Quiche: mushroom & asparagus

Ingredients for four mushroom asparagus quiche:

1.  4 deep dish baking tins--use your own dough or go easy on yourself and buy frozen Marie Callender's 

2.  sauteed mushrooms, onions, whole garlic cloves, bacon

3.  steamed asparagus (trimmed short and cut up into pieces)

4.  4 cups of milk plus some heavy dream, if desired

5.  8 eggs

6. variety of your choice of mixed cheeses: cheddar, mozzarella, parmigiano, Colby-jack, Swiss, and/or others

7. crushed black pepper, smoked paprika, if desired

Directions:

Bake the crust for ten minutes in a hot oven and cool.  

Fill the bottom with: mushrooms, onions, bacon, and asparagus pieces.  Remove garlic cloves.

Cover with cheese--be generous! 

Beat two eggs into one cup of milk (and 2 tablespoons of heavy cream) pour this mixture over the filled crusts

Grind some coarse black pepper on top, also some paprika

Place in a hot over (400 degrees), lower to 375 degrees and bake for 25 minutes or so

Things you may want to do:

Chop bacon and fry, then add chopped or sliced onions--set aside.  

Saute mushrooms in the leftover fat from bacon

If more fat is needed, add some olive oil or butter or both--your choice.

Use a hit of white wine after the saute stage and let this dry out over an intense flame.

Use salt if you must, but you don't really need it if you have used enough cheeses!

Be creative! 

Of course you can change the ingredients.  Leave out the asparagus, or make with different veggies--zucchini, broccoli or cauliflower-- all make lovely quiches.  

Chuck the bacon and use ham, or do it the meatless way.

Here's what I did yesterday...made 8 pizze rustiche!

I'm pretty sure the recipe is archived in one of my older blogs, but anyway, I change it all the time! So can you. 

Pizza Rustica

The dough is a sort of cookie dough--eggs, flour, butter, sugar, a pinch of salt and some iced water.

It takes a bottom crust that you'll need to bake for a few minutes.  You may use an egg wash for the top crust.

Basically the filling is a ton of ham, salami, prosciutto, soprassata dolce, Swiss cheese--all cut up, ricotta, eggs, a little sugar, loads of mozzarella, parmigiano--shaved, shredded and/or grated. Salt and pepper, if desired--I didn't use either this time.

You may use hard salami, soprassata piccante, Romano sliced cheese, Fontina, or any other great ingredient you want. It's a dense mixture...and the salty/sweet combo is great!  Mangia bene! Enjoy!

Brussels Sprouts with pazazz and love~~

A  jazzed up recipe to my liking!

Halve and fry Brussels sprouts till edges begin to curl...or boil or steam whole
and then halve them. While hot, transfer to a bowl with:

1-2 teaspoons honey
1 TBS capers
1/4 to 1/2 cup toasted walnuts (may use caramelized ones, if so desired)
2 TBS of red vinegar
1-2 TBS EV olive oil (may use butter, if you prefer! or both, if you're daring!)
salt, coarse ground pepper to taste...may add minced garlic and hot pepper instead of black to make zippy!

May add any of these to liking or leave out:
ginger, nutmeg or saffron

Mix and serve!

Spinach Pie and Zucchini quiche

Okay, Bakers--

These recipes are for you...
Figure out how much of each ingredient you want, or add your own, or delete what you don't like.

Happy Baking!


Spinach Pie:

deep dish pie crust baked for 10 minutes
chopped fresh spinach
ricotta
mozzarella
parmigiano cheese...grated or shredded
1-2 eggs
crushed black pepper
(may add ham or salami, if so desired)
mixed season breadcrumbs on top...try some smoked paprika (YUM!)
bake hot oven 375 to 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes


Zucchini Quiche

deep dish pie crust baked for 10 minutes
prosciutto, salami, bacon or pancetta (may also make without the meat)
sauteed zucchini and onions
cheddar cheese
parmigiano or Romano cheese...grated
mozzarella
with 2 eggs, and 1 cup of mixed cream and milk--make the custard
crushed black pepper
bake hot oven 375 to 400 degrees for 30-35 minutes

Bob Kaufman

The Beat poet Bob Kaufman had this to say about poetry:

"I live alone, like pith in a tree.

My teeth rattle,

like musical instruments.

