Quiche versus Frittata

It occured to me as I was falling asleep the other night that maybe my Rice Quiche this week wasn't really a quiche, but might just be a frittata instead. The more I thought about it, the less clear I was on the difference between a quiche and a frittata.


In my mind, a quiche was something of a baked omelet with a crust. A frittata was the kind of dish you could throw all sorts of leftover sauted veggies and meat into, with a little cheese and an egg binder, then baked in an oven. But the dish I made last night, doesn't even really seem to fit into either of those categories and was more like just a plain old rice casserole with an egg and milk binder. KWIM?


So, like any other human of my generation, I googled it. The first link I clicked was at About.com. I don't generally care for the About.com sites because the layouts are are too cluttered and sometimes the content is pretentious. This one is just cluttered. Laura Dolson, the author of the article I read, does a fairly decent job of writing solid definitions for each of several types of egg dishes. By her way of explaining things, I simply made an Egg Casserole last night. And you know what, I'm okay with that... I don't need to be pretentious myself and try to pretend that I made a quiche or frittata (even though these dishes always sound fancier in my mind than casserole).


Then, here at the Passionate Cook, I found a more thorough explanation for the history of the frittata. I don't know why, but I always thought frittatas were of Spanish origin, maybe because I first heard of them while living in Miami? Johanna Wagner, the blog's author, also mentions something called a Spanish Tortilla, which is also an egg dish... I suppose I need to find out what this is too!

Rice Quiche

At the beginning of the week I planned to make Rice Quiche. I am proud to report that my plan worked out and I made Rice Quiche tonight. I can also say I completely threw the original recipe out the window and just winged (or is it wung) it since I had to get it in the oven before my daughter woke up hungry for her momma's milk.

First, I threw some frozen broccoli pieces in the microwave to thaw. While that was thawing, I grabbed leftover rice from earlier in the week, 4 eggs, light cream cheese, and a block of cheddar cheese from the refrigerator. I enlisted my husband to scramble the 4 eggs while I shredded enough of the block cheese to make 1 cup.

When the broccoli came out of the microwave, I decided it was too big so ran my kitchen scissors through it a few times before mixing in about 2 cups of rice. Then, I added about 3 tablespoons of cream cheese to the eggs and mixed it as best I could since it was all at fridge temperature. This was dumped in with the rice mixture. I also dumped most of the cheese in and about 1/2 a cup of skim milk. I tried to stir everything together as best I could before spreading it out in my 8x8 stone baker. Sprinkled the remaining cheese over the top and popped it into a 350 degree over for about 45 minutes.

This was our vegetarian meal for the week. I found some lovely canned mandarin oranges in the back of my fridge and served those up, along with some fresh red grapes, to give the meal a brunch like appearance. Bruce approved whole-heartedly with the meal idea and even went back for a 2nd serving. This really surprised me because he isn't much for casseroles or meat-less dishes. This dish would have benefitted greatly from more salt, pepper, and sauted onions and mushrooms.

From my stash I used the frozen broccoli, rice, and mandarin oranges. My fresh ingredients were the eggs, milk, cheese, and fruit.

Thursday 13 - 2nd Edition

I’m still new at the Thursday 13 game and haven’t got all of my most creative juices flowing to come up with the most amazing and stupendous ideas. So this week, since I am a food-related blog, I am going to share my 13 favorite foods with you.

1 – Pizza w/ jalapenos
2 – Fajitas from Chilis
3 – A really thick, medium-rare hamburger on a great bun
4 – Fresh sushi (because old sushi would be just plain disgusting)
5 – Peanut butter cup twister from Frostbite
6 – Spaghetti with meat sauce
7 – Little Debbie Fudge Rounds
8 – Buffalo Chicken Wrap from Frostbite (even better when paired with #5)
9 – Wings from Sticky Fingers
10 – Rainier cherries
11 – Lindt or Godiva dark chocolate anything (especially when it covers strawberries)
12 – Lucky Charms cereal
13 – Salad made by someone else (they ALWAYS taste better when someone else makes them!)

