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Wicked Quiche

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I’m not sure why the guy’s called this one Wicked, none had a good explanation, but this combines some favorite semi healthy ingredients with a few less healthy ingredients to combine for a smokey, garlicky and hot pie.

This Wicked Quiche serves between 16 – 22 hungry hooligans.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup Cheddar – shredded
  • 1/2 cup Brie – shredded
  • 1/2 lb. Sirloin Philly Meat – chopped
  • 1/2 lb. Chicken Philly Meat – chopped
  • 1 large Yellow Onion – chopped
  • 1/2 cup Oyster Mushrooms – sliced
  • 1 can RO*TEL original – drained about 1/2
  • 1/2 cup Fresh Spinach – loosely chopped
  • 1/2 Red Onion – chopped
  • 2 Garlic Cloves – roasted and chopped
  • 1 tblspn – Ancho Chipotle spice powder (Spice Island is good enough)
  • 2 tblspns – Olive Oil

Preparation

Chop up the all the ingredients except the garlic. I recommend leaving the spinach and red onion alone too, until just before you put all the ingredients together.

Preheat your oven to 400 deg. and make a small foil tray to roast the garlic in.  Put about 1/2 tablespoon of the olive oil in the foil tray and roll it around with the garlic to get a good coating on the cloves.  Put this in the oven for about 5-10 minutes and remove as soon as the cloves start to char.  Set aside and allow to cool.  If you’re making this up the day before final cooking you can turn the oven off.

In a large skillet or pot, over medium high heat put in the remaining olive oil and the chopped yellow onion and stir until they start to caramelize.  Add a little water to de-glaze the skillet and cook for another 5 – 10 minutes to get just a little more caramelization.   Add in the beef and allow to cook together for about 5 minutes.  Then add in the chicken and mushrooms and cook, while stirring occasionally, for another 5 to 10 minutes.  Then add in the RO*TEL and reduce the heat to a medium low.  Allow this to cook for another 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the fluids from the RO*TEL is reduced by at least half.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

This is where I usually shred the cheeses and mix them together thoroughly. If the mixture is cool enough to not melt the cheese, mix it in with 1/2 of the cheese mixture in a large bowl.  If you’re assembling later, cover and refrigerate.

Also the garlic should be cooled enough to be chopped up now too, or you can wait until you chop up the spinach and red onion to finish this chopping.  If you are going to do the final assembly later, you should store the un-chopped red onion, spinach and garlic until you get ready to assemble.

Final Assembly and Cooking

Preheat the oven to 375 deg.  Chop up the red onion, spinach and garlic and mix into the filling mixture in the large bowl.  Put the prepared contents evenly into the two pie crusts.  Mix the standard base quiche mix and add in the 1 tablespoons of Ancho Chipotle puree.  Whip that up for about 2 to 4 minutes and pour into the pies.  Top with the remaining half of the cheese blend.  Pop them into the oven for 30 – 40 minutes, or until the cheese starts to turn brown.  Remove and either serve or pack in the bag for the rink.

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Ruben Quiche

This is another Costco shopping inspired dish.  We were walking through and found some nice looking pastrami meat, and took it home and made Ruben sandwiches from it.  It’s passable as far as pastrami goes, but it made the light go off, and this Ruben Quiche was born.  I suggest getting your pastrami from a local deli that you trust or from Whole Foods.  They tend to be a little more authentic.

Serves: 16-22

Ingredients

  • 1 lbs cooked and thinly sliced Beef Pastrami
  • 1 can (12 oz) Sauerkraut
  • 6 tbspn Bavarian Mustard (or a true Reuben would use Russian Dressing)
  • 2 cups shredded Swiss Cheese
  • 2 Pie Crusts of your choice

Preparation

This on is best prepared using the Pumpernickel Rye Pie Crust.  Start by either shredding or chopping the Pastrami into small chunks.  Then you’ll need to squeeze dry the Sauerkraut by either  squeezing down the lid into the can and draining the liquid off, or by using a tea towel and squeezing out the liquid until no more drops.  Both is actually the best method, and then let it set in a strainer for an hour.  In this case, the moisture in the Sauerkraut is your opponent.  It will make the quiche wet and loose.  Put the ingredients away till final preparation.

Final Assembly and Cooking

Preheat your oven to the usual 375 degrees.  Fill the pie crusts with the Pastrami and Sauerkraut mixture equally.  Prepare the Quiche Basic Mixture and add the Mustard while beating the eggs to a nice frothy mixture.  Pour into the pie crusts and top with the Cheese.  Place in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes, paying attention towards the end as the swiss will burn easily.  You want some golden brown on top, but not more than half.  Remove from the oven and pack it up for the rink, or serve if your hungry.

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Pumpernickel Rye Pizza Style Crust

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When your trying to make a crust for your quiche that really needs a pumpernickel rye bread flavor this pizza style crust is your ticket.  The bonus is that this can also be used for a pizza crust if your not making a quiche.   Why would you need a pumpernickel rye crust?  For quiches that use bratwurst, corned beef, pastrami or really anything that you’d like to have a dark spicy bread wrapper.

