Sweet Potato Hash Quiche

I'm playing catch-up this week, so thought I'd post a long-forgotten quiche recipe. I use the same basic ingredients for making the egg/milk mixture, but change up the vegetables and cheese choices. This one included (already-cooked) grated sweet potato, softened spinach and Gruyere. 

P.S. Having some frozen pastry shells around helps a ton! While the quiche can take 45 minutes (or more) to bake, depending on how watery the vegetables are, having the pre-made crust at least makes that part simple. 

Summer Squash with Baked Eggs

I really like weekend breakfast. I'm a coffee and granola bar on the go kind of girl during the week, so when I have the time to cook something yummy on the weekend to enjoy in the morning, I am all over it. We had some leftover grilled zucchini and yellow squash from earlier in the week, so I looked for a recipe to incorporate those items (that wasn't simply adding them to an omelet). I found this delicious looking one -- and decided to make it.

Making use of that grater attachment on the food processor.

Start off by grating the squash and zucchini. Combine the grated vegetables with 1 tsp. of salt and let drain for 30 minutes. 

Draining the liquid helps crisp up the vegetables and keep it from getting soggy.

While the vegetables are draining, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. 

In an ovenproof skillet, heat 2 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat. Cook the shallots, garlic and paprika for just a couple minutes, until fragrant (I think it was about 2 minutes?). Squeeze as much liquid as possible out of the squash and zucchini, then add it to the pan. Add the tomatoes, and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
 

We used cherry tomatoes, but I'm sure you could use any tomatoes you have on hand. I like the way cherry tomatoes come out after being in the oven.

While everything is cooking up, prepare the goat cheese and chiffonade the basil. I cut up some sourdough bread we had in the house as well.

The creaminess of chevre (the goat cheese) is awesome for breakfast.

Once the skillet is ready, mix in the basil and goat cheese.
 

That may be more than 4 oz of goat cheese. Oh well.

After mixing in the cheese and basil, make four small wells in the mixture. Pour a little olive oil in each well, and then crack an egg into the well. Top each egg with salt, pepper and a sprinkle of paprika. 
 

I used the recipe's suggested method of cracking the egg into a small bowl, and the pouring it into the well for three of the eggs. I'm sure you have no idea which one I did differently.

Bake until egg whites are set, but yolks are still soft -- about 10 minutes. The eggs will continue to cook in the hot pan after you remove it from the oven, so if you like your eggs goopy, you'll need to make your move quickly to get it out of the pan (so that it won't continue to cook and harden up). 
 

Hot out of the oven and ready to go!

I used a flat plastic spatula to cut the mixture into servings. It was pretty easy to scoop out with the egg whites being set. 

Summery breakfast!

I thought that this turned out great. Although it seems a little counter intuitive to turn on the oven in the summer, this was worth it. Some of the reviewers for the recipe talk about cooking it completely on the stove, which is also an option if you don't want to fire up the oven in the summer.

The softness of the egg yolk and the creaminess of the goat cheese go really well together. The squash and zucchini make a nice crispy base. I'm interested in trying this with some other vegetables -- maybe using sweet potatoes as part of the base in addition or in replacement of either the squash or the zucchini.

May 1: Swiss Chard, Mushroom and Gruyere Quiche

I decided to throw together a quiche on a Sunday morning, as we had one last pre-made crust in our freezer. I made this version based on this recipe and the ingredients we had in the house. 

I sadly, have come to realize that me and mushrooms don't mix.  I cooked just a handful of sliced mushrooms for Paul's half of the quiche. The recipe suggest roasting them in the oven, which also could work, but I was starting to get dangerously hungry, so I went for immediacy.

It has been a painful separation. *sniff*

We had some swiss chard from the previous week's produce box, so I washed and chopped that to add into the mix. I cooked it down in a frying pan as well, just until it was wilted. Behind it, you can see the freshly grated Gruyere. 

Swiss Chard is a nice alternative to spinach here.

While all of the vegetables were cooking, I mixed together the egg/cream/milk/salt/pepper all together in a bowl. I added in some fresh rosemary as well. 
 

You layer the vegetables and half of the cheese in first, then add the egg mixture on top. The last half of cheese goes on the very top. The pan is very full, so you have to be careful transporting it into the oven.

I forgot to take a photo of it before it went in the oven, but hopefully this gives you a sense of what it looked like going in.

We ended up cooking the quiche for longer than the suggested 30-35 minutes because the middle was not set. I realized that I had set the oven to 350 degrees, not 375 as suggested, which slowed the cooking time. It was in the oven for about 45 minutes.

Browned cheesy goodness.

Both Paul and I thought the swiss chard made a great substitution for asparagus (in the original recipe). I think we probably could have cooked the quiche even a little longer to have the eggs become a little more firm. They were definitely just set in the middle, and a little soft for me (for what I like in a quiche).  Paul and I were starting to get hangry (hungry/angry), so I yanked it out at the 45 minute mark. We nuked the leftovers in the microwave later that week, and they were totally fine (not dried out).

Thoughts for next time: 

• preheat the oven to the right temperature
• try spinach instead of swiss chard
• maybe use Parmesan instead of Gruyere
• diced tomato instead of mushrooms

April 17: Shirred Eggs with Toast and Homemade Hash Brown Potatoes

For a lazy Sunday breakfast, we decided to make an easy egg recipe along with some homemade hash browns. Paul peeled and grated two russet potatoes to start the hash browns.

Paul is a lovely sous-chef.

We had read online that the key to making crispy hash browns is to get as much moisture out of the potatoes as possible before beginning to cook them. We found a great suggestion -- to use a ricer to extra the extra moisture out of the already-grated potatoes.

We have officially used the ricer...twice. Yay!

While Paul started cooking the hash browns, after heating up a little vegetable oil in the frying pan, then added the grated, drained potatoes.

 

I greased the ramekins with a little olive oil, then began adding the ingredients.

I grated Gruyere cheese and chopped some shallots to add to the egg. I just pulled the leaves off the thyme sprigs and added them to the ramekins.

You can just toss everything into the ramekin, and add the cream on top. The ramekins go into the oven preheated to 425 degrees for 7 to 10 minutes, depending on how goopy you want your egg yolks to be. 

All the ingredients, minus the all-important heavy cream.

We like a goopy yolk, so I pulled them out of the oven at about 8 minutes. The eggs do continue to cook/set, so you're going to want to eat them relatively quickly if you don't want them to harden up further. The whites are cooked all the way through, but are nice and soft.


  We ate the eggs with some toast, which is great for sopping up any leftover egg bits, particularly in a metal ramekin.



I definitely burned my mouth trying to eat this before it had cooled a little. The price of deliciousness. And impatience.

I really like this dish. I chose to scoop the egg out and spread it on the toast. It's quite easy to make (the egg part, at least) and cooks super quickly. I love the shallot/Gruyere/thyme combination, but I imagine you could do pretty much any cheese and diced vegetable and be pretty happy. I think the tablespoon of cream makes it a little decadent without totally going crazy.

We did try the recipe again in smaller, ceramic ramekins. We had to adjust the cooking time a little to make sure the yolks weren't too runny. I liked the eggs better in the smaller ramekins because they were a little thicker -- and I didn't give myself the willies scraping a metal fork against a metal ramekin.

We're going to try a scoop of fruit preserves with some goat cheese to see if it works for sweet flavors as well. Stay tuned!