What is your favorite food?
Go read more Thursday Thirteen fun here!

Beefcake

We had beefcake for dinner tonight... and I don't mean as a guest! Instead we had Beefcake au Poivre from My Girlfriend's Kitchen. Bruce declared it "very tasty!" Then, when he discovered I was quoting him, he amended his response to, "it had a light wine sauce taste but the mushrooms kept it down to earth." All in an effort to appear more high falutin' of course!

I have to say the directions on all of my MGFK meals are super easy to follow, but they don't all stand up to my taste tests. The flaw in this one is that the meat was too greasy, so when you put greasy meat in a pan with 1 T of olive oil, you end up with a lot of grease to drain off. Ick. The wine sauce did thicken up quite well though.

In an effort to expand our vegetable repetoire, I sauted asparagus after I put the beefcakes in the oven. I was a little nervous since I couldn't recall ever cooking this long vegetable at home, but they came out tender and still bright green!

As a side dish, I had planned to make Herb Butter Rice-A-Roni. But that takes a long time so it was a no go. Instead, I had a bag of Lipton Dirty rice and threw that in the microwave for perfect timing of my meal. I used up the rice from my stash and a meal from the freezer. The asparagus was my fresh produce purchse for the week.

Beefcake image at top courtesy of FoxNews.com.

Meatloaf Muffins

This is one of our favorite recipes to make and it freezes really well. I think I got the recipe from either my friend Angela or Becky. It was a particular favorite when I was on Weight Watchers because in its original form these meaty little muffins are only 2 points each. I decided it was easier to make these using my scoop so they are smaller and I think if you did it the same way they would work out to 3 for 2 points. I have a couple of bags of these left in my freezer that I'm embarrassed to say are several months old.


Ingredients

• 1 package bread stuffing dry mix (I prefer the corn bread flavor)
• 10 oz canned diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup fat-free egg substitute
• 2 pound raw extra lean ground beef
  

Instructions
Combine all ingredients, including juice of canned tomatoes (I prefer to buy Extra Spicy Rotel canned, diced tomatoes for more flavor). Portion into muffin pans. Bake @ 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Makes 18 muffins. 1 muffin is 1 serving.

These make great lunch additions, especially if you do bento boxes. They are also great on bread for a sandwich or tossed in with some pasta and sauce.

Menu Plan for the Week

Fortunately, I have some spare time this evening to get my menu plan all made up. here's what is on the menu for this week.

Monday: Meatloaf Muffins (homemade from my freezer) with Mac & Cheese
Tuesday: Beefcake au Poivre from MGFK, with asparagus
Wednesday: Broccoli Rice Quiche, using rice leftovers
Thursday: BBQ Pork with Rice-A-Roni and green beans
Friday: Leftovers? Soup & Sandwich?

I did this week's grocery shopping on Saturday. I would have waited until Sunday afternoon, but we ran out of milk on Friday and I love milk, so I had to go a day early. My total at Publix was $24.19, but I forgot to take a picture of my receipt. It's now in the bottom of my trash can so I am sure you are glad I'm sparing you the visual.

I have to confess that I did add 1 thing to my stockpile this week. Bruce really likes Gatorade and Powerade type beverages and Wal-mart had the 20-oz bottles of G2 on sale for $0.50 each. That's right, half a dollar! Normally these cost $1.50 at the conveinence store where Bruce would normally pick one up. The hope is that he will remember to keep a couple of these in the fridge and grab one before he heads out. The bottles are probably too big to pack in his lunch box though. I decided these were worth the cost because they might encourage Bruce to become more hydrated. He doesn't drink enough water. I suppose technically I have to declare myself over budget becaus I bought 48 bottles and spent $24 plus tax.

This Week

You might think that I gave up my experiment since there have been no posts in the last 7 days. But that is not the case. I have still been sticking to my $25 budget and making meals from my stash. I didn't do a menu plan (for lots of good reasons), but we did eat.

