Quiche & Frittata ... egg pies for evey occasion!

QUICHE
If you are looking for a savory excuse to make a pie crust this week, quiche is the treat for you. Quiche can be a breakfast or brunch special served with some fresh fruit or a simple salad, or it can serve as the main course for an elegant dinner. Whatever the occasion, I have found that quiche is a crowd pleaser. And it is simple! Use fresh ingredients, good eggs and keep the flavors simple and balanced. I like to do combinations of one or two veggies with a fresh herb accent or spice blend. Be creative with whatever vegetables, meats and cheeses you have on hand. Years ago when I first started making quiches I went looking for the secret ingredient. It didn't take me much experimentation to discover that the light, rich taste I love in quiche comes from the addition of naturally fermented crème fraîche. Apart from quiche, crème fraîche is wonderful as a garnish to soups and as a sauce for salads and desserts. Since the crème fraîche discovery I have also experimented with using yogurt (always plain). Yogurt has a similar effect texturally, but is a bit sourer (yum!) and will affect the flavor accordingly. Consider this when you chose your ingredients and work with it.

If you do not have yogurt or crème fraîche you may substitute milk, or even better, cream. I also like to add a tablespoon or so of cold water to the egg batter to fluff it up. Make sure that you beat the egg very thin; when you lift a fork or whisk through the egg it should slide right through without stringy chunks or lumps.

The trick is to have all ingredients mostly cooked before you add the egg and bake it. Once in the oven they will not have much time to cook before the egg is done and your pie is ready. For harder vegetables like winter squash and potato boil or steam them before sautéing. Softer foods like leeks, onion, summer squash, pepper or mushroom can be fully precooked in your initial sauté.

INGREDIENTS
8 - 10 eggs, depending on the size
¼ cup crème fraîche or yogurt
1 Tbs. cold water
1 large or 3 small leeks
1 cup cubed butternut squash
3 branches of fresh thyme
¼ cup Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cut in half, remove seeds and skin and cube enough butternut squash to make 1 cup, more or less. Cook the prepared squash in a large pot of salted boiling water for 10 minutes or until tender but not mushy. Drain well and set aside. Note: You can either start with a small squash or save or freeze the extra (raw or cooked) for a soup, quiche or other dish. Butternut squash is great as a side dish tossed with butter, fresh thyme leaves and salt and pepper.

Slice leeks thin and wash well, if large cut into half moons. Remove the leaves and tender stems from the thyme branches. In a skillet heat 2 Tbs. butter, when hot add leeks. After a few minutes, salt generously and add a twist of black pepper. Cook until leeks are tender and sweet, 10 minutes or more. When fully cooked, add thyme leaves and cooked squash. Sprinkle with salt and stir well. Adding salt as you go will help the flavors develop and give each ingredient a great flavor on its own. Cook until ingredients are well blended, taste for salt and place evenly into a pre-baked and cooled pie crust.

In a large bowl whisk together egg, crème fraîche, water and a dash of salt and pepper. Whisk until well beaten. A fork or whisk should be able to slide through easily without encountering lumps or stringy spots, this is important to a light fluffy quiche. When beaten to your satisfaction pour the egg mixture into the crust, adjusting or taping to get the egg through the leeks and squash. Sprinkle with fresh grated Parmesan and some fresh black pepper.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes, this depends a lot on your oven. The quiche will first start to rise and cook around the edges, slowly moving into the center. To test for doneness lightly press your finger into the center of the quiche, be careful it’s hot. If the center is still mostly liquid then it needs to cook longer, but if there is just a thin layer of liquid on top that's okay. Turn off the oven, prop the door open slightly and let the quiche cool in the warm oven. It should feel springy but firm to the touch. It will set up and finish cooking as it cools.


