Quiche Lorraine recipe!

I don’t think that I am a “Bad” cook, but I would say that I will never come close to my mother’s cooking!
My mother is to my knowledge one of the best cook that I have ever known. And I am not saying that because I love her and I was raised by her, I am saying that because she can always turn the smallest easiest ingredient into something magnificent!
One of the recipe that I took from her is the “Quiche Lorraine”, It is super easy to make and you can take the original recipe and add tones of stuff to make it to your taste, or your diet.
So yesterday I decided that I was going to make one for my dear husband who has always loved it!
The recipe below is for the regular Quiche, but for the one that I made, I added some spinach to it, just to spice it up! (something that I did learn yesterday while making it, is that you might want to cook your spinach before, because since there is lots of water in those, if you don't you will have lots of liquids when your quiche is done cooking, so I know next time, I will!)

You can add spinach, tomatoes, mushroom and all kind of different things in it (that is up to your taste as I mentioned before!) like for my friend Diane. You can replace the bacon with only veggies and voila you have your vegetarian quiche! ;-)


So here is the recipe and some of the pics of it! Hope you like it!
Ingredients:
• 1 roll of pie dough
• 5 eggs
• 1 cup of milk (or add more milk if your pie plate is deep)
• 1/3 cup of sour cream
• 1 cup of cubes ham or Canadian bacon (I use bacon because of the fact that in Europe you can find already precut piece of bacon)
• 1cup of Swiss cheese (Emmental cheese is the one I used)
• Salt, Pepper, Nutmeg
Put the dough in your pie plate and cover it with bacon/cheese

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In a mixing bowl put the eggs, milk and sour cream. Mix them together. Add the spice and continue mixing.

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Pour egg mix over the bacon and cheese. (You can add more cheese on top if you want, just to get a nice brown cheese crust!)

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Bake in a preheated oven of 400 degree for 40mn to 1 hour (or until the dough look golden)

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Take out of the oven let it seat for 5mn and serve. You can add a nice lettuce salad with light vinaigrette and you have a nice meal in not too much work! ;-)


My kind of meal! LOL!! Bon Appetit!

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Pumpkin au Gratin

For Thanksgiving, I tried a recipe that I saw my mother make when I was a little girl. I used to love it so I thought, “can’t go wrong right?”
So I went to the commissary and bought a bag of potatoes, 1 bag of carrots (long one) 2 butter squash and 2 smaller pumpkin (green one, no clue what it was called) but I am sure that ANY will do!

Anyway, so I peeled all the skin of, Potatoes, Carrots and Squash/Pumpkins. And cut them all in little cube! When it was done, I separated all in 2, Put half of the cut in a pot full of water (with salt) and the other half in a big freezer/zip lock bag and stick it in the freezer!





When the cubes were soft, the one in the pot (remember!) I took out of the water and put them into a container to mash them together. I used the water that I used to cook it for the mashed mix not too be so hard. Salt and Pepper it! Then, I spray the mix on a plate (deep pie plate) and cover it with Swiss cheese (Emental). Put it in the over on broil and let it broil for about 10mn or until golden brown (the cheese melts and it is just YUMMY!!)
Anyway, this is what I did for Thanksgiving, however I had some extra frozen ready to pop in the water and do veggies, and I made it one day that my friend Gerri came from Stuttgart, she requested that I give her the recipe so I thought, hmmm, I’ll share the love!
This is a great dish to accompany any meat, but also great for Vegetarian! (Diane, you’ll have to try this one!)

OH and for those of you who enjoy soups, you can also keep some of the mix and put it back in the cooking water, mix it, and VOILA you have a soup and a grattin to serve! LOVE IT!

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Flammkuchen or "Tarte Flambee"

For those of you who are interested, here is the recipe for the Flammkuchen!!
Inredient:
Pizza dough
Sour Cream
Onion (chopped in thin strip)
Lard/ thick bacon (in cube)
Cheese

So easy! Take your pizza dough and try to make it at thin as possible… VERY VERY thin!!
Spray the sour cream on the dough (like you would tomato sauce if it was a regular pizza),
Put your onion and lard on it and sprinkle your cheese (I do believe French will use Swiss cheese for that one)
And bake at 400 for about 15mn or until golden (or cheese melted)
And enjoy with a glass of beer or white wine!!

