Goat cheese, spinach and sundried tomato quiche!!!

Was going to poke about the intarwebz looking for ideas to create my own goat cheese, spinach and sundried tomato quiche and on my literal first click I found exactly what I was looking for at https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/goat-cheese-spinach-sun-dried-tomato-quiche/

Ingredients

• 1/2 recipe homemade pie crust* (step-by-step photos included)
• 1/2 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 3 packed cups fresh spinach (see note about using frozen)*
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup whole milk*
• 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, drained and chopped
• 4 ounces goat cheese, crumbled or chopped
• salt & pepper, to taste

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Instructions

1. Preliminary Notes: I like to make sure my pie dough is prepared before I begin the quiche. Make pie dough the night before because it needs to chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours before rolling out and blind baking (next step). And here’s a time-saving tip– as the crust blind bakes, you can get started on the filling which begins with step 7.
2. Partially blind bake the pie crust: On a floured work surface, roll out one of the disks of chilled dough (freeze the other for another time). Turn the dough about a quarter turn after every few rolls until you have a circle 12 inches in diameter. Carefully place the dough into a 9-inch pie dish. Tuck it in with your fingers, making sure it is completely smooth. Chill the pie crust in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. (And up to 5 days. Or freeze for up to 3 months. Cover the pie crust with plastic wrap if chilling for longer than 30 minutes or if you’re freezing it. If you freeze it, let it thaw for a couple hours in the refrigerator before continuing.)
3. While the crust is chilling, preheat oven to 400°F (204°C).
4. Line the chilled pie crust with parchment paper or aluminum foil. (Crunch up the parchment paper first so that you can easily shape it into the crust.) Fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake until the edges of the crust are starting to brown, about 15-16 minutes. Remove pie from the oven and carefully lift the parchment paper/aluminum foil (with the weights) out of the pie. Prick holes all around the bottom crust with a fork. Return the pie crust to the oven and bake until the bottom crust is just beginning to brown, about 7-8 minutes.
5. Remove crust from the oven. (You can partially pre-bake the crust up to 3 days ahead of time. Cover cooled crust tightly and refrigerate until ready to fill.)
6. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F (177°C).
7. Heat olive oil and garlic in a skillet over medium heat. Add the spinach. Cook and stir until wilted. Set aside.
8. Whisk the eggs and milk together until combined. Stir in the sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese, and spinach. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then pour into warm pre-baked crust. If desired, sprinkle the top lightly with more salt and pepper.
9. Bake the quiche until the center is just about set, about 45-60 minutes. Don’t over-bake. Use a pie crust shield to prevent the pie crust edges from over-browning. Allow to cool for 15 minutes before slicing and serving. Or you can cool the quiche completely before serving– it’s fantastic at room temperature!
10. This quiche makes great leftovers! Cover tightly and store in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.

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Notes

1. Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: The pie dough can be prepared ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. You can pre-bake the crust ahead of time too. See end of step 5. To freeze the quiche, cool baked quiche completely, then cover tightly with a couple sheets of aluminum foil and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator or on the counter, then bake at 350°F (177°C) for 20-25 minutes.
2. Pie Crust: My pie crust recipe makes enough dough for two quiches. You can make half of the recipe or make the entire recipe and freeze half of the dough for another quiche, or bake two quiches. The dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before using.
3. Spinach: You can use frozen spinach instead. Use a 10 oz box. If your frozen spinach is not already thawed, thaw it in the microwave per box directions. Drain the spinach in a colander while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
4. Milk: Whole milk is preferred for creamiest texture, but 1/2 cup heavy cream and 1/2 cup whole milk is fantastic too. You could also substitute half-and-half. See How to Bake the Perfect Quiche post.

Hondashi Miso Soup

I have been cooking with Japanese ingredients for more than a decade now, but I have yet to try hondashi!  I have always made my own dashi (and embarrassingly recently learned how much difference using soft water makes in terms of dashi flavor) because it isn't hard and the strained out bonito flakes make a fantastic furikake.  But ... it can be messy ... and at the end of a long day, it can be the "one more thing" that just doesn't get done ... and I recently found a really tasty store bought furikake that has a lot of the same flavors I like in my homemade version.

On a recent trip to NYC we went into a Japanese grocery and I bought a small jar of hondashi.  The other day I bought a handy whisk that you use to measure miso and then stir it into your soup!  So, I guess all I needed was one thing - directions!  At least on the jar I purchased, there is no information about how to work with it!

