Deb's Night: DIY Quiche

Do it yourself quiches! Deb was kind enough to chop up a million vegetables for us before we came, and even prepared a loaf of "real French bread" to be baked. And it's our inaugural blog post! Alex (me) is writing up the post, and somehow, we'll try to also watch our beloved trashy sci-fi (Farscape, this week) and eat, while writing the blog entry.

Bread

Deb had prepared a loaf of bread that was touted to be "really French", whatever that means! It was fun to watch the beautiful loaf get moved, and turn dramatically less beautiful, but the bread turned out just fine in the end. This recipe differs from the artisan bread style that I've used, as the dough was super dry, and there was no gluten cloak or steamed oven or anything like that. We finished the dough with an egg wash, which gives it a nice sheen. The interior wasn't super moist, but was warm and delicious! Deb was disappointed with the crust, but then again, after eating all of the quiche ingredients, she wasn't hungry and can't really be trusted!

Salad

Ok, our salad was actually pretty boring, because we put all of our chopped vegetables into the quiche instead of the salad! Whoops! It's alright though, because we had some adventurous dressing experiences. Deb has this goofy collection of really flavorful vinegars, and we made a "spicy pecan" vinaigrette, which was a freaking disaster. We replaced it with a regular balsamic (with some parmesan added in) and it turned out just fine. And it goes great with a slice of fresh-baked bread!




Quiche

For the quiche, we started with a cornflake-butter crust, made with goofy Whole Foods cornflakes that looked like they were giving dirty looks to the Kellogg's cornflakes...It called for a short prebaking, and we dry-sauteed onions and mushrooms to add to our quiche. Since it was DIY, we each picked our own style. I added a ton of chard and cheese to mine, Brian went for a few red peppers, and with Jim, had some bacon inside too. Deb I think was going into 'dairy-averse' mode, and did more veggies than I did, if that was possible!

It took us a little while to cook the quiche - maybe 35 minutes - and we weren't super careful about keeping the egg amounts the same in each quiche, but it looks like things turned out OK! Well, the small ones finished first, but they look beautiful!


This one is Jim's quiche - arugula, corn, Jarlsberg, mushrooms, onions, bacon, faux-sausage and chives. It looks pretty delicious! Mine was a little too overcooked, I thought. I feel like quiche is supposed to be creamy, but mine was definitely not creamy. Maybe not enough cheese, they say...each quiche had its own flavor, though, so I probably can't judge everyone else's.

Pudding

So, in cooking club, we've had some problems with puddings. Jim found this cornstarch heavy chocolate pudding from a friend, and it definitely worked! We fortified with chocolate chips and vanilla, and it was thickening even on the stove. Maybe that's the secret - lots and lots of starch. In the past, we tried to add agar too, and man, that can give you a gross texture.

The pudding was rich, and pretty creamy. Definitely had a good texture. I thought the flavor was pretty good, but the complete absence of spices was a little bland. I'll give Jim points for a beautiful picture though. Take a look at that vanilla bean! Sometime, we have to try cooking with them, too!

Final Thoughts

Well, there was a lot of waiting in this meal! Different cooking times for quiches, a late arrival, a post-9:30 entree starting time. That's the price you pay for a fancypants home cooked dinner...when you start at like 7. Oops.

Farscape Episodes

Deb: "I'm really glad we don't have to watch those again."
Bri: "So much better than Star Trek. Even a bad episode is so much better than Star Trek."
Jim: "Each episode had a great guest actor, but neither episode thrilled me until 'I love you D'argo'"
Alex: "They almost died, but then they didn't. I was shocked!"

	Alex	Brian	Deb	Jim
Salad	C+ Dressing was alright, and I love arugula, but nothing was special about it.	B+ Good blend of fixings	B Needed more stuff. Beans would have been good.	A My mix of ingredients was just right and dressing was quite tasty.
Bread	B It’s hard to give fresh bread a bad rating. Who cares where it comes from!	A- Delicious Italian bread for anyone expecting Italian bread it was a treat.	B Bland and not crispy. That was not French Bread.	A- I’m glad it wasn’t French bread.
Quiche	C- My quiche had a crappy texture and just an ok flavor. Jim thinks I mixed it too much.	B+ Fixings make the quiche.	C “Not sophisticated at all.”	A- Bacon.
Pudding	B Plain jane chocolate pudding. It worked! But it didn’t sing to me.	A+ Well, for supper club. B It was thick, it had a skin on top. It was a functional basic pudding. Bill Cosby might have been enthusiastic.	B+ “Needed alcohol or something - something different in the taste”	B It was a good basic pudding but we could have bammed it up.