Spinach Quiche

Quiche is one of the things I have always loved but left for other people to make. My favorite version is mini quiches - like the adorable ones that are always served at fabulous parties. There's something crazy good about a flaky crust filled with an almost creamy, fluffy, center. Not to mention I love any dish that can be made with pretty much anything I have. As a working college student I love me a no-fuss recipe. I adapted my recipe from Just Eat, it's such a great blog, check it out. This is super easy to make and really really delicious.

What You'll Need:

4 eggs

1/3 C milk

1 1/4 C cheese

2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 chopped onion
1 tomato

6 sliced mushrooms

1 1/2 packages of frozen spinach

1 cold pie crust (below)

Pie Crust

I started by making my own pie crust for this. If you usually rock a pre-made pie crust those work just as well but pie crusts are soo easy and they get really flaky. Here's how I made mine:

What You'll Need:

1 1/4 C all purpose flour

1/2 C cold butter (cubed)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

3-5 tblsp of water

Mix your flour, salt, and sugar in a mixing bowl. I still don't have a standing mixer but my grandma doesn't need one for her pie crusts so I'm going to say I don't either, I just use my hand-held dough cutter to, well I'm assuming, "cut" in the butter. Once it looks like course sand, add your water one tablespoon at a time. This time I ended up needing four tablespoons to get the consistency I wanted, kneading it continuously. Knead it into a ball and keep in the refrigerator until your quiche (or any other type) of filling is ready. 

First, preheat the oven to 350 so you don't have to wait later on, it's lame.

My quiche was filled with two kinds of cheeses, 1 cup of mozzarella and 1/4 cup of a Mexican blend (which included pepper jack and cheddar cheese). The pepper jack ended up adding a really nice, deep flavor to the quiche.

In a bowl I mixed the eggs, milk, and cheeses. Then I added the salt and pepper and set it aside.

In a large pan, saute the onion until they're translucent then add the mushrooms. I decided to add a little chopped garlic because I'd pretty much eat garlic on anything and this was no exception.

I wanted to add some tomato because I was sure they would add some awesome color to my quiche. Red pepper would have worked too but I always have tomatoes on hand and they seem to always add a great color, texture, and taste to my meals. I love the little things.

The last thing you want to add is your defrosted, drained spinach. The colors are about to get insane right now! Make sure everything is mixed and fully incorporated.

Add your spinach mixture to your egg mixture and fold in. 

Take out your crust roll it out on a clean, well-floured, surface. It's good to have the chunks of butter in the dough because that's what makes it flaky. Pour the spinach mix over the pie crust.

Place this in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes, until the top is a light golden brown.

When the quiche comes out you're going to see that this recipe is a keeper. Now, I'm a "sides" kind of girl, I love serving main dishes with some sort of side. I guess I feel that a meal isn't complete without them. This was an exception. This was the only thing on our plates and it's all we needed. The spinach was crazy, crazy, crazy it was so good and everything else was fluffy. You can taste every single thing that goes into this. And the perfect thing about this is, if you're like me and you get home late most nights, you can eat this and you don't feel like you over-ate even though you're full. I now have a great recipe that I can make into fabulous mini quiches or smaller personal sized portions.

Triple-Stacked Breakfast Sammies

 I'm the kind of person that likes things mashed, mixed, and eaten all together. Not to toot my own horn but I'm the queen of crazy concoctions. Like most of the things I make, this was completely spontaneous. The second best part of this sandwich (the first being taste) is that there aren't any rules - you can add whatever you want, or whatever you have.

What You'll Need:

(makes 2 sandwiches)

4 Breakfast sausage patties (maple flavored)

2 Slices of American cheese

2 Frozen hash brown patties

4 Eggs

 4 Slices of bread

Mayonnaise

The first step is to get a large pan and spray it with non-stick cooking spray. Put the sausage patties and hash browns in the pan on medium heat. I used patties because when I bought them, that was all the store had. Had they been links I would have probably cut them up and mixed them in with my eggs. And I always have these hash browns on hand. My mom use to buy them and they're so delicious and easy to make. You can bake them, or fry them like I did. Just make sure you flip them every few minutes until they're no longer cold in the middle. When they're done, put them aside.

As those are cooking, get your eggs ready. I always add a tablespoon of water and a tablespoon of milk to my eggs. Of course, this is totally optional. 