FRITTATA
I recently spent the night at a friend’s house. When I arrived she hit me with a challenge: “I always make the same thing. I have all the ingredients I normally have, can you help me make something new?” Generally she takes her favorite veggies and stir-fries them with various treats like sausage or whatever else she has around and serves it with brown rice. While her family loves it, she needed a creative boost. That night we ended up making a wonderful cream of broccoli soup. I also planted the frittata seed. Frittatas are simple, quick and easy, yet they look finished and beautiful and make a very satisfying meal. Best of all, you can throw in your favorite ingredients and have it taste good, just like a stir-fry!

A frittata is a thick, baked omelette, similar to a Spanish torta. It is very similar to a quiche only it doesn’t have a crust. In general since frittatas lack the structure of a crust it is fun to add heavier ingredients, like squash or potato. Follow the same instructions for a quiche (above), but leave out the crust. Precook and sauté your ingredients, place them evenly into the dish and pour egg over, bakes the same. Maybe this is where the expression “easy as pie” came from!

Thyme Honey

I thought it only appropriate to begin this blogging journey with a little something about Thyme. Like all culinary herbs, thyme has become a cornerstone of cuisine for good reason. It is a wonderfully diverse plant medicine, the virtues and uses of which I could barely begin to uncover in a single post. In the context of our season I want to share the benefits of thyme as an herb for winter health wellness. Thyme is anti-bacterial. In fact it is one of the most anti-bacterial herbs of the plant kingdom. It has also been tested and proven to have incredible powers as an anti-fungal, attesting to its ability to support the body system by eliminating harmful and unwanted bugs and organisms. It grows easily in a backyard or potted inside and fresh trimmings can be purchased for culinary uses in most grocery stores, natural health food stores and farmer's markets.

I encourage you to try making this thyme honey. It is a tasty treat and will provide you and your family or house mates with good medicine. In addition to keeping the winter bugs away, thyme is also an appetite stimulant! With this in mind, I recommend you keep a jar of home-made thyme honey on the table and have a teaspoonful before meals. This will help you to digest your food, while squashing bacterial and other bugs that may lead to illnesses! This is a simple and yummy way to support your wellness when colds and the flue are rampant during the winter season.

Why Honey?
well, first of all honey tastes great. Raw, unfiltered honey is full of nutrition, is mildly anti-bacterial and soothing to mucus membranes. This makes it a healthy and delicious way to deliver medicine to those who are resistant or to those who enjoy exploring the complexity of their senses.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup raw, unfiltered honey

1/4 cup fresh thyme leaves and stems

Start by finely chopping the thyme leaves and stems. If they are dirty you can rub them together between two towels to remove some of the dirt, or you can wash or soak the branches to clean. If you do this make sure that you allow them to completely dry before cutting them for use in this recipe. Any water left on the thyme and added to the honey will make it more likely to spoil.

The next step is to gently heat the honey and thyme together in a double boiler. To make an at-home double boiler, heat several inches of water in a medium saucepan. Place a glass jar, glass pirex measuring cup or other smaller saucepan (that has the honey and thyme added to it) into the saucepan with the warm water. This allows the honey to be heated by an indirect heat source; the heat is more evenly distributed throughout the honey and it will not burn. Let the water steam or lightly simmer, but not boil hard. Heat the honey and thyme uncovered until the honey is a thin liquid. Keep the honey at this texture for an hour or more, then let it to sit as is, uncovered, for 12 to 24 hours. The purpose of leaving the honey uncovered is to avoid condensation the resulting water of which would drip into your honey. However, once the honey has cooled you may cover it to avoid contamination.

Once the honey has "steeped" for the length of time you desire you may strain it with a piece of cheese cloth, or a piece of clean cotton muslin. To strain your honey, heat it to a liquid again in a double boiler and pour it through the cloth into a clean jar. Allow the honey to cool before placing the lid on. Straining your honey is not necessary. I often keep the leaves in with the honey and eat them when I take my daily dose. The bitter compounds that stimulate digestion will be stronger and it adds a nice texture.

Label your honey with the name and date, and store it in a place where you will remember to take it. Remember the old saying, just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down! And I must say, my experience has show me that honey is even better!