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Charred Spinach Artichoke Chicken Quiche
We picked up some artisanal sausages the other day from Trader Joe’s and they were pretty good. So here comes the quiche that uses these sausages as the base for the filling along with some select vegetables for added flavor and texture.
I’ve seen a lot of things charred that you wouldn’t think would work lately. Some lettuce charred over a super hot grill in New Mexico used in a salad. Various Peppers and other vegetables charred in a super hot cast iron pot in Israel and your usual Roasted Chile Peppers in both New Mexico and Colorado. This got me thinking of trying this with spinach. So after a couple of tries with the gas grill, I think I’ve got it. The charred spinach has a unique flavor and it doesn’t cook down quite as much as when you prepare it normally. You’ll need a gas or charcoal grill that is super hot. And you’ll only need it for a few minutes. No more than 4 minutes for the spinach and no more than 10 for the sausage. So this may be better prepared in advance of when you plan to serve this with another meal so you don’t make a lot of heat for just one dish.
Serves 8 – 10 (one Quiche)
Ingredients
- 1 – 1/2 lb Baby Spinach
- 2 or 3 Spicy Spinach Artichoke Chicken Sausages (or Spinach Asiago Chicken Sausage)
- 1/2 Yellow Onion
- 1/2 cup 4 or 5 shredded Italian Cheese Blend (5 cheese has more flavor)
- 1/4 cup Half and Half
- 3 oz Greek Yogurt
- 4 Large Eggs
- 9 in Pie Crust
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Pepper
- 1 tsp Marjoram (Optional for a unique Mediterranean style spice)
Preparation
Start your grill to get it as hot as possible. Take the baby spinach and spread it out on the grill when at least 400 F. Allow to cook undisturbed until you get some good charring on the edges. Flip as much as you can over to get a little more char on the other side. This shouldn’t take more than a minute per side. The spinach will loose a lot of volume and wilt quite a bit. But as long as you get some charred edges, that should be good enough. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Let the grill cool a little and put the sausages on the grill and cook until you get the same grill marks on the sausages. Then remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Slice up the Onion by quartering and then slicing into 1/4 inch pieces. Place in an oiled pan over medium high heat and saute until fully caramelized and a golden brown. If you like you should add a dash of salt and pepper while this is cooking. This can take up to 20 minutes and I always add water to help keep from drying them out too much. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
The charred spinach should be cool enough to handle by now and you should cut the leaves into slices about 1/4 inch wide and you can mix them with the onion for storage until final assembly. Cut the cooled sausages into small 1/4 to 1/2 inch chunks and store properly until final assembly.
Final Assembly and Cooking
Preheat the oven to 380 F. In a large mixing bowl, combine the charred spinach, caramelized onion, shredded cheese and chopped sausage together until fully mixed. Then loosely place these ingredients into the pie crust. In large mixing bowl, combine the eggs, half and half and yogurt together and whisk until frothy or for about 4 minutes. Also add in the salt and pepper to taste at this point. When fully whisked pour over the ingredients in the pie crust and mix it around a little to make sure that the egg mixture fully mixes in to hold everything together. Top with a little more pepper and put into the oven to cook for 35 – 40 minutes or until the top just starts to brown. Remove from the oven and either serve of pack it up for the rink.
Fire Roasted Peppers and Steak Quiche
This was kicking around in my head for a couple of weeks, trying to get the right mixture of spices that wouldn’t overpower the favors from the primary ingredients. And I was having a debate with myself on whether to add the meat or not. I just couldn’t go without the meat, but if you like simply drop the meat altogether and add a few extra peppers to the mix to make up for the lost volume and you’ve got a “vegan” quiche.
Serves 8 – 10 (makes one quiche)
Ingredients
- 1/2 lb Sweet Baby Peppers (about 8 – 10 peppers)
- 1/2 lb Thin Flank Steak
- 1/2 of 14.5 oz can Fire Roasted Tomatoes with Garlic
- 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
- 1/2 cup shredded 4 Cheese Italian Blend
- 1 9 in Pie Crust (your choice)
- 3 Tbsp Greek Yogurt
- 3 Tbsp Heavy Cream
- 4 Large Eggs
- 2 tsp ground Black Pepper
- 2 tsp Sea Salt
Preparation
Get your grill going at a medium to medium high heat. Coat the Sweet Baby Peppers with a thin coating of Olive Oil and season with about 1/2 teaspoon of salt and pepper. Prepare the steak by coating lightly with either a fajita seasoning or coat lightly with olive oil then add salt and pepper to taste. Put the peppers on the grill and cook until there is a good char on the outside of the peppers, should be about 5 minutes per side. Remove from the grill and allow to cool. Add the steak onto the grill and cook until you’ve got a good grill marks on the outside, no more than 5 minutes per side. You’re trying for medium rare to medium cooked. Remove from the grill and allow to rest for at least 5 minutes before handling further. This is all you’ll need the grill for.
Prepare your crust as you normally would for a precooked pie crust. By this time the peppers and steak should be cooled enough to handle. Loosely chop up the peppers and the steak into pieces no larger than 1/2 inch. Properly store these two ingredients separately until ready for final assembly.
Final Assembly and Cooking
Preheat oven to 375 F. Mix together the pieces of peppers and steak completely. Open and drain the can of tomatoes and add half of the can to the pepper and steak mixture. Place the whole mixture into the pie crust and top with about half of the shredded cheese. In a large mixing bowl combine the Yogurt, Cream and Eggs together and whisk until fully mixed and fluffy. This usually takes about 4 minutes, and you should add salt and pepper to taste about midway through mixing. Pour the egg mixture over the filling in the pie crusts until almost to the top of the crust. Top with the remaining cheese and put into the oven for 35 – 40 minutes or until lightly golden browned on top. Remove from the oven and either serve or pack it up to take to the rink.