To make 4 Minute Miso Soup
https://steamykitchen.com/106-how-to-make-miso-soup-recipe.html

1. Cut up tofu.
2. Soak wakame, drain.
3. Boil water, turn off heat.
4. Whisk in instant dashi (1 teaspoon: 2 cups water)
5. Whisk in miso paste (2 tablespoons: 2 cups water)

Modifications to Mermaid Bunting

Body – Top section (Modified Version)

The rounds of the 1^st top section of the body are worked across a multiple of 6 sts. 

1:            K2, repeat [Kfb, sl4wyif] across, ending with Kfb, sl2. Put the yarn in the front, sl marker, then sl3wyif – THEN round 2 (84 sts)

2:            (after sl3wyif) repeat [K1, sl5wyif] across, ending with sl2wyif. Put the yarn in the front, sl marker, then sl3wyif – THEN round 3

3:            (after sl3wyif) K around

4:            K around

5:            repeat [Lift/K, K5] across

6:            K around

7:            repeat [K1, sl5wyif] across

8:            repeat [K1, sl5wyif] across

9:            K around

10:          K around

11:          K3, repeat [Lift/K, K5] across, ending with K2

12:          K around (run lifeline through this round – this is where the modification diverges from the original pattern)

The rounds of the 2^nd top section of the body are worked across a multiple of 7 sts. 

1:            K3, repeat [KFB, sl5wyif] across, ending with KFB, sl2. Put the yarn in the front, sl marker, then sl3wyif – THEN round 2 (98 sts)

2:            repeat [K1, sl6wyif] across, ending with sl3wyif. Put the yarn in the front, sl marker, then sl3wyif – THEN round 3

3:            K around

4:            K around

5:            [Lift/K, K6] around

6:            K around

7:            repeat [K1, sl6wyif] across

8:            repeat [K1, sl6wyif] across

9:            K around

10:          K around

11:          K4, repeat [Lift/K, K6] around, ending with K2

12:          K around

The rounds of the 3^rd top section of the body are worked across a multiple of 8 sts. 

1:            K4, repeat [KFB, sl6wyif] across, ending with KFB, sl2. Put the yarn in the front, sl marker, then sl4wyif – THEN round 2 (112 sts)

2:            repeat [K1, sl7wyif] across, ending with sl3wyif. Put the yarn in the front, sl marker, then sl4wyif – THEN round 3

3:            K around

4:            K around

5:            [Lift/K, K7] around

6:            K around

7:            repeat [K1, sl7wyif] across

8:            repeat [K1, sl7wyif] across

9:            K around

10:          K around

11:          K4, repeat [Lift/K, K7] around, ending with K3

12:          K around

Continue with 5 repeats of:

1:            K4, repeat [K1, sl7wyif] across, ending with K1, sl3. Put the yarn in the front, sl marker, then sl4wyif – THEN round 2

2:            repeat [K1, sl7wyif] across, ending with sl3wyif. Put the yarn in the front, sl marker, then sl4wyif – THEN round 3

3:            K around

4:            K around

5:            [Lift/K, K7] around

6:            K around

7:            repeat [K1, sl7wyif] across

8:            repeat [K1, sl7wyif] across

9:            K around

10:          K around

11:          K4, repeat [Lift/K, K7] around, ending with K3

12:          K around

Top Edge Ribbing and Bind off

Work twisted ribbing (K1b, P1) for 1.5” – bind off with a very stretchy bind off.

Meal Plan 8/10/18 - 8/16/18

Friday 8/10/18

     Turkey Burgers and Tater Puffs

Saturday 8/11/18
   
     Sushi and Wine with Elizabeth

Sunday 8/12/18

     Pan fried pork chops, miso potatoes and oven roasted asparagus

Monday 8/13/18

     Turkey Taco Dip

Tuesday 8/14/18

     Chicken, mushroom and veg over rice

Wednesday 8/15/18

     Honey mustard pork tenderloin, broccoli and cheese potato gratin, spinach

Thursday 8/16/18

     Dinner at Carmine's for office Christmas/Summer party

Chèvre sous vide egg bites

Inspired heavily by : https://recipes.anovaculinary.com/recipe/sous-vide-egg-bites-with-smoked-salmon-asparagus-and-goat-cheese

6 mason jars (4oz)
6 eggs
1/4 cup sour cream
3 oz chèvre
2.5 oz bacon bits
4 Spears asparagus sliced to 1/4” pieces

Cook 1 hour 170 degrees

Oden

Itadakimasu!!!!!  The finished oden!

