New Baby Celebration Meal

It is always fun to cook for a family that has just had a new baby!  For this dinner I made a Chicken, Spinach and Onion Quiche with a polenta crust, green salad, and Blackberry-Raspberry Crumble pie.  Half of the quiche has noodles in it for the kids.  The new family now has 3 children, so I imagine the big kids would enjoy the noodles.

Chicken, Spinach, Onion Quiche with Noodles and a Polenta Crust
serves 4-6, makes 1 quiche

Ingredients
crust
1/2 cup dry polenta
1 1/2 cups water
splash or two of olive oil
some salt
1/3 cup grated cheese of your choice.  I used Tillamook Sharp.

Insides of quiche
4 eggs
2 cups milk
2 chicken breasts cooked and chopped into bite-size pieces
1 onion
2 fully packed cups of fresh spinach, chopped
a handful of cooked noodles ( I used leftover spaghetti noodles)- optional
black pepper

Making the Crust
Bring 1 1/2 cups of water to a boil.  Slowly add 1/2 cup dry polenta while stirring to prevent clumping.  Watch out, the polenta will spit up and bite you if the heat is too high!  Mix in about 1 TBS olive oil and a dash of salt.  Turn heat down and stir occassionally until polenta is thick.  Prepare a pie dish by oiling it with olive oil.  This will prevent the polenta crust from sticking to the pan.  Evenly spread polenta like you would a regular wheat crust.  I used a spatula and made the crust a little thicker than a regular wheat crust would be.  Bake the crust in an oven for 20 minutes on 350F.  Right before it is done cooking add the grated cheese and let it melt before taking it out of the oven.  Set crust aside and prepare the filling.

The Quiche Filling 
preheat oven to 375 Bake
1. Thoroughly mix 4 eggs with 2 cups of milk.  Set aside. 
2. Fry one chopped onion in a pan with butter for 3 minutes.  Add chicken breasts if they are not already precooked.  Cook until the chicken and onions are done to your liking.  Add some pepper.  Set aside.
3. Fill the polenta and cheese pie crust with the chopped fresh (uncooked) spinach.
4. Optional- Cover 1/2 of the quiche with cooked noodles (great for kids).
5. Cover the polenta evenly with the chicken and onions.
6. Pour the milk-egg mixture over the chicken-onion-spinach covered crust.  Leave at least 1/2 inch of the pie dish unfilled so that it won't overflow into your oven like it did mine =)
7. Cover the quiche with aluminum foil.  This keeps the pie cooking evenly.  No burned top or hard noodles!
8. Cook in preheated 350 F oven for 30 minutes or more.  I can't remember exactly how long I cooked mine, but I think it was 45 minutes to 1 hour.  Mine was really full though, so it would cook quicker the less full your pie dish is.

Now, time for DESSERT!

Blackberry-Raspberry Crumble 
When cooked right, the pie is thick enough to stay put on your spoon.  This is a very easy dessert that is sure to disappear quickly.  You can use any fruit, but the cooking times and ingredients will differ a bit.   This is my favorite dessert right now!


Makes 1 pie
Topping:
1 cup oatmeal, whole grain
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup of butter melted
Mix the oatmeal and brown sugar then mix in the butter.  Set aside. The topping gets spread evenly over the pie.  I have a hard time keeping my kids hands out of the topping-- it is delicious and simple.

Insides:
2 cups of previously frozen blackberries (de-thaw before using)
2 cups previously frozen raspberries, or enough to fill a pie dish (de-thaw before using)
5 TBS flour
3 TBS lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Mix all the above ingredients (minus the fruit and lemon juice).  When thoroughly combined, add to the fruit and pour on the lemon juice.  Be careful not to rough up the berries too much as you mix it.  They are delicate.   Spoon the mixture into the pie pan.   Next, cover the fruit mixture with the oatmeal crumble.  Bake at 350 F for as long as it takes, making sure not to burn the crumble layer. The pie should be bubbling for a while.  Keep an eye on the topping and take out of oven before it gets overcooked.  I think it took about 45 minutes, but... don't take my word for it...I time things very intuitively.  I use my nose too and can usually tell when it is done cooking by the smells.  Good luck!  Bon Appetite!

Vegetable Quiche with Polenta crust

With an abundance of eggs around quiche seems like a great idea.  It took me 30 minutes to deal with two kids under 5 years old and to make the quiche.  It will take another 30 minutes or so to cook it.  Not bad for an in season dinner treat!  I considered naming it "Busy Mom's Quiche" and "Lazy person's Quiche" as it is relatively easy and quick, but instead decided on a more descriptive title.  What do you think?

