Tag Archives: eggs

Easy, Cheesy Tex-Mex Quiche

This crustless quiche is a great throw-together kind of weeknight dinner. Adapted from this recipe (Tasty Kitchen–no surprises there), it’s gooey and wonderful and (best of all) requires minimal effort for the tired cook in the family. Next time there’s a potluck and I’m dragging my feet about cooking, I called upon my husband to remind me to make this quiche and quit my whinin’. Not that there have been any potlucks in my life recently . . . and not that I’ve whined about any of them. It’s just a hypothetical situation, of course.

Ingredients

(Serves 5)

5 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 TBS melted butter
12 oz small curd cottage cheese
2 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese
1 4.5 oz can chopped green chilies

Preheat the oven to 400 F.

In a medium sized bowl, crack open them there eggs.

Give them a good beating. Anyone seen that Bill Cosby stand-up routine? Let the beatings begin!

It’s all about how children are brain-damaged beings, and it’s darkly funny. All you need to do is read yesterday’s post to confirm that children are, indeed, not exactly a shrine of innocence and purity.

Add the flour . . .

. . . the baking powder . . .

. . . and that golden stream of melted butter.

Beat it all again until well combined.

Grate up a nice slab of Monterey Jack cheese.

Stir the grated cheese, chilies, and cottage cheese into the egg mixture until it’s nice and uniform.

Okay, this doesn’t exactly look delicious. But patience, my friends! I hear it’s a virtue . . . right? Yeah, that rings a bell.

Grease a 9 inch pie plate or spray it down with baking spray . . .

(please don’t tell me what’s in that spray) . . . and pour in the egg mixture.

Bake it for 10 minutes, then turn down the oven temperature to 350 F and continue to bake for 30-35 more minutes, until the sides and top are a golden brown.

In the meantime, you can make some kind of accompaniment for the quiche. We chose breakfast sausage, but in retrospect a salad might have been a nicer pairing. Sausage + eggs + lotsa cheese can get a little heavy.

When you remove the quiche from the oven it will look something like this:

Nicely puffed, lovely and golden. Mmmm. Start singing Tonight’s gonna be a good night and get your groove on, baby. Take it down, spin it around, and shake that thang!

Then do a quick check around to make sure no one witnessed your little ‘episode’.

Let it cool for a few minutes, and then serve!

The quiche is very cheesy and rich–here’s a picture to illustrate. Um, my mouth is watering.

After we had finished dinner it came to light that the quiche contains cottage cheese.

“Cottage cheese!?” exclaimed my husband. “That’s gross!” The funny thing is, he had never actually tried cottage cheese–I guess the lumpy look of it wigged him out. But the point is, if you have manly cottage cheese haters in your family, they will be none the wiser unless you choose to personally drop the bomb.

I chose to personally drop the bomb, but that’s just how I roll.

The best part: the crusty brown sides and bottom.

My pale Scandinavian roots indicate that I will never have toasty brown sides, or a lovely tanned bottom. Dang it! It’s the raw cottage cheese look all the way.

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Roasted Red Pepper Couscous with Avocado and Mozzarella

I am so pleased with this simple little recipe, a variation on this original (once again identified in my TastyKitchen perusings). It’s full of flavor. It’s simple and quick. I know I’ll be coming back to it for weeknight meals.

A few things: the avocado and mozzarella are not just garnishes; they are 100% necessary to the dish. Since I used jarred roasted red peppers (my grocery store was out of fresh ones–I wonder if Mardi Gras had something to do with that), the acidity level of the couscous with the sauce would have been too high for me to enjoy it by itself. However, once the avocado and mozzarella were stirred in, everything became balanced and beautiful, and I sighed with pleasure. I used a pinch of sugar to counteract the acidity, but if you roast your own peppers you can probably get by without.

This could work as a fun side dish to fish or chicken, or you can top it off with an egg or two and call it a meal! That’s what we did, and what we will be doing again.

Ingredients

(Serves 2)

1 cup dry Israeli couscous
3 roasted red peppers
2 cloves garlic
1 TBS sherry or white wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
2 TBS olive oil
1 pinch sugar, optional (especially if using jarred peppers)
1 whole avocado
1 sprinkling lemon juice
1 cup torn fresh mozzarella or bocconcini
4 fried or hard boiled eggs (optional, to make this into a full meal)

If you’ve never made Israeli couscous, you’re in for a treat. They grains are much larger than ‘regular’ couscous, and have a delightful chew to them when cooked al dente.

I think what I used may be whole wheat, but I bought it so long ago that I can’t remember.

Anyway, Israeli couscous cooks just like pasta, so let’s start off by boiling some water.

When it comes to a boil, add the couscous and cook it for about 7 minutes, until it’s al dente.

All of a sudden I’m looking at that picture and thinking “rabbit food pellets.” Ew. Try not to think that–banish it from your mind! This is not pet food. This is not pet food. Or pet, um droppings.

When it’s done, drain the couscous and pour it back into the pot.

In the meantime, grab ye the remaining ingredients.

Toss the roasted red peppers in a blender.

Examine it from a few different angles, just for the heck of it.

Toss in the peeled garlic cloves, salt and pepper . . .

. . . and the vinegar and olive oil too.

Press blend. It just needs about a minute in there, and you can stop as soon as it’s starting to get smooth. I think that leaving a little texture is quite desirable.

Also, please use a top on your blender. Don’t be like me and have a nearly explosive disaster only averted by the quick placement of the palm of your hand.

Very important step: taste the sauce and if there’s too much acidity, adjust with a pinch of sugar. The acidity will be greater if you use jarred red peppers; roasting your own will probably make the addition of sugar unnecessary. And am I ever glad that further testing is required! I love further testing.

With the heat on medium, add the sauce to the couscous and cook for about 5 minutes.

I love that fiery sunset orange color.

It will start off looking a little soupy, so cook it until the couscous passes the ‘drag’ test (when you drag a spatula across the bottom of the pot, the area doesn’t immediately fill with liquid).

Taste again and adjust the seasoning.

Cut the avocado into slivers, and sprinkle them with lemon juice to prevent browning.

Tear up some fresh mozzarella pieces, or simply use halved bocconcini. Lightly salt both the avocado and the cheese.

Some day I need to sing a canticle in honor of avocado. Words just can’t express my love.

Stir the avocado and mozzarella into the couscous, and serve!

I can’t emphasize enough how necessary the avocado and mozzarella are to this dish. Please believe me. They turn it from ‘meh’ into ‘mwahhahahaaa!!!’

You can make a pretty arrangement with it, but unless there’s a camera involved, it’s probably not worth it. Here’s how it really looks once you start chowing down:

Divine!

If you want to make it into a full meal, top it off with 4 hardboiled or fried eggs (2 per person). That is the absolute best way to eat it.

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