In one ear a spider spins its web of eyes,

In the other a cricket chirps all night,

This is the end,

Which art, that proves my glory has brought me.

I would die for Poetry."

Thornton Wilder

Thornton Wilder, winner of the Plitzer Prize and the National book award said, "There's nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head."

He also was quote as having said: "The test of an adventure is that when you're in the middle of it, you say to yourself, 'Oh, now I've got myself into an awful mess; I wish I were sitting quietly at home.' And the sign that something's wrong with you is when you sit quietly at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure."

Paul Verlaine on writing

Paul Verlaine wrote:

"You must let your poems ride their luck
On the back of the sharp morning air
Touched with the fragrance of mint and thyme ...
And everything else is Literature."

Nelso Algren quote

Nelson Algren, author of A Walk on the Wild Side, set in Louisiana and made into a motion picture, said:

"A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery."

Honoré de Balza

Honoré de Balzac was an incredible, prolific writer. I wonder if it was because he drank 50 cups of coffee daily. So, writers, is this the secret to success?

Still one must take into consideration that he died when he was only 51.

At what price fame?

Quote from Jeanette Winterson on poetry

I read an article in the NY Times on March 9th about the author Jeanette Winterson

and thought it was so good, that I am quoting her here on my little blog. So here's one for all you poets out there, struggling with the "tough language."

“When people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language—and that is what poetry is.”

Jeanette Winterson, author, of: Why Be Happy, When You Can Be Normal?

Poem "Oxymoronic"

Oxymoronic—

I understand the word now—

It’s seeing this snow flutter and fall

to cover cottonwoods just leafing out,

to smother pansies, tulips and daffodils—

the fresh-mown emerald grass on the golf course

in Jeremy Ranch

To these expressions:

gigantic shrimp,

and steel magnolias,

I add this: remnant, residual, linger-

ing winter snow-covered spring blossoming.

My first scan and a poem

Appearances

What it seems to be

is a 3 X 5 black leather passport

and now sits in the left hand corner

of the red suede blotter on my desk.

Thick black linen tape runs

along the back spine, covering

¾ of an inch back and front.

It is undated, unmarked except

for a beige embossed centerpiece—

a depiction of a black wrought-iron tripod

and on top a black, burnt kettle

smoke pouring out. A curlicue iron

arm stretches over the firepot and little

musicians, tiny, medium and fat-bellied

wearing hats waltz across it.

When you open the booklet it’s lined

with antique marble end papers

of deep dusty rose and white.

It’s not a passport. It's an artifact

from a recent trip to Bordeaux.

The dinner bill from La Tupina

came inside, and I high-jacked it,

with some super-duper high jinks,

maneuver when the waiter wasn't looking,

thinking I might write miniature

poems to place inside one day...

today.

"Appearances" first appeared in Bridle Path Press

(published on BBP 10/25)

Cod Cakes

Here's a great thought for writers by Barry Lopez, whom I met at Bread Loaf in 2001--he is a great speaker and writer and review of books. He said:

"Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion."

I made cod cakes for dinner and then froze some individually--they stay wonderfully well and can be made in a sauce or merely fried with tartar sauce:

Here's the Recipe:

Cod Fish Cakes Recipe

INGREDIENTS

2 lbs of cod fillets

2 large Yukon yellow Flesh potatoes

1 cup Italian bread crumbs

1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped fresh Flat Italian parsley

3-4 Tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1/2 cup of minced onion

1 teaspoon salt

Fresh ground pepper to taste ( add hot pepper because my husband likes them a bit piccante

2 eggs beaten

Corn oil for frying--I use Mazola

How to prepare:

1 Boil Potatoes

2 Toss in the codfish for the last few minutes or when the potatoes are finished cooking done and just leave the fish in the boiling water to cool it will flakes easily. Drain and flake the fish with a fork, take out all bones, and mash the potatoes.

3 Mix the fish, the potatoes and the rest of the ingredients together well by hand. (Take your rings off, ladies!) If the mixture is too crumbly, add another egg. If too sticky, add some more bread crumbs.

4 Form the mixture into patties and dip them into more breadcrumb, and fry them on medium high heat in a skillet coated with oil, until nice browned on one side, then flip them over and continue to cook until well browned on the other side.

Yield: Makes 24 fish cakes. Serves 4-6, and freeze 12, I actually froze only 11!