Vegetable Quiche with Polenta Crust
makes 1 pie, doubled you have dinner for 2 days

Polenta crust:
1/2 cup polenta, dry
1 1/2 cups water
1 chicken bouillon cube to flavor the water
2 TBS olive oil 

Quiche:
Equivalent of 2 cups chopped broccoli and cauliflower, or other vegetables.  I added some beet greens.
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup milk
olive oil for stir frying
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 F bake.

Begin by making the polenta crust.  Boil 1 1/2 cups water.  Crumble bouillon on the water and mix well.  Slowly add the polenta grits when the water is boiling.  Stir continuously and lower temperature to medium.  Cook until corn has solidified, just before it sticks to the bottom of the pan.  It should be thick.  Pour 2 TBS olive oil in a pie dish and evenly oil the bottom of it.  Add the thickened polenta, spreading it evenly along the bottom of the pan.  It is unnecessary to put it up the sides of the pan as well.  A nice 1/2 inch layer at the bottom is perfect.

Meanwhile, stir fry the broccoli and cauliflower in some olive oil until it turns bright green ( broccoli) but is still rather crunchy.  Spread evenly on top of the polenta layer.

Mix 4 eggs with 1 1/2 cups of milk.  Salt and pepper to your taste.  Pour over the vegetable and polenta layers.  The mixture should come close to the top of the pie dish, but beware of overfilling and over-spilling!  Cover the quiche with aluminum foil or a well fitting lid and put in preheated 350 F oven.  Quiche will take about 30-40 minutes to cook.  Check to see that the top of the pie (eggs) are solid feeling.  The top should not feel slimy, if it does then you'll need to cook it for longer.  Overcooking will make the eggs a bit tough, so watch closely.  The lid helps cook the polenta and keep it moist, I highly recommend a lid or foil!

Great served with a green salad and fresh shredded beets with rice vinegar and olive oil vinaigrette and a glass or so of cooled Chardonnay to drink.  

~Enjoy~

broccoli and cauliflower stir fry

Polenta crust

Pictured: polenta on the left, egg-milk mixture on the right

Fried Green Tomato Quiche with Polenta Crust

This recipe has a new kind of crust-- and it's wheat free-- for quiche... POLENTA!  I love polenta and it's especially yummy as a crust.  Here is how I made this fall treat with fried green tomatoes form my garden.

Recipe makes two 9" quiche pies

Polenta Crust:
You can make crust a day ahead of time if you like.
1 cup polenta (corn grits)
3 cups water
salt and 1 TBS olive or canola oil
optional: 1 cup chopped fresh spinach
optional:  1/2 cup red and green tomatoes, cooked briefly in boiling water then peeled and chopped

polenta crust, above, in a rectangular pan, with feta on top, ready for meat and filling

Bring 3 cups of salted water to a boil, add 1 TBS oil and chopped & peeled tomatoes.  Slowly add 1 cup of corn (polenta) grits to the boiling water, stirring.  Turn temperature down to medium and stir until mixture thickens.  Be careful of the  hot grits popping up and burning you!  You may need a lid between you and the corn.  Add the spinach and mix thoroughly.

Pour the thickend mixture into 2 pie pans, making a crust.  You may have some polenta left over for nibbling.  At this point you can bake the polenta in the oven on 375 F until it becomes harder (20-30 mins) or if you perfer a softer crust, you can set it aside and make the innards (the filling)!

Filling:
8 eggs (approx 4 per pie)
4 cups of milk
2 cups sliced green tomatoes, fried unitl they are lightly browned
2-4 cups of chopped fresh spinach 
1 pound of ground turkey, I make it into little balls and pre-cook it
1-2 cups cheddar cheese, I used sheep feta, which was lovely.

quiche, prior to egg and milk 

Preheat oven to 375 F Bake. Mix eggs and milk thoroughly.  Melt cheese on the polenta crust by putting it in the oven on broil briefly.  When cheese is melted, add the cooked turkey meat evenly over the two pies.  Next add the fried green tomatoes and spinach.  Lastly, pour the egg and milk mixture into the pie pan, leaving a little space at the top to prevent spilling.  Cook in the oven at 375F for 10 minutes then turn down to 350 F Bake until the filling is solidified, about 30+/- minutes.  I check the pie by sticking a knife in the center, but you can tell by using a toothpick as well.

