Tag Archives: Tasty Kitchen

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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No-Bake Peanut Butter Cup Bars

I’m not a big candy person, but when I came across this recipe, the urge  for a sweet treat hit me hard. Chocolate and peanut butter make a timeless combination, and this simple recipe (which doesn’t even require you to turn on the oven) has delicious results. The bars are wonderful straight from the freezer, where they will conveniently stay good for quite a long time, though I doubt that ‘quite a long time’ will describe the longevity of these little guys. Think Reese’s peanut butter cup, but larger. And . . . healthier? Who knows. Let’s at least pretend, eh?

I think the hardest part of this recipe was simply measuring out the peanut butter (warning: a 16.3 oz container does not contain a full 2 cups). That stuff is sticky, man. But if that’s the summit of the challenge, you can see how easy these are going to be to make.

Ingredients

(Makes 20 small bars)

2 cups crushed graham cracker crumbs
3 cups powdered sugar
2 cups creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup butter, softened
12 oz dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup butter

Here’s the assembly: looking totally doable.

First, pulverize the graham crackers until you have 2 cups worth of very fine crumbs. I dumped the crackers into a Ziploc bag and went at them with the heel of my hand.

Very soon, I graduated my efforts to the rolling-pin level.

Much faster that way.

Grab a large mixing bowl and toss in the graham cracker crumbs . . .

. . . powdered sugar . . .

. . . peanut butter . . .

. . . and 3/4 cup of softened butter.

Mix it slowly, because when I tried to speed things up, poofs of powdered sugar exploded from the bowl.

There! The rest of the recipe is easy: just grab handfuls of that mixture as your mood leads and insert into mouth.

Enjoy!

Just kidding.

Instead, press the mixture into the bottom of a 9×13 inch pan (ungreased).

Oh–you already ate it all? Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to mislead anyone.

For the rest of you: the mixture will stick somewhat as you press it down. See how it doesn’t want to stay put?

I panicked for about 15 seconds thinking it would never cooperate–but as I started using a combination of the spatula and my index finger to pat it down little by little, everything came together.

Phew! There we go.

And now for the chocolate. In a microwave-safe bowl, mix the chocolate chips and 1/4 cup butter.

Heat for 1 minute in the microwave, then remove the bowl and stir.

If it’s not fully melted (i.e. there are still lumps), put it back in the microwave for 20 seconds and stir again.

Repeat until the chocolate and butter are fully melted and melded together. Spread the chocolate immediately (and quickly) over the layer of peanut butter.

Don’t try to use a spoon like I did–a spatula will make it go much faster.

If at some point in the process your finger looks like this:

I adjure you to follow the voice in your heart. You will know what to do.

Now cool the whole thing in the fridge or the freezer until the chocolate hardens. Cut it into small squares and serve!

Store the bars in the freezer and serve them directly from there–the texture will be perfect (not rock-solid, don’t worry).

Delicious, easy, and the results will put a smile on your face.

Plus, you can always keep a batch in the freezer to whip out when unexpected guests drop by demanding nutrition.

Or when unexpected hunger pangs hit. Your pick.

Enjoy your weekend, peoples! I, for one, will be spending some quality time with my friend Vessie, who is in Chicago on business and is sticking around to play with me for a couple days. I love that girl! Check out some pictures of her from our little photo shoot on the porch last fall. She’s got it all–beauty, smarts, energy, athleticism–and a huge heart!

See you all Monday for more adventures in food, with a little story of unintentional carbonization as an added plus. Or an added minus, depending on your perspective.

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