Cook the eggs on low heat. You'll want to keep the eggs together as much as possible, so go more for "omelet" than "scramble." 

While the eggs are cooking, toast the bread and put mayo on both sides. Like the rest of my family, I have a small addiction to mayo and love it on whatever I can get it on. When the eggs are done separate them into sections in the pan so it makes it easier to put on one slice of bread. Assemble the rest of it by putting one hash brown and two sausage patties on the other slice of bread. Put cheese on the egg and close the sandwich up.

These are really good and filling. We both enjoyed them, even though Mike gets skeptical when I don't tell him what I'm doing beforehand. I'll definitely be making these again. 

Camping!

We decided to take our first camping trip of the year last week. We had a great time and the weather was perfect. We love hiking, fishing, and the whole not showering thing... Something that we also get excited for is the food,though. We go beyond just roasting hot dogs and boiling water. Mikey usually handles the dinner portion (because it means he can play with the fire) while Mo handles breakfast. Our overall menu included eggs, potatoes, bacon, baked potatoes, roasted corn on the cob, clam chowder, chicken sandwiches with tomato, hot dogs, and S'mores. Oh yeah- we know...

Let's talk about the propane stove we had. It was small and only held one pan (or pot) at a time but it was so easy. It held the pot for the chowder, the pan for the bacon, the eggs, and the potatoes, and even was easy enough to use for a just a tea kettle for a quick cup of hot chocolate. The best part is that we could keep the stove by the campfire in case we absolutely needed hot chocolate but didn't feel like getting up :)

Breakfast was another thing that we had a good system for thanks to our wonder stove. Since we were only feeding the two of us we could use one pan to make everything for breakfast. One day breakfast came out particularly well; Bacon-Scrambled Eggs and Breakfast Potatoes. First cut the bacon into small pieces then cook it so there's enough fat in the pan to cook the potatoes. When the bacon's done but it on a plate with a paper towel and cover with foil. Next you have to dice the potatoes up then put them in the pan as soon as the bacon is done. Mo hates to cover things because it keeps her from being able to see what's happening but we did it anyway and they cooked faster. When the potatoes get soft and you've put enough garlic powder, salt and pepper on them then put them onto a plate and cover with foil too. Leave whatever oil is left in the pan and turn you pan to low heat. Now add beaten eggs. They should start cooking right away. You need really low heat. Mo is sort of awesome at eggs and knows you can't rush the process. When the eggs start to cook together and have lost most of their liquid consistency add the chopped bacon to the eggs. Fold, mix, stir, you know.

*Quick tip* We don't bring milk when we camp but if you're like Mo and won't cook without something in your eggs then used evaporated milk. It does the same thing, just as well.

You can't tell us that's not a pretty good meal for one pan, cooked in the outdoors! It was really filling and cleanup was minimal.

Real (Easy) French Toast

It was just one of those days where we were destined to have something with a lot of syrup. Wheat bread is the usual for us but we went all out for this. After a morning full of classes, thick slices of french toast drenched in syrup was pretty much exactly what we needed. We used the thick bread (apparently made just for this kind of thing) and it was worth it! I don't know if I can go back to regular bread after this... The best thing about it- because we're broke college students- is that the bread is all we had to buy, everything else is stuff that we all have in our cupboards. Now, there is no specific measurements for this one so just go with it. If in doubt, add a little more...

What You'll Need:

6 slices of think French Toast (but regular bread will work too)

vanilla extract

3-4 eggs

cinnamon

milk

Pam spray (because it's important to be healthy)

real butter

syrup

Crack all the eggs into a medium size bowl. With a fork, beat eggs. Add a few strong dashes of cinnamon.

Add milk, vanilla, and cinnamon. Start off with a little. If it looks like you want more go for it. Mix all three ingredients well.

Spray pan with Pam (AWAY FROM STOVE!) and put pan to heat. Dip each slice in the egg mix and place quickly on pan.

Wait until each side turns a deep gold color, they should be soft and fluffy. Plate them and butter them. Mikey likes powder sugar but that's optional.


The extra egg mix that's going to be left (unless you really soaked the bread) has a lot of potential. Take what's left and put it into the pan you just used for the french toast on low heat. They are going to cook really fast so watch them and keep stirring them.

They're full of cinnamon and taste really good with a little syrup, too. No waste here.