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Yummy Biscuit and Laziness

OK, I am going to brag about me being lazy. Yes I am!! I am sometime proud of my inventive laziness. Why do you ask yourself, well let me tell you!
Have you ever been at Red Lobster? Have you ever tried their Yummy Biscuit?? Do you like them?? Well if YES was all the answer to all of those questions, then…. Read the rest of this post!
So, I feel like eating sea food, but with it those YUMMY Red Lobster Biscuit. So I went into my “just Unpacked” pantry and found what I was looking for.

Biscuit mix!! WHOHOO!!! I followed the recipe and added some parsley, and VOILA…
Yep, I am lazy. I since then found this awesome recipe that look even more delicious!! http://www.kayotic.nl/blog/?p=4431
So I promised myself that I will try it when I have more time, and a mixer that is working (still waiting for the transformer to be shipped from KitchenAid) And if when I try the recipe and it turn as good as it look, I WILL put a follow up with the pictures of the result!! How about that!!

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Whole Wheat Chocolate Espresso Cookies

YES you read it right! WHOLE WHEAT!!! and if you continue on reading you will find the "nutrition facts" at the bottom.
I was reading the newspaper to "my" residents on Tuesday 12 of May and Elaine Magee had a recipe that I found very "appetizing" you can find lots of cool information on her site: http://recipedoctor.com/

(I hope she doesn't mind me "stealing" away her recipe!! but since it was published on the web and on the newspaper and it is for SHARING purposes ... I think it will be OK!)



Anyway... since you know me, I can never leave out a good recipe without sharring.. here you go:
(oh and another little trick, if you don't like the coffee flavor, like I don't. skip the expresso powder)


Makes about 24 cookies

2/3 cup bittersweet chocolate chips–60% cacao (semisweet chocolate chips can also be used)

1/2 cup whole-wheat flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

4 teaspoons instant espresso powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons less fat margarine (with 8 grams fat per tablespoon, 2 grams saturated fat or less and no trans fat per tablespoon)

1/2 cup packed light or dark brown sugar1 large egg, higher omega-3 if available (or 1/4 cup egg substitute)

1/2 cup powdered sugar


1. Add chocolate chips to glass bowl or microwave-safe container and heat on LOW until chocolate chips are melted (stir after the first minute and after each 30 seconds after that). Set aside to cool.

2. Meanwhile, in medium bowl combine whole wheat flour, cocoa, instant espresso, baking powder and salt with whisk or fork and set aside.

3. In large mixing bowl, cream margarine and brown sugar together until fluffy. Beat in the egg or egg substitute until combined, scraping the sides of bowl midway to incorporate all of the dough. On low speed, pour in the cooled chocolate and beat until blended. Still on low speed, gradually add the flour mixture, beating just until combined (do not over mix).

4. Wrap dough in plastic and flatten dough into a disk (so it cools faster) and set in freezer for about 30 minutes.

5. Preheat oven to 350-degrees and add powdered sugar to a medium bowl. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Shape dough into 1-inch balls then roll balls in the sugar two times and place on prepared baking sheets, 2-inches apart. Bake about 12 minutes, cookies will still be soft but will have spread and the powdered coating cracked. Cool cookies on wire rack.




Per 2 cookies (12 servings per recipe): 144 calories, 2 g protein, 22 g carbohydrate, 5 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 1.5 g monounsaturated fat, 1.5 g polyunsaturated fat, 18 mg cholesterol, 2 g fiber, 105 mg sodium. Calories from fat: 31 percent. Omega-3 fatty acids = .2 g, Omega-6 fatty acids = 1.2 g. Weight Watchers POINTS = 3

Madeleine Recipe

For Diane who has been BUGGING me to put this one online.. She will hate me when her "derriere" is as big as mine just because she ate too much! ;-) Love ya Enjoy!!

