Quiche!

This is what I did for tonight's quiches. (Borrowing from these recipes: 1 2 3) It could stand some modification, though.

3 medium-small onions, chopped
1 lb mushrooms, chopped
2 10oz pkgs frozen leaf spinach, defrosted

Sauteed onions a bit in a butter-canola oil mixture, then added mushrooms. Added salt, pepper, a bit of thyme and a bit of nutmeg. Continued sauteeing for undefined period of time, then turned the heat off and added spinach. Stirred.

Grated 8 oz of swiss cheese. Put about 3 oz each in the bottom of 2 premade, defrosted frozen pie shells.

Made a mixture of 6 eggs, 2 cups of milk, 2 TBS flour, 1/2 tsp powdered mustard, 1/2 tsp salt, a good shake of paprika and a good shake of nutmeg.

Divided most of veggie mixture between the two pie shells. There was still a lot left. Sprinkled remaining 2 oz of cheeze on top of veggies. Poured egg-milk mixture into each pie shell. There was a lot left.

Baked @ 375° for about 40 minutes. Dumped remaining veggies and egg mixture into a greased 8x8 pyrex, sprinkled cheddar cheese on top, baked at temps varying from 375° to 400° for an undetermined amount of time.

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To change:
*use chopped spinach. whole spinach doesn't mix well and is kind of clunky.
*possibly chop mushrooms and onions in smaller pieces.
*mix everything together before dumping into pie shells, since the veggies and the milk-egg-cheese didn't get entirely evenly dispersed.
*scale down the amount of veggies and egg mixture, or use more cheese and make three quiches instead of two
*do not sprinkle cheese on top. cheese puffs up and browns, making it hard to see if the egg mixture is set/cooked.

chili!

From Sunset's Vegetarian Cooking, with modifications. They call it "Layered Chili" and suggest you serve it in layers with onions and cheese and some other stuff. It's vegetarian but doesn't have rice or other starch fillers, which is nice. And the mustard seeds are a really neat addition. It's strange using the liquid from the cans of beans, but this came out well, so I'm not gonna mess with it.

4 large onions, chopped
1 large green pepper, seeded and chopped
3 TBS oil
1 TBS each mustard seeds and chili powder (I used extra chili)
1 tsp each ground cumin (I used extra) and unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 14 oz cans chopped tomatoes with jalepenos
2 28 oz cans of kidney beans, liquid included, plus some water (~1 cup)
1 6 oz can tomato paste

In large pot: Cook onions & green pepper in oil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally until onions are golden and pepper is soft. Add mustard seeds, cook 1 minute while stirring. Add chili, cumin seeds, cocoa, cinnamon, tomatoes, beans, and tomato paste. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 40 minutes or until most liquid has cooked away; stir frequently to prevent scorching.

Sunset suggests serving with pink onions, which is red onions cooked briefly in water and vinegar, then mixed with more vinegar, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and salt. I'm too lazy to type out the whole recipe + directions for that.

because I can never remember which pancake recipes I've used...

I don't believe in using pancake mix. I'm stubborn and it seems like such a waste.

Every recipe has slightly different proportions, it seems...today's was:

dry:
2 c flour
3 TBS sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

wet:
2 eggs
1.5 c milk
1/2 c melted shortening (I used half butter, half oil)
splash of vanilla

They came out decent, though some were overly puffy. I used a teflon pan, though, which I'm not used to, and the only pan-grease I used was some butter--I ran out of oil.

Spinach and Black-Eyed Peas

I'm not sure how authentically Persian this is, but it was pretty fast and tasty. It has a nice, interesting combination of flavors.

Persian Spinach and Black-Eyed Peas
2 TBS olive oil
3 leeks, chopped (white parts only) (make sure to rinse well)
24 oz baby spinach
1 cup chopped fresh parsley
8 scallions (white & light green parts, sliced)
4 cans of black-eyed peas (~64 oz altogether), drained and rinsed
6 TBS fresh lemon juice (I used the juice of one lemon plus some of the pre-squeezed kind)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt

In a large heavy pot: Heat oil over medium heat; add leeks and cook for 5-8 minutes (until wilted and tender), stirring often.Add spinach, parsley, scallions, and 1/4 cup water. Cover and cook until spinach has wilted (about 8 minutes.) Stir in black-eyed peas, lemon juice, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  Cook until warmed through (~5 minutes). Season with salt and pepper.

Serve with couscous and perhaps yogurt.

Serves 12.