Makes 2 crusts

Ingredients

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup rye flour (dark or light)
  • 4 teaspoons cocoa
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
  • 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
  • 2 teaspoons caraway seeds
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons molasses
  • 2/3 cup warm water
  • 2 tablespoons cooking oil

Directions:

FOOD PROCESSOR METHOD:

  • Put first 7 ingredients into food processor fitted with dough blade.
  • Stir molasses into warm water in small bowl.
  • With machine running, pour molasses-water mixture and cooking oil through tube in lid.
  • Process for 50 to 60 seconds. If dough seems sticky to remove, add about 1/2 teaspoons flour to make it easier to handle.

HAND METHOD:

  • Put first 7 ingredients into medium bowl. Stir together well.
  • Add warm water, molasses and cooking oil.
  • Mix well until dough leaves sides of bowl.
  • Knead on lightly floured surface for 5 to 8 minutes until smooth and elastic

Final Preparation:

  • Place dough in large greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover with tea towel.
  • Let stand in oven with light on and door closed for about 1 hour until doubled in size.
  • Punch dough down. Roll out and press in greased 10 inch pan, forming rim around edge.
  • Cook in the oven @ 375 for about 15 minutes or until the top firms up like a solid crust.
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Stuffed Bacon Wrapped Dates

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These were found while on a trip to DC.  This is the basic recipe for these sweet and flavorful bite sized snacks.  Bacon Wrapped Dates are actually a favorite snack dish from Spain.  But these are ramped up a bit by stuffing them.  Also this recipe isn’t quite the traditional recipe because in Spain these would be breaded and deep fried.  We are trying to keep this a little healthy right!

This makes 32

Ingredients

  • 16 slices of thin sliced bacon
  • 32 pitted dates
  • 32 thin slices of apricot (about 6 dried apricots)
  • 1/2 cup shelled pistachios (at least 64)

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Cut the bacon slices in half.  Slice up the apricots.  Stuff each date with the slice of apricot and at least 2 pistachios.  Then wrap this in the half slice of bacon and secure with a toothpick.  Line a baking pan with foil or parchment to catch the grease that will come off these while cooking and then place a baking rack on top of the pan.  Place each of the stuffed bacon wrapped dates on the rack with the toothpick horizontal.  This all goes into the oven for 10 minutes.  Then flip each date by the toothpick and cook for another 8 minutes.  Remove and these are best served at least warm.

If you want to make these even better serve them with a dipping sauce.  Make a quick and easy Chutney Mustard Sauce by mixing 6 tablespoons of a Dijon Mustard or Beer Mustard with 6 tablespoons for Chutney in a pan over medium heat for about 5 minutes.

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Corned Beef Hash-iche

Corned Beef Hash-iche Frittata
Corned Beef Hash-iche Frittata

My Dad used to make corned beef hash with eggs on toast when we went hunting when I was young.  It was always good.  Occasionally he’d also cook up some bacon to go with it.  I used to mix it all together and slop it off the plate with toast.  I had completely forgotten about this until one day I was at a local restaurant that served hash and eggs.  The memory didn’t come back until a few days later, but that started the research.  And this is the result after a little tuning for the refined palettes of early morning hockey players.  These guys always seem to want some kind of chili in there so this has just enough that you’ll know it’s there.  This goes best as a frittata or with the biscuit crust but if you want to have some bacon with it, you should do the bacon crust.

Serves: 16 – 22

Ingredients

  • 1 lb fine chopped corned beef
  • 1 lb fine chopped potatoes (substitute 1/2 package of hash brows)
  • 1 chopped white onion
  • 1/2 cup chopped baby peppers
  • 1/2 cup chopped green chili
  • 1 loosely chopped garlic
  • 1/2 cup chopped green onion
  • 2 tablespoons nutmeg
  • 2 tablespoons black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese

Preparation

In a pot cook the potatoes until tender then remove from heat and allow to cool.  Then shred them up like your making hash browns. or you can use the package and skip this step.  Make sure you’ve got all the rest of the ingredients finely chopped.  Or you can use a shredder.  In a pan on medium high heat with a little oil, cook down the white onions till they are caramelized and set them aside.  Then do the same with the peppers and chili together and set them aside.  Roast the chopped garlic with a little more oil until they are starting to turn golden brown and set that aside.  Since the corned beef is already cook and, as long as you’ve got everything chopped up  and cooled down you can mix all of the cooked veggies together and store them till final assembly.

Assembly

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  In a large bowl, mix together all the corned beef, potatoes and cooked vegetable mix.  Once this is thoroughly mixed add in the salt, pepper, nutmeg and chopped green onion.  I suggest reserving a little of the onion to sprinkle on top of the quiche after you put on the cheese top.  Then mix in half of the cheese and reserve the rest for the topping.
When you make the standard quiche base cut the cream or milk to no more than one cup to make this a little thicker when fully mixed.  Now mix the base in with the meat mix and make sure it is all combined.  It should be a fairly thick slop.  Dish this into your crust of choice, add the final bit of cheese and green onion to the top and pop into the oven for 35 -40 minutes.  Remove from the oven and either serve or pack up for the rink.