(pronounced Madeline… sort off!!)

Make about 24 cake

2cup of Flour
1 1/2 cup of Sugar
1stick of butter
1tsp of baking powder
4 eggs
1 tsp of Vanilla extract or a lemon zest

Whip the eggs and the sugar together until completely soft. Add the flour/baking powder mix little by little. Add to the batter choice of vanilla extract or lemon zest and the melted butter.
Let it sit for 10 to 20mn. Butter your mold (Madeleine mold or muffin if you don’t have any)
Bake for 10 to 12 min or until golden brown at 375 Degrees.

You can find recipe for Madeleine all over the web, some even have fancy flavor like the one on this picture is with hazelnut powder. I also saw a recipe on MarthaSteward.com with orange blossom water for Wedding shower, I thought it was really really fancy! I bet you can also make some with Rose water! ;-) Yummy!

Far Breton Recipe

Another recipe from Brittany is the Far; it is a kind of Custard cake kind of like a Flan with dried Prunes in it. It is delicious (for those of you who like egg custard) I had several people asking for the recipe so here it is for you! ;-) Enjoy!!


Far Breton Recipe

1 liter of Milk
6 eggs
1 1/4 cup of flour
1 1/4 cup of sugar
Dried pitted prunes
Mix the flour, sugar and the eggs together, warm the mil for 2 minutes in the microwave and add it slowely to the mixture until you hava smooth batter.
Pour the batter in a pre-buttered pan. Add the pitted dried prunes so that it cover the bottom of the pan (you can put as many or as little as you wish (or none at all if you don’ t like the prune taste)
Bake for 40mn at 350F

Yummy Crepes

I am from Bretagne/Brittany the West part of France, one of the things that we eat in Brittany is Crepes (of course we eat lots and lots of different things) but Brittany is known for the crepes.

The famous one are Buckwheat crepes they are salted crepes made from Buckwheat flour and water. We eat them garnished with ham and cheese and eggs (that’s the traditional garnish) but also with cool stuff like mushroom or bison meat or tomato and even Goat cheese and Salad. For myself I love the “Andouille” or the Mushroom.

When you go to a Creperie in France you will also have the choice of sweet crepes, those crepes are made from regular white flour, milk and eggs. The garnishes for those are plain sugar or jam or for fancier one Pear with Melted Chocolate or even Banana… YUMMY!!!

Last year when I was at my mother she took out her “electric crepes maker” and I was amazed of how easy it was to make those. So when I got back to Iowa, I went and bought myself a crepes maker (I waited FOREVER to get it, but it arrived and I have tried to use it at least once to twice a month) mind you my kids are picky eater (funny cause they are not in France when we make those) but, they won’t eat the American Buckwheat crepes that I make (I guess I don’t have my mother’s hand for the recipe). But today I made some crepes. My husband missed the last time that I made crepes so I thought since he was coming home for the weekend I would make some for him and the kids (and ME of course) ;-)

So here is the recipe for the crepes and some pictures just to make you salivate with envies! (That will teach you to come and visit me more often he?) ;-)

Crepes recipe

For 18, not very hungry people

1.5 cup of Flour

4 tbsp of sugar

2 tsp of vanilla extract

1 stick of butter (salted)

31oz or 3.875cup of Milk

4 eggs

In a bowl put the flour and the sugar together, put a little whole in the center of it and put your eggs in it (obviously without the shell)

Start mixing those ingredients together and when the mixture gets heavy, pour the milk little by little until completely incorporated.

Melt the stick of butter and mix it with the batter. If the batter has “clot” (little pieces of dry flour surrounded with wet batter) pour the batter into a strainer until you have a smooth batter.

Cover the bowl with a towel and let it sit for 1 to 3 hours.

Cook each crepe on a crepe maker or in a pan well buttered.

Enjoy it with Sugar, syrup or fresh fruits or just plain it is yummy too!