Serve with a green salad.

Also checkout my Vegetable Quiche with Polenta Crust and my Recipe Index, which has several other wheat and gluten free quiche recipes.

Spinach and Red Pepper Quiche with Sausage and a nutty Quinoa Crust (wheat free!)

I really think that quinoa makes a superior crust. Really. So if you have never tried it, now is the time! Quinoa is very high in protein, especially for a grain. For the crust I use quinoa flakes (a quick cereal) not the flour. I like the flakes because they give the crust a nuttier texture. Sometimes flour crusts taste, well, flour-y to me. Checkout the Quinoa corporation's website at: http://www.quinoa.net/145/index.html

Crust Recipe, for 1 crust:
1/2 package of Ancient Harvest Quinoa flakes (6 oz), see above picture
3/4 stick of butter-- if the crust isn't sticking together with this amount of butter, add a tsp at a time until it does.
1-2 TBS water, if needed to hold crust together

Cut butter into small pieces and mix into quinoa flakes, blend together in a food processor and add water one tablespoon at a time until the mixture forms into a ball, or can be pressed into a pie pan. You may need a little more or less butter than the recipe calls for.

Grease pie pan with butter then press quinoa mixture into the pie pan, starting from the middle and working out until you have a uniformly thick pie crust. I make mine quite thin, as I like it that way.

The Egg Mixture:
For one pie mix 3-4 eggs with 1 1/2 to 2 cups of milk (use the greater number if your pie pan is a deeper dish).

The Goodies: (Preheat oven to 375 F, for the quiche)
1 cup grated yellow cheese
1/2 cup feta cheese
1 red pepper, chop into thin 1 inch size
1/2 bag baby spinach, or about 3 cups worth, chop small
1 package of Italian sausage (about 3/4 pound)
butter for stir fry

1. Heat pan to medium heat and add butter, red pepper, and sausage. Break sausage into small bite size pieces as it cooks. Remove from heat when meat is done. Below is picture of meat and red peppers; I was making 2 quiches, so there are more ingredients pictured than is called for in this recipe:
2. Place grated yellow cheese as the bottom layer on the quinoa crust, leave a 3-inch circle in the middle and crumble the feta cheese in it. Aim to cover the crust with a layer of cheese, this will provide a yummy moisture barrier.

3. Next place chopped spinach over the cheese

4. On top of the spinach put the sausage-red pepper stir fry, use a slotted spoon to avoid adding all the juices. Here is what it looks like now:
5. Lastly pour the egg-milk mixture slowly over the "Goodies". You should now have a full pie dish, ready to cook. Hopefully you preheated the oven to 375 F.

Cover quiche with aluminum foil or an oven proof lid. The lid keeps the quiche moist and cooks it more thoroughly and quickly. Cook the quiche on a middle rack at 375 F for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 F. Cook until the pie insides are not "jiggly" when you lightly shake the pie. In other words, the middle of the quiche should feel dry to your touch. Overall it will probably take about 30-40 minutes of baking, less time if you are using a lid.

Spinach-Feta and Italian Sausage Quiche with a Quinoa Crust (wheat-gluten free)

Quiche has a lot of things going for it this time of the year. I love to cook with ingredients that are in season and both eggs and spinach are becoming more available. They are becoming more available if you have your own chickens as they begin to lay more eggs as the days get longer. And this is the time of year you can plant spinach here in the northwest. Spinach likes the cool and wet qualities of spring. Although it is maybe a little early to plant the spinach, it just snowed today. It was only a half inch, if that, but it covered up spring so fast! By afternoon it was--poof--gone! Or should I say, drip, it was gone.

Also included in this recipe is my very favorite quinoa crust recipe, which I created during a frustrated rage at the disgusting wheat and gluten free all-purpose flour by Bob's Red Mill. Bob's has this flavor that is just gross, like bad garbanzo beans, and I love garbanzo beans. So here is a great alternative: Quinoa Flakes and butter.