Monday - Pizza (from the construction budget since we were at HD for a LONG time)
Tuesday - Soup & grilled cheese (hubby was sick)
Wednesday - All-star Chicken from MGFK
Thursday - Spaghetti with meat sauce
Friday - Who knows what tomorrow will bring? I better go dig something out of the freezer!

My shopping trip for this week happened on Sunday evening. I completely missed the fact that Publix closes at 8 pm on Sundays so when I wandered up to the register and saw all of the front lights off I felt awful. It was a good thing I had kept good track of my totals and didn't have to send anything back. I was right up under my budget and spent $24.80. I didn't really make anything this week so there is no recipe of my own to share. I will point you to a yummy treat over at Edi's Exotic Eating Experiment. She made Apple-Cinnamon Burritos this week. I might try these for breakfast next week if I remember to buy apples.

Thursday Thirteen - 1st Edition

13 Things in My Pantry Right Now

1 carton of quaker oatmeal
2 pouches of albacore steak
3 boxes of roganic macaroni and cheese
4 boxes of rice-a-roni (various flavors)
5 cans of green beans, all kitchen cut
6 boxes of organic, whole grain spaghetti, with flax seed
7 jars of pasta sauce
8 different bottles or packages of marinade
9 - 12 packs of soda
10 cans of cream of something soup
11 boxes of other kinds of pasta (not counting what I listed above)
12 - 6 packs of unsweetened applesauce
13 cans of ready-to-eat soup (mostly Campbell's Chunky)

Visit Thursday Thirteen for more 13 fun.

Thursday Thirteen Blog Roll

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Chicken Tostadas

Yummy, yummy, yummy, and rubbery!

Today was our crock-pot meal and I have to say I did a stupendous job. I put in about 3 1/2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breast and then mixed up the following to dump over it - 1 can of green enchilada sauce, 1 can of cream of chicken soup, ~1 cup of frozen, diced chicken breast, and 1/2 cup of chicken broth. The chicken was still frozen and in a huge lump when I left it on low this morning aroun 6 am.

When I came home around 4:30 I stirred it up and it fell apart into perfectly juicy, stringy pieces. And the house smelled great. That really is one of the best parts of using a crockpot - coming home to a house filled with the wonderful aroma of cooked food. I snuck a taste of the chicken and couldn't believe how tender it was, especially since my last couple of crock pot attempts turned out less tender.

Bruce heated up some corn tortillas in the frying pan for us. He used just the slightest amount of grease and then laid them out on paper towels so they came out light and toasty. He did burn one of them pretty badly though so I just broke those burnt bits off and enjoyed a little pre-dinner snack. I think he even toasted up a few extra and wrapped them in foil for leftovers. I didn't really give him very specific directions for turning plain corn tortillas into tostadas, but he did a good job none the less.


Once they had cooled a little bit, I placed some of the chicken over them then artfully layered salsa and cheese on top. We weren't sure if we would use silverware or not to eat them, but it came pretty clear pretty quickly that it was just easier to pick them up and eat them with our hands. The taste of the chicken was fairly mild and that's because I didn't have the can of green chiles that I thought I did and ran out of time to add the 1/2 of a red bell pepper that I defrosted. Oh well, maybe I can add it before I store the leftovers.

Oh, you might be wondering why I called it rubbery. Well, if you've never heard of rubber chicken let me explain. Rubber chicken is chicken that can be stretched out to last over a few meals. Tonight we had tostados. I can also use part of the chicken, because of its mild flavor, in a chicken salad for lunch tomorrow. If I buy flour tortillas I can make enchiladas. The chicken could also be used in a large number of different types of casseroles that I can't think up right now! That's stretchy chicken.

On a side note, I really am sold on making my own tortilla chips with corn tortillas. They are super cheap because they go on BOGO sale frequently at Publix. I spray them lightly with oil and sprinkle salt on them. I know I could get creative and add more seasonings, like cumin, or go sweet and add cinamon and sugar, I just haven't yet. When I do, you can be sure that you'll be the first to know!

98% FF = Blech!

