with 75g caster sugar, then gently add the chocolate mixture, the Cointreau and orange zest. (I hate how fruit and chocolate tastes together, so I omitted the Cointreau and orange zest in the whole recipe. I added nothing in place of it in this step.)

5. In another bowl, whisk the 4 egg whites until foamy, then gradually add the 100g of sugar and whisk until the whites are holding their shape but not too stiff. (I saw Alton Brown and his egg whites episode the night before, and he recommended not using a stand mixer for your egg whites, as it tends to leave a pool of unbeatened whites at the bottom of the mixing bowl. I attempted to whip these to a ‘soft peak’ state by hand, and couldn’t do it in 15 minutes. My advice is to do it by hand as long as you can manage, then transfer it to your mixer. If you have a hand mixer, by all means use it.)




6. Lighten the chocolate mixture with a dollop of egg whites, and then fold in the rest of the whites. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for about 35 to 40 minutes or until the cake is risen and cracked and the centre is no longer wobbly. Cool the cake in its tin on a wire rack; the middle will sink as it cools.

7. When you are ready to eat, place the still tin-bound cake on a cake stand or plate for serving and carefully remove the cake from its tin. Don't worry about cracks or rough edges: it's the crater look we're going for here.



8. Whip the cream until soft and then add the vanilla and Cointreau and continue whisking until the cream is firm but not stiff. Fill the crater of the cake with the whipped cream, easing it out gently towards the edges of the cake, and dust the top lightly with cocoa powder pushed through a tea-strainer. ( I decided on Kahlua for the whipped cream; however, bourbon would be good, too)


Uh, I obviously forgot to dust with cocoa powder, too. It was a great cake, though!

Happy Valentine's Day

Flowers from my Daddy. Making the Chocolate Cloud Cake tonight!

My, What a Busy Week

And by that I mean, boy am I a lazy blogger. This week I promise a Flourless Chocolate Cloud Cake just in time for Valentine's Day and maybe a hot -n- sour Tom Yam soup.

Bf and I do not have Valentine's Day reservations this year as he has to work. So we're going to celebrate just for fun on the following Sunday at Alberta Street Oyster Bar & Grill. I really want the Chef's Whim dinner, but bf is hesitant to relinquesh control of his dining. I still have a week to work on him, but regardless, I'll take some notes and a menu and post about it.

Have a good week!

(Special shout out to my supporters Toby, Michelle, and Allie! Thanks, guys!)

Quiche It Up!

My first "Mom" recipe I ever tried my hand at was her Italian Zucchini Quiche. It was for a high school French club gathering, and man, they ate it up. I have since figured out that quiche is simply an egg-and-cheese pie, and you can throw whatevah you have on hand in that bad boy. Last week, it was bacon and shallots - little twist on the traditional "Quiche Lorraine" but I used cheddar instead of swiss. I'm calling it Bacon-Shallot Quiche. Quite original, aren't I? Oh yeah, and I used store-bought pie crusts because....that's what I had in the freezer. I don't want to hear any lip because we all know I can bust out the Pâte Brisée with the best of 'em! My secret ingredient to any quiche is Dijon mustard spread onto the pre-baked crust. It really adds great flavor.

Bacon-Shallot Quiche

One pie crust at room temperature
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1/2 pound bacon, cut into 1 inch chunks
1 large shallot, diced
6 eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place pie crust into pie pan, pressing firmly on the bottom and sides. Form the edges into a raised crust - flute if you'd like. Place a square of parchment or waxed paper over the pie crust and fill with dried beans, rice or pie weights if you have them. Cover the edge with a pie ring or foil. (Also, DON'T use foil to line the pie crust with its weights. It tends to stick.) Slide the pie crust into the oven on the middle-lower rack and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Leave the oven at 425 degrees and set the pie crust somewhere so it can cool a bit. When it's cool, remove the parchement and weights. Spread Dijon over the cooled crust.

In a heavy-bottomed skillet, brown the bacon over medium heat until crispy. Drain fat off as needed. I find it gets crispier if you take out some of the extra fat. Scoop out bacon bits onto a paper towel on a plate.

Turn the heat down a tad. Add shallots to the pan with the bacon fat, stirring often to prevent burning. Cook for 5 minutes or so. Remove from pan into a bowl or plate (they can share with the bacon, if you want) so they cool off some.



In a medium mixing bowl, beat the eggs until thoroughly mixed, then add milk and whisk until combined. Add the cheese, bacon and shallots to egg mixture. Carefully pour egg mixture into prepared pie crust.


(The crust here is a little darker than I wanted because I *forgot* to cover the edge in the first baking. Do as I say, not as I do.)



Cover the edge with the pie ring or foil. Place in the 425 degree oven and bake for 20 minutes. Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center. I usually have to bake it another 5 minutes or so, but ovens vary.

**Edit: My mom helpfully pointed out that I didn't include any seasonings. Well, duh, I did add a teaspoon of salt and a generous amount of pepper. I neglected to include that, so, sorry. ADD SALT AND PEPPER.