Wild Mushroom Bacon Quiche
One of the guys had been out foraging in the mountains, and he came back with these strange looking mushrooms. He suggested putting these in this weekends quiche. Being careful, I watched him eat some of them to see if he’d get sick. He didn’t so I guess they are safe to eat. We worked together to come up with this combination to make this Wild Mushroom Bacon Quiche.
Serves 8-10 (one Quiche)
Ingredients
- 1 – 1/2 cup Wild Mushrooms
- 1/2 pkg Sliced Pecan Wood Smoked Bacon
- 1/2 cup Sliced Shallots (about 2 – 3 bulbs)
- 1 tsp Olive Oil
- 2 Tbsp Butter
- 2 tsp Pepper
- 2 tsp Salt
- 3 oz Plain Greek Yogurt
- 4 oz Heavy Whipping Creame
- 4 Large Eggs
- 1/2 cup Shredded Asiago Cheese
- 1 Tbsp Honey Glazed Pecans (Optional)
- 9 inch prepared Pie Crust
Preparation
To properly prepare the wild mushrooms, first wash then and then in a skillet sauté them dry to extract the liquids over medium high heat. You’ll want to drain the liquids as it boils out of the mushrooms to speed up this process. But you should be done in about 10 minutes. You don’t want to brown them yet, just dry them out. When all the liquids appear to be boiled out, remove from the skillet and allow to cool.
Prebake your pie crust according to the instructions on the package.
Take the chopped and sliced shallots and sauté them over medium high heat with a dash of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper, just to sweat them down for about 5 minutes. Remove from the skillet and allow to cool. Then store properly until final assembly.
Then cut the bacon up into 1/2 inch long pieces and cook them in the skillet until brown. Remove and place on a paper towel to absorb the grease. When cooled and drained, properly store until final assembly. If you want you can reserve the grease and use it for the final cook of the mushrooms, but I think butter helps keep the flavors separated.
The final cooking of the mushrooms is done by sautéing them in a skillet over medium high heat with the butter and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. This should go until most of the butter has been absorbed into the mushrooms. It should take about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and properly store until final assembly.
Final Assembly and Cooking
Preheat the oven to 375 F. Combine all of the ingredients prepared above into the pre-baked pie crusts and loosely mix so that there is room for the egg mixture. In a large mixing bowl, combine together the Eggs, Yogurt, Cream and mix together with a whisk. Beat for about 4 minutes, adding salt and pepper to taste about halfway through the beating. Pour this mixture slowly over the ingreadents in the pie crusts to allow the eggs to work their way into all of the filling. Top this with the shredded Cheese and let it set for about a half minute. Optionally, top with the Honey Glased Pecans and pop it right into the oven. Cook for 35-40 minutes or until a the top is a full golden brown. Remove and serve or pack it up for the rink.
Banana Brownies (Banana Crack)
This weekend we decided to mix it up a bit and bring some special banana brownies that we made earlier in the week. This is based on a recipe that my wife found on Facebook but, as always she made a lot of modifications. This is just too rich, it puts the best donuts ever to shame.
The upgrade to the basic recipe adds Praline Pecans, Carmel Bailey’s, Banana Greek Yogurt and a few other additions in the recipe. This thing is so rich that everyone is calling these “Banana Crack” because you eat one, you get a sugar rush and you want to eat more. One of the guys actually ate 5 pieces of this in the locker room, before they pried the tray away from him.
Serving size – a sheet about 15 x 10 x 1 inch that makes between 16 and 30 pieces depending on how you cut it.
Ingredients
Banana Brownie
- 1 cup Brown Sugar
- 1/2 cup Organic Pure Cane Sugar
- 1 stick Butter at room temperature – 1/2 cup
- 2 eggs
- 4 mashed Bananas
- 2 tsp Vanilla
- 1/2 cup Toffee pieces
- 2 cup All Purpose Flour
- 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1 tsp Sea Salt
- 1/2 cup Banana Greek yogurt
- 1/2 cup Light Sour Cream
Frosting
- 1/2 cup Butter
- 4 cup Confectioners Sugar
- 2 tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 tsp. Vanilla Bean (pod)
- 1/3 cup Marscapone
- 2 Tbsp Carmel Bailey’s
- 1 Tbsp Milk
- 1/2 cup chopped Praline Pecans (optional, but I say required)
Preparation
Banana Brownie
Preheat the oven to 375 F. Mix all the wet ingredients together in a large mixing bowl and then use a hand mixer till fully blended, about 1 minute. Then add in the dry ingredients, except for the toffee, and continue blending for an additional minute. Then pour this mixture into a 15 x 10 inch jelly roll pan. Top with toffee pieces and place in the oven to cook for 25 – 30 minutes. When done remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature to apply the frosting.
Frosting
While the brownies are baking, melt the butter over medium heat until it turns a delicate brown. Be careful not to over brown it because it will change the flavor of the frosting. Remove the butter from heat and add in the confectioners sugar, vanilla, vanilla bean, milk and the marscapone into the browned butter and mix until creamy. When the brownies are cool enough apply an even layer of the frosting on top of the brownies. Then sprinkle on the chopped praline pecans. It’s now ready to serve.