New England Clam Chowder is one of my favorite soup-type things to eat. I especially savor the opportunities to enjoy clam chowder when I am at a quality seafood restaurant. The delight of biting into a large chunk of clam as the creaminess of the soup washes it down is exquisite. In my book, nothing really beats a great bowl of chowder.

Normally, I let Bruce pick out the soup on soup and sandwich nights but I found a can of clam chowder and knew what I wanted to go with my sandwich. It got even better when Bruce agreed to prepare our meal while I gave our dear daughter some more bananas.

I was filled with anticipation as I brought the first bite to my lips and that is where it ended. I couldn't believe how horrible it tasted. Given the nature of this experiment, the first thing I thought is to check the expiration date on the can. You can bet I was surprised when Bruce said the can didn't expire until sometime in 2010! While I pondered my letter to Campbell's, Bruce re-read the can again. Turns out, I bought the 98% fat free version of my favorite soup. I'll never make that mistake again! It was awful. No amount of seasoning improved it either.

Oh well, live and learn. Bruce dumped that batch of soup and heated up another can. I sure hope we don't have anymore of those 98% fat free cream soups left!

Menu Plan Monday

Better late than never...
Monday - Pan-seared Pork Chops with Butternut Squash Raioli
Tuesday - Napolean Artichoke from MGFK
Wednesday - Soup & Grilled Cheese
Thursday - Crockpot Chicken (chicken w/ a can of petite diced tomatoes poured over top), probably to be served over rice

A pretty boring week ahead of us since we had the most exciting meal tonight already. I have an appointment next Saturday to go back to My Girlfriend's Kitchen, but I think I'll be cancelling it for a lot of reasons.

First, I still have about 4-5 meals left from last time. Second, I think I can get a better deal if I book through a e-mail offer instead of on-site. Third, I might have to be out of town anyway. Fourth, I haven't decided if going back will break my ground rules. Any thoughts?

Late Dinner

Tonight we ate too late. I am used to eating dinner around 5 pm or so, but due to circumstances, it wasn't until 8 pm when we sat down with our plate of food. It was so worth the wait! We pan-seared pork chops and then I got to deglaze the pan! Yeah! Have I told you that I only feel like a real cook when I am deglazing a pan? It is so true. Here's what I did tonight.

After an emergency defrost of 2 bone-in pork chops, Bruce sprinkled them with Tony Chachere's seasoning and then pan fried them. While those were going he put on a pot of water to boil the butternut squash ravioli I found in my freezer. I think I bought them out of the clearance freezer rack at Publix. Boy am I glad I did! After the pork chops were done, I swooped in to create a sauce for the ravioli. While it might seem odd, all I had to deglaze the pan with was water. I forgot to defrost my broth from 2 weeks ago and I didn't think red wine vinegar would taste right. So, I poured about 1/4 cup water into the pan and added 2 thin slices of REAL butter. Next came a very generous shaking of Dill Mix from Pampered Chef. Dill is my all-time favorite herb and I think it makes everything better. well, not Lucky Charms cereal, but that is already yummy enough!

I stirred constantly and let this cook down until I had a very dense and intensely flavored sauce. There were bits of pork, some of the Tony'seasonings, a touch of creaminess from the butter, and of course my beloved dill mix! This was poured over the ravioli and really made the flavor pop. The bag recommended a butter, sage, and parm cheese sauce and I am glad I skipped that. It would have been too heavy to really enjoy, especially this late at night.

Everything except for the butter came from my stash! That is a good use of resources my friend. The pork chops were buried in the very bottom of my freezer. So far down that my husband couldn't even find them. I had to go digging myself!

Also, I did go to the grocery store tonight. It is why dinner was late. I had made trip last Thursday for milk and bread so had already used up ~$6 of my weekly budget. I am proud to say that, including that trip, I stayed under budget this week. I spent just over $18 tonight and that included buying some personal care items! Of course, I forgo eggs, so we'll have to wait another week to enjoy those. I hope hubby likes the waffles and bagels we pull from the freezer stash.