Quesadillas

Healthy or unhealthy, depending on what sort of ingredients you use. I don't think these are anything special, but they're a lot better than what I had at a local kosher restaurant.  When I order a quesadilla (entree) for $6, I don't want to get a plain white tortilla with some greasy cheese melted on top, thanks.

Anyway, I used:
"whole wheat" (though I doubt they were 100% whole wheat) tortillas about the size of my hand (from tip of my pinkie to the tip of my thumb)
canned black beans
jarred salsa
mozzarella cheese

Mash the beans, adding enough salsa to make the mixture clump together a bit. Don't entirely smoosh the beans, just mush them a little to make a coherent glop of stuff.
Heat up an ungreased frying pan. I've had success with Teflon and aluminum, and will try it in a cast iron skillet when I have a big enough one handy.

Lay a tortilla on the hot frying pan. Spread a layer of bean stuff on it--maybe 1 cm thick? Leave a little room around the edges so the filling doesn't spill out.
Spread a thin layer of salsa over the beans.
Sprinkle cheese over the salsa.
Lay a second tortilla over the whole thing, press slightly with a spatula, and wait for the bottom to get crispy. Flip, cook on other side until the cheese is melted and the tortilla is crispy. If the tortilla isn't crisp, it won't taste very good.

Put on plate, cut in quarters or smaller wedges, and serve with sour cream.

*Whole wheat really doesn't seem to make a difference in terms of taste or function, here, so it seems like a good choice. Usually I don't use whole wheat tortillas since they don't seem as pliable.

brownies

Last time I made brownies, I used the Brownies Cockaigne recipe from the old Joy of Cooking, and they didn't come out--in a big way. The ingredients separated out while they were baking, yielding a tray of...something...with a yellowish bottom and a dark chocolate colored top. I think the sugar was all in one of the layers as well. I'm not sure why that happened, but it could have been a few things--I substituted cocoa powder + oil for unsweetened chocolate squares (which I'd done with success before, but who knows). I used butter that was a bit old. I may have let the butter-chocolate mixture cool for too long. (In fact, I think that itself separated a bit before I mixed it with everything else.) I may have overbeaten the eggs.

That was my first brownie failure, but I figured I'd chronicle my brownie-making for a bit to avoid future failures. I make brownies because I want to be happy and have brownies to eat, not because I want to experiment. Failure doesn't mesh well with this.

Anyhoo, this time I followed a combination of the Joy of Cooking recipe and the classic one-bowl recipe from Baker's chocolate, which I've made with success before. Basically, I used the Joy of Cooking ingredient proportions and the Baker's instructions. Joy of Cooking wants you to beat the eggs with an electric mixer until they're fluffy. Baker's doesn't. I figured I'd try the easier, simpler directions first. If these don't come out the way I'd like, I'll move on.

What I did this time:

Preheated the oven to 350 °
Cracked 4 extra-large eggs into a bowl and let them warm up to probably less than room temperature
Melted 4 oz Ghirardelli 100% Cacao unsweetened baking bar + 1/2 cup of unsalted butter (which was kind of old and had been in the freezer) over the stove on very low heat (no double boiler) until just melted. I used a 3 qt pot.
Stirred in 2 cups of sugar and 1 tsp (real) vanilla and 1/4 tsp salt. I just put them directly into the pot I'd melted the chocolate and butter in.
Added the 4 eggs and stirred really really well with a fork. Used a spatula to make sure nothing was sticking to the bottom or sides of the pot, natch.
Stirred in 1 cup of unbleached white flour. Mixed a bit.
Poured the whole shebang into a 9x13 greased Pyrex and threw it into the oven. Which is where it is now. We'll see how it turns out.

And after ~32 minutes in the oven:

Respectable brownies, though nothing to write home about. Next time I'd like to get more of that flaky stuff that happens on top sometimes. Mmm.

"Black and White Salad"

Taken/modified from a post in the LJ community VegRecipes.
I'm not giving any proportions because I think it's the sort of thing you can eyeball or do to taste. To me, the main new/exciting thing about this dish is the amazingly delicious and complex flavor these four ingredients create.

• Kale (I used curly kale but would use un-curly kale in a heartbeat if it weren't so %$#@ hard to find around here.)
• Cooked white cannellini or navy beans (I used a can of cannellini, drained and rinsed)
  
• cloves of garlic
• fresh tomatoes

Wash the kale. Chop into small pieces. Cook in oil in heavy-bottomed pot or big frying pan until slightly limp or however you'd like to eat it. Dump in beans. Crush garlic in garlic press and dump into pot. Stir. Mush the beans a little, add a little water if desired, heat through. Chop tomato into bite-sized pieces. Add to kale/bean mixture. Stir. Eat.