It was cold and miserable today - it snowed for a bit and then started raining like it was the end of the world (... still is ...ugh.)  I had intended to make oden today anyway and had purchased all the ingredients the day before (and had the dashi left over from earlier in the week when I made udon), but it was lucky I had chosen today, because this was the perfect meal for a cold, wet winter's day!

Makes 4-6 servings - depends on how much veg and fish cake you add!

6 Cups Dashi
3 Tbsp Usukuchi soy sauce
1.5 Tbsp Soy sauce
1.5 Tbsp sake
1.5 Tbsp mirin

1 Leek - white and light green parts only, 1/4 - 1/2" cuts on the bias
1 HUGE carrot - sliced 1/4 - 1/2" cuts
1 Daikon, peeled, sliced in 1-2" rounds, bevel edges top and bottom to keep it from breaking up
4 scallions - white ends and light green parts only
Fish cakes and balls (And you can use your imagination - add other veg, meat, konnyaku, etc. )

Combine all liquid ingredients - if you have a donabe use that, I already had an enamel cast iron dutch over and it worked great.  Bring to simmer - covered - over low heat and simmer 2-3 hours minimum.  It was suggested that additional salt could be added to taste, but my broth was seriously perfect!  (I recently learned that hard water is not good for making dashi ... an my town has the hardest water on the planet.  My dashi always looked perfect and didn't taste bad ... but it did not have a lot of flavor.  Using a gallon of store brand water instead - the difference was night and day!  So much more flavor!!!)

Just the veggies and broth!

Peel and slice the carrots and trim the scallions and add to the pot.  Wash the leek well, slice and add to the pot. Peel and slice the daikon, but add to a separate pot!  I saw someone recommending to simmer in dashi and someone saying to use the white water from washing rice, but in either case, simmer until you can easily slip a butter knife into the center of the daikon slice.  I elected to go with the white water - mainly because I was intrigued by the promise that it would make sure the daikon was not bitter and that it would give it a nice color, but also because I did not have the dashi to spare - I had just enough for the oden!  Once cooked, add daikon to pot.  Then let all of that simmer!

Fish cakes added!

The various fish cakes and balls I purchased came frozen - I portioned out what I would be using and let it thaw a bit on the counter, about a half hour before I intended to toss it in.  And then I tossed it in!  I let it all simmer together for about a half hour and then it was time to eat.

This oden was AMAZING!  The broth was delicious, the daikon tasted like the most perfect and mild turnip I had ever tasted (a good thing! love turnips), the carrot was soft and sweet and the leek and onion had nearly dissolved into the broth - no exaggeration, the broth alone would have been delicious and satisfying.  But the fish cakes and lobster balls took the broth to the next level and it was such a delicious and filling meal!  It was the kind of meal that made me think of all of the people I want to make oden for, it was that good!  I am seriously excited about leftovers for tomorrow!  Scott asked if he could bring some to his mom!  I am unreasonably happy thinking about the rest of the fish cakes in my freezer just waiting for me to make this again!

Perfection!  Look how much the fish cakes and lobster balls puffed up!

Amazake!!!

Makiko Itoh's article on Amazake in The Japan Times with Recipe

Just One Cookbook Amazake Recipe

I was watching a show on NHK about super-healthy foods - one of the featured foods was amazake.  Amazake is a traditional Japanese food made with Koji, like miso, soy sauce and sake.  Koji is rice that has been cooked, cooled and sprinkled with Koji mold (Aspergillus oryzae) - when koji rice is added to other ingredients, it results in fermentation - in the case of amazake, the carbohydrates in the rice are broken down by enzymes resulting in simpler unrefined sugars.  

According to Wikipedia, "Amazake is believed to be very nutritious.  It contains Vitamin B1, B2, B6, Folic Acid, Dietary fiber, Oligosaccharide, Cysteine, Arginine and Glutamine.  It is often considered a hangover cure in Japan."  On the NHK show that I saw (you should check it out, as I write this it is available for streaming on the NHK web site - the show is called Medical Frontiers - the episode was Search for Superfoods in Nagano), Amazake's beauty benefits were touted as well - the amazake increases circulation and makes your skin look great and vanquishes dark under-eye circles!  I have also seen amazake referred to as a "drinkable IV" because it is so packed with nutrition - it is held to be both easily digestible and good for digestive health (so good for the infirm, the elderly and weaning babies) and a great health supplement.  I guess it is a really, really good thing that I had all I needed to make it on hand, because this morning I woke up with the opening salvos of a cold.  I am hoping that between the vitamin C tabs, the zinc nose swabs and my amazake, I can ward it off!