Quiche Ingredients:
3 cups chopped fresh spinach
1 # Italian Sausage (ground)
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups quinoa flakes
1/2 cup butter
1 cup grated carrot
approximately 1 to 1 1/2 cup feta (I like the sheep feta)
several slices of yellow cheese
olive oil for cooking

Quinoa Flake Crust: makes 1 pie shell

1 1/2 cups quinoa flakes (2 cups for larger pie dish): Quinoa is a dry cereal flake form of quinoa, which is normally round and small. The flakes are just that-- flakes, very thin and powdery. If you live on Whidbey Island you can get them at Payless in the "health food isle" by the cereal and the chocolate/energy bars. I think they also have them at the Star Store. Be prepared, one box (about 3 1/2 +/- cups, or two pie shells) is about $7.

1/2 cup of butter, chopped into small squares

Put chopped butter and quinoa flakes in a blender and blend until it forms a wad of dough. Press into a regular sized pie dish. You can add a little more quinoa flakes for a thicker crust. I press the crust so it is thin but it covers the whole dish. Start from the middle and press toward the sides.Now place sliced yellow cheese around the edges of the crust and fill the whole bottom of the crust with feta, as shown in picture below. Place in preheated 375F oven for 5-10 minutes. You want to melt the cheese to form a moisture barrier. Make sure to not overcook the shell. Lightly browned quinoa shell is okay, but no more than that.

Melted yellow cheese and feta (above)

Now it is time to prepare the sausage. Cook on stove top with olive oil breaking into small-ish pieces as it cooks. cook until done and set aside.

Now for the "Insides" of the Quiche! Mix 4 eggs and 1 1/2 cups of milk until blended.

Above: Egg and Milk mixture (about to be blended, by hand)

Mix the blended egg/milk mixture with sausage and 3 cups chopped spinach. Pour into quinoa pie shell and place grated carrot on top for a nice color contrast. Place in a 350F oven for 30-40 minutes. Check periodically to see if egg mixture is firm. The middle is the last part of the pie to finish cooking, and you can touch it with our finger to see if it is firm. if it is you are done!

Quiche pie with spinach, eggs, milk and sausage, uncooked

carrots on top, uncooked

Garden Fresh Quiche with Tuna: Using Spinach and Chard from the Garden (with a wheat & gluten free crust)

We are getting a lot of eggs from our chickens this time of the year. They lay the most eggs during the lightest time of the year. Our garden is also beginning to offer us some beautiful bounty. I planted later than usual this year, as it has been rainy and cold and I have been busy enjoying my little Stella, who is now 4 months old. So here is a recipe that you can enjoy using in season ingredients. It's lots of fun to get the ingredients from your own garden and your own chickens or you can get them at the farmers market. This recipe is for one quiche pie and serves from 2 to 4 people, depending on the portion size. I like to make two pies and have leftovers.

Quiche filling:
2 cups chard, chop small
2 cups spinach, chop small
1/2 cup or 3 carrots chopped small
1 can of tuna
2 TBS mayo
1/2 pound sheep feta, or other high quality feta

Egg Mixture:
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup milk (I used almond milk and it was great!)

Pie Crust:
1/3 stick cold butter, cut into small pieces
1 1/2 cup flour, I use quinoa flakes, a quick cooking cereal, it is wheat and gluten free
pinch of salt
Up to 3 TBS water

Mix butter and quinoa flakes in a blender and then add salt and water as needed. Press crust into a buttered 9-inch pan. I slowly work the crust from the center of the pi dish to the sides and then up the sides.

Stir Fry the carrots, chard, spinach. Herat a pan on medium. Begin with some oliveoil and then add carrots, chopped small. Cook for 5 minutes then add chard and spinach. Cover and turn temperature to low. Cook for 2-4 minutes, just enought o soften the chard and spinach.
Set aside.

Put the Two Together: Preheat oven to 375F
Now you have the crust ready and the ingredients set aside and cut to the right size. Crumble the feta on the crust. Cheese is the first ingredient to go on the pie. It helps make a moisture barrier. Spread the feta evenly over the crust. Put the crust with feta in the preheated 375F oven for 5 minutes to melt cheese and harden the crust a little.










Remove from the oven and place the stir fried carrots, chard and spinach over the feta / cheese. Reserve a small handful of greens to put on the pie right before you place it in the oven.









Mix one can of tuna with 2 TBS mayo. Spread the tuna over the stir fry ingredients on the quiche.










Mix 4 eggs with 1 1/2 cups milk. Pour the egg & milk mixture in the quiche (on top of the greens and tuna. Sprinkle the top of the quiche with the leftover greens to make it look pretty.










Now put it in the preheated oven on 375F. Cook for 35-45 minutes or until the middle and sides of the quiche are firm, not watery. Here's the final product: