Saturday Cooking: Quiche, Soup, and Pesto

We were going over to our friends' house. They recently had a baby, and we had offered to bring dinner over entirely, but they insisted on making food as well. It definitely made for a more intimate dinner, but it also made me feel like I couldn't just whip something together last minute. Of course that was exactly what I did anyway.

I often like to make Frenchy things for my French friends. I had considered making the French Egg Rolls, but I'd forgotten to buy more puff pastry. At the point when I actually started to think about making something, I had about 90 minutes before we had to leave the house. It needed to be fast and good. I didn't want them to know that I hadn't thought about this meal until an hour and half before our dinner.

I rummaged around the fridge, wishing I'd been to the store more recently. I had some different veges, but nothing to cook them with. I had even been to the farmer's market that morning, but all I got was vegetables (not surprisingly). Grain standbys like rice or quinoa felt too simple. I did remember I had bought some eggs, so I thought I could make a quiche, which of course had the benefit of being French. I also had some pre-cut butternut squash, which never lasts that long so I wanted to use it. I'd never heard of winter squash in quiche, but it sounded interesting. I decided to go for it, keeping the French theme in mind.

Butternut Squash & Blue Cheese Quiche

1 package butternut squash chunks (could also cut from whole squash, probably about 1/2 a squash)
2 very small onions (or 1/2 large onion)
olive oil
pie pans



Luckily I read the instructions on the butternut squash package, and noticed I would need to cook the squash before I added the eggs. So I put the squash in a couple of tin pie pans (I was making two so we could have one for this week) with a lot of olive oil. I also had some fancy sweet onions from the farmers market, so I chopped two of those up (they are small, like a shallot), and added one to each tin. I baked those for about 20-25 minutes at 400F while I prepared the filling. I didn't even pre-heat the oven (this is less important when roasting veges, but more important for baking things like cookies).

8 eggs (for two quiches I actually recommend 10-12)
1/2 package of blue cheese (more or less to taste, or replace with a milder cheese if you prefer)
Bac-un bits
Salt
Pepper

Mix all the remaining ingredients together. I used a whisk; a spoon would do. I tried to pour this into the tins while they were in the oven, but started to make a mess. So I recommend taking the tins out of the oven, then pouring half of the mixture on each tin. Then back in the oven. I dropped the temperature to 350F at that point, and cooked them for about 20-25 minutes.

Tomato Soup with Dumplings

I saw a recipe to make homemade tomato soup with dumplings. I knew I didn't have time to make such a thing from scratch, but I felt the quiche was going to turn out small, since I didn't actually double the number of eggs in it (see ingredients above). I also had a couple cans of Campbells tomato soup I'd inherited, and I wasn't sure I would use them anytime soon. I decided to make a semi-instant version of the recipe I'd spied. I asked Marshall to help, since I was afraid I'd run out of time. Also I doubled this recipe so I could have some for this week.



2 cans condensed tomato soup
2 cans water
8 tablespoons tiki masala seasoning (paprika, cumin, coriander, ginger, chile, garlic, turmeric, black pepper, etc) or replace with 4 tablespoons of your favorite mixed seasoning (Spike, Mrs. Dash, etc)
1 tomato, chopped up

Add all these ingredients together in a soup pot. Heat until simmering. Considering adding another can of water if it looks thick. (I did not, but I think it would have helped cook the dumplings better.)



2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons herbal seasoning (salt, pepper, onion, garlic, paprika, dill, parsley, etc); you can use your favorite all-purpose seasoning (Spike, Mrs. Dash, etc)
4 tablespoons parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons flax meal (optional - it's good for you)
Butter (I used about 1/3 of a stick; next time I'm definitley using more)
6-10 tablespoons milk (I used plain soymilk)

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Then chop up the butter with a knife, add to the dry ingredients, and use your hands to break the butter into small bits and mix with the flour mixture.

Add half the milk, mix by hand. Keep adding tablespoons of milk into the mixture just barely sticks together. Once it does, form small balls of dough by hand. They need to stay together, but don't press on them too hard. I think doing that made ours cook kind of dry (I think the broth couldn't really get inside).

Drop the dumplings into the soup and cook for 20 minutes. Keep temperature low and don't cover the pot - mine boiled over and made a big mess! Also stir frequently and add water if needed - our dumplings stuck to the bottom of the pot.

Pesto

While I was at it, I went ahead and made the pesto I was meaning to make all week. I had bought a large bunch of basil, and it was starting to wilt. Pesto is really easy if you have a food processor. If you don't, a blender will do, but it it takes a little more pushing down into the blades.

1 large bunch basil
olive oil
parmesan cheese
nuts

I rinsed and then used scissors to cut the basil leaves into smaller pieces and take them off the stems. I put those in the small food processor. I poured in oil until it covered the leaves and started to cover the bottom of the food processor. I added a super small handful of pine nuts and a medium handful of walnuts. Then the food processor was really full I blended it up. Then I grated some parmesan off a block... I don't know how much. I grated up a piece the size of half a deck of cards or so. Then I blended one more time in the food processor (it got smaller after the leaves were made into paste, so there was room again). Voila! I divided it into two baby food jars, stuck one in the fridge, one in the freezer.


Marshall says: The dumplings were too dry. The soup wasn't good. Let's not make it again. However, the quiche was good. The friends said everything was good, but they might have been being polite. I thought it was all great, and I am looking forward to the fact that I get to eat all the leftover soup! I do agree the dumplings were dry, but they were flavorful, and if you cut them up and cover them with soup they are moist enough for me.
Serves: 8 (including leftovers)
Total time: 90 minutes (maybe closer to 2 hours if you don't have someone to help)
Leftovers: 2-4 servings soup & dumplings, 1 quiches (2-4 servings, depending on size) - because I double everything knowing we'd only eat half. And of course two jars of pesto!

Sunday Night: International Three Course Dinner

Lentil-Spinach Soup

Looking in the fridge, I see some frozen spinach water (water used to boil spinach, then frozen for use later as a broth). I had been looking through my current favorite cookbook earlier, Vegetarian (Homestyle), and it had a recipe for lentil soup with spinach. While I didn't have any spinach, I did have lentils. And now I had spinach broth. I defrosted the spinach broth, threw in the lentils. Rummaged around the fridge some more and remember the arugala (rocket) - that's close to spinach! This is not very heavy on the spices, but being lentil soup it is roughly Indian.


1/2 cup red lentils (any color will work)
about 4 cups spinach broth
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 handful golden raisins

Mix the above ingredients together, bring to a boil, then simmer 20 minutes or so.

Arugala/rocket
Jarred crushed garlic
Salt


Add a handful of arugala (or spinach), and a small teaspoon or less of jarred crushed garlic, and a few dashes of salt, simmer another 5 minutes, then turn off and leave covered.

French Egg Rolls

In the same cookbook, I saw a recipe for something that looked delicious, but was made with filo dough. I hate filo dough because it's really time consuming; I always use puff pastry instead. I had some puff pastry left over from a dinner party a few weeks back, so I took it out of the freezer to thaw. In the mean time, I had to make up the rest of this dish. I had very few of the ingredients that the recipe actually called for (celery, carrots, etc). But I did have peppers, which it called for. The recipe was originally roughly French or Italian, but since I had so few of those ingredients, I decided to go with Asian. I wanted to add tofu. I had three kinds of tofu in the fridge: plain, baked savory, and baked teriyaki. The teriyaki looked the most flavorful, and fit with the Asian theme.

2 orange peppers
2 green peppers (I actually cut all 3 of the green peppers I had; I figured I could use the others on top of one of my salads, sprinkled on the soup, etc.)
1 package baked tofu - teriyaki flavor (mine was from Trader Joe's)
1/2 box puff pastry
Teriyaki sauce (I used "Soy Vay" brand)
Sesame oil for cooking in a pan (any oil will do)

You have to thaw the puff pastry!!! This takes at least 40 minutes, but it's really important. The good news is all you do is throw it on the counter and wait. But there's no cheating either - you can't run it under hot water to speed it up. You also need to preheat the oven (this takes about 10 minutes).

Cut up the peppers really small. Cut up the tofu the same size. By really small I never mean as small as a chef - that would take too long. Something close to the size of thumbtack will work. Add a couple spoonfuls of teriyaki sauce and mix it all up. Heat up a pan with some oil and then cook the peppers & tofu for 10-20 minutes, just until the liquid is mostly gone and the peppers are a little softer than when you started.

Once the puff pastry is thawed, cut one sheet into 6 pieces. If it's not thawed it will break when you unfold it. Mine did this, which is why I decided to cut the puff pastry into the shape that I did, and is how fate guided me to invent french egg rolls! Take a spoonful of peppers & tofu and sprinkle it in longways, then wrap the edges up and press together along the top, leaving the ends open (you can fit more filling in this way). On a whim, I sprinkled/pressed some sesame seeds along the top edge. You can do this if you want to.

Put the french egg rolls on a cookie sheet. I lined it with parchment paper first - it works WAY better than oil! And I recently found out you can reuse parchment paper! Bake for 15-20 minutes. I served mine with some habenero-mango sauce I had in the fridge. They were also delicious plain. And of course you could serve them with any other sauce you might have: more teriyaki sauce, or some hot pepper suace diluted in vinegar and sugar.

Spinach Arugala Salad

You might be wondering how I managed to have spinach for the salad, but not the soup. Well, I had already mixed together the end of a bag of spinach and the end of a bag of arugala (both still fresh, just almost gone) to make a salad for work. Three salads, to be exact, in three containers. But I didn't really mix them; the spinach was on bottom. So I just pulled some arugala off the top for the soup. But I took one of the containers of salad for dinner. It's really easy to make more than one salad at a time, so I had used the same mix of two kinds of greens, but mixed in different toppings. Most toppings will last several days; avoid adding cut up fruits more than one day before eating. I chose this one:

2 handfuls baby spinach
2 handfuls arugala/rocker
1 handful golden raisins
1 handful cashews
cilantro dressing (mine was from Trader Joe's)

Mix in a very large bowl, or shake in a bowl with a tight-fitting lid. It was a little risky, since the toppings were kind-of trendy/Californian, but the dressing was Mexican. I think because it was simple (only 2 toppings), it all came together well. I made this early and let it sit with the dressing, so the dressing kind of marinated and "deflated" the spinach, softening it up (the way I like it). If you prefer crispier/crunchier spinach, add the dressing just before serving.



All this was served with 2 slices of orange and a glass of sparkling water with lime. Yum! Marshall approved of everything. He wanted me to write down the French Egg Roll recipe, which is actually why I decided to re-visit this blog with a new theme. I plan to write down everything I cook for at least a week, maybe more. I even promise to take a few photos.


Serves: 2
Total time: maybe 90 minutes or possibly 2 hours...sorry - decided to write this up after I'd already cooked!
Leftovers: The other two salads and one small bowl of lentil soup. Plus I had at least 1 cup of the pepper-tofu filling. Stay tuned for how I re-use this later in the week!
(I had planned to have 2 of the 6 French Egg Rolls for lunch, but Marshall ate 4 instead of 2.)