Oh! And tomorrow is a big ay at school... my students are taking an important test and I know that not all of them will have a good breakfast. So, I had a $10 Publix gift card that I got as a rebate for an earlier purchase and used it to buy fruit and nut granola bars and a bag of apples. Hopefully at least a couple of kids will show up and be able to put food in their belly so they can concentrate on the test!

Friday Night Firsts

Now, I haven't made a habit of posting about my family here, but since this is a food related blog, I thought this video was appropriate for this EatingItUp journey since our dear daughter is helping us use up our stash.

This is a video of the first time she ever ate something other than momma's milk. Click here to see her eating her first meal - think of it as a 6-month old's birthday present! Be warned, though. The file is 129 MB, so it will take a while to download and you'll need Quicktime to watch it.

I have several containers of mashed bananas in the freezer from a time I purchased them on clearance sale. They were something like $0.19/lb. The only way I knew to keep them and not waste them was to mash and freeze. I decided this would be the best food to try based on days of reading everything I could find online about baby's first foods, including this site. We gave her about a tablespoon's worth just so she could get used to the idea of having a new texture and taste in her mouth. I think you will see that she liked it. And some of those faces are priceless!

Grocery Day

I have decided to try and change my grocery day. It makes no sense to go shopping for the week on Thursday night when I don't plan my menus until Sunday. How can I know what I am going to need come Sunday and menu planning day? I can't.

So, there will be no fun picture of my Publix receipt today. Sorry to disappoint all 2 of you who are following along with my little experiment. I do have to admit though, that I bought milk and french bread today at Wal-mart. We had run out of milk and since we were having spaghetti tonight I thought the fancy-schmancy bakery bread would be a nice addition. And boy was it! Bruce picked out the tomatoe basil twin load and it greatly exceeded my expectations... It smelled so good even that we snacked a little on it as we drove home from the store. I had to reseal the bag to help with the temptation to scarf it all down!

Recipe of the Week

This week has been going fairly well meal wise and we are making good use of our leftovers in lunches. We even had enough left over food that I didn't make anything new tonight. So, our weekly meny is a little off. On top of that, we are taking our daughter for her 6-month pictures tomorrow night so I will probably stick to making the spaghetti and skipping the pork chops and ravioli.

That being said, when I started this blog, I did intend to share at least 1 recipe a week. I'm a bit swamped tonight with stuff to do, so I am going to point you to a yummy sounding recipe that I might try next week, but with pork. Do you think that would work?

I found this recipe at Scribbit, one of my favorite blogs. It is for Beef Carnitas. Head on over to her blog to check it out, then come back and let me know if you think this will work for pork or chicken too.

Menu Plan Sunday & Giveaway Winner

I really didn't feel like planning a menu for this week. I'm tired and really want to go to bed, but know that without a plan, I'll be lost and more tempted to order pizza or make a quick dash to the grocery store. Well, it wouldn't be quick since Publix is 15 minutes away...

Anyway, here is my plan for the week. Somedays will probably get moved around depending on schedules, but at least the meals are decided upon.

Monday - Soup & Grilled Cheese

Tuesday - Ciao Bella Pot Roast (MGFK)

Wednesday - Spaghetti with Meat Sauce (an old favorite around here)

Thursday - Butternut Squash Ravioli w/ Pan-seared Pork Chops

Friday - Leftovers for hubbie because I'll be out of town

Now, onto the exciting part of this post! I'm please to announce that Mo is the winner of my spices, rices, and treats giveaway!

She won:

• 3 cookbooks (Delightful Deserts from Pampered Chef, All-Time Family Favorites Casserole and One-dish Meals, and 365-Favorite Brand Name Hamburger),
• 1 box of Whole Grain Rice-A-Roni,
• 1 box or organic macaroni and cheese,
• Suisse Mocha hot beverage,
• 2 packages of Mahatma rice (jasmine and broccoli & cheese),
• 2 McCormick grinders spices, and some
• hershey kisses.

As soon as she replies to my e-mail, I'll add some more sweet items based on her likes. After reading her blog I sure am glad her two little girls are okay... otherwise this food giveaway might not do them anygood!

Congratulations Mo!