There are a ton of different recipes out there - as is my habit, I read just about every recipe I can find, find the similarities and differences and go from there!  I find that questions I have about a technique or ingredient in one recipe are usually answered by reading others. Sometimes I tweak t he recipe I use to be a "greatest hits" of all the recipes I have read through, sometimes I decide to follow it exactly - in this case, I have followed Maki's recipe exactly in terms of ingredients, but having read through about a thousand more, the technique is a bit ... expanded? 

I have never made Amazake before ... I have never tasted Amazake before!  Like so much of my Japanese cooking, I have to take it on faith that I am getting it right!  Though ... if the end result tastes good to me, I may work up the courage to see if one of my Japanese coworkers will brave a taste and tell me how I did!

Here are the ingredients I used:

75g medium grain rice
75 g short-grain rice (don't make yourself nuts in the store - sweet rice is the same as short grain!)
400ml* water and 200ml water
200g kome koji (mine happens to be brown rice koji!)

Now, 1 rice cooker cup (the one that comes with the machine!) is 150g ... so 1/2 rice cooker cup is 75g - you are using 1 rice cooker cup's worth of rice total.  Maki says to blend the rices so it is just the right amount of sweet - I am not questioning the master on this one, 75g of each it is! 

This is where the * next to the 400ml of water comes into play.  I have a schmancy Zojirushi 10 cup rice cooker that I love beyond reason - it has various cooking settings and markings inside the pot to help you use the right amount of water so your rice comes out perfect each time.  So, if I am using 1 rice cooker cup of rice ... I am going to use the markings inside my rice cooker to tell me how much water instead of measuring.  Maki's recipe did not specify what rice cooker setting to use, but other recipes referred to congee and porridge, so I tossed the rice into the pot, filed up to the 1 cup line for "porridge" and cooked it on the porridge cycle!

The porridge is done!

When my rice cooker sang its "I'm done!" song, it was time for the next step.  My dearest Maki tells you to put the 200ml of water and koji in with the hot rice and cover with a towel for 10 hours on the "keep warm" cycle, making sure it stays between 55-60 degrees C.  The temperature concerned me - that hot rice was A LOT hotter than 60 C ... but Maki has never failed me before ... but I can't help but be a little concerned and hesitant to wreck the recipe - that koji was not cheap or easy to find!  So, compromise!  I added the200ml water as cold water, stirred to release heat a bit and I am keeping it only partially covered with a towel until I get a temp of 55 C - from there I will cover it all the way.


Maki also never mentions stirring - several other sources suggest stirring twice while cooking and I plan to do that.

Combining ingredients and checking temperature

Adding the Koji rice

It took about an hour before the ingredients came down to 60 C - at that point I placed the towel to completely cover the rice cooker.  

Cooling down to 60 C

Now ... we wait!  10 hours ...

Keeping warm!

Over the 10 hours I kept monitoring the temperature - ideally it is kept between 55-60 C so when it would hit 59-60, I would vent the heat by uncovering a bit for about 20 minutes.  

As promised by all of the recipes I reviewed, when it smells and tastes sweet, it is done!  I emptied the amazake into a pot and used my stick blender to blend it slightly - since blending is optional, I didn't want to make it 100% smooth! It can be enjoyed hot or cold - as I write this I am enjoying a warm glass of amazake - it was worth the 10 hour wait!  It tastes a lot like rice pudding with almost a grassy or grain-like aftertaste - it's really tasty! The rest went into a mason jar and into the fridge - it should keep for about a week according to the majority of sources I read.  Some advised bringing the amazake to a boil to stop the fermentation so it will keep longer, but that would also neutralize a lot of the benefits!  It makes slightly less than 2 quarts and it is thoroughly delicious so I really don't think drinking it before it gets sour will be a challenge.

So fingers crossed - those puffy dark under-eyes and fledgling cold are in the crosshairs of my homemade amazake!

Kanpai!!!