Goat Cheese Hashbrown Crust Quiche

Hi guys! It's been forever, am I right? First I graduated college, no big deal, and then I went a-traveling for work, also no big deal. And it wasn't exciting, either. You know I haven't had a home-cooked meal in months?? So the other night was my second night back after being laid off (no big deal) and I desperately wanted some delicious delicious foodstuffs. Wouldn't you know it, everyone loves quiche (and I love breakfast) so I'm making this quiche of course with minor adjustments. Actually I didn't follow that recipe much because I'm not about that.

Ingredients:
1 lbs of thawed hashbrowns
green onions
1 tomato
a handful or two of spinach
like 6 green onions
4 oz goat cheese
9 eggs
pepper
salt
butter (I used vegan butter)

Avocado Cream:
2 avocado
2 limes
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of water

First, I preheated the oven to 375 degrees. My mom has a beautiful glass 9" pie pan that I rubbed down with my vegan butter all sexy-like. Took a bowl, mixed the hashbrowns which I totally didn't thaw because I'm not about that (I forgot) with a bit of salt, a ton of pepper, something like two tablespoons of vegan butter, and an egg. Had this been thawed and my butter a bit more room temp, this would've worked like a dream to keep the crust together. 
However, instead it ended up like this: 

Pat the crust into the pan, etc. I baked it for over 20 minutes because I forgot, but you only have to bake it 15 minutes until it sets. While it was cooking I made the avocado cream. Mix two avocados, two tablespoons of water, and two limes. You're supposed to use a food processor but I don't own one of those, so I used a fork and potato masher. Also add two tablespoons of the olive oil while you're mixing it up.

Look at how delicious. Add the cheese, salt, pepper, and ALL THE VEGETABLES!!

BOOM!
But don't forget the eggs, like I did

So add the eggs and back until it sets, 50 minutes should do.

So fifty minutes later, I realized that the oven had turned off after I baked the hashbrowns. Fifty minutes after that, TA DA!! QUICHE!! Okay, I forgot to take a picture, but here is the result of the taste test: My mom liked it. I thought it was horrifyingly bland, but I will tell you why. I picked a bunch of mild vegetables for this quiche because I thought we had bacon. We didn't. This dish needs bacon. Failing that, it needs a lot more salt and a lot of garlic, which I unforgivingly forgot to put in. It's not a bad quiche at all, it's just pretty bland. Also, if I could go back in time I would've thawed out the hashbrowns before I mixed them with butter, etc. because the consequence was the crust didn't hold together. I knew that was going to happen. Anyway, if you make it exactly like I did, keep a bottle of ketchup or siracha handy, it will definitely make it better.
...reading back on this post I realized I would make an excellent cook if I was less forgetful...

Cauliflower Broccoli Masala Pie, Etc.

Wow, guys. It's been awhile, hasn't it? Have you missed me? Are you ready for ANOTHER RECIPE???
Today I made Cauliflower Broccoli Masala Pie with Potato Black-eyed Pea Crust, which I will forthwith call CaBroMaPPoBleyPeCr. Or, that pie thing I made. Pie. Sounds yummy.
I'll admit I'm a little nervous writing this because several of you have mentioned that you like my writing voice, and now I'm all self-conscious. Let's all pretend from now on that you're reading this for the recipes, yeah?

So it's time. I got this recipe from here, and have followed it pretty much to the letter. Ingredients!

Crust:
2 medium potatoes, boiled
1.5 cups of canned black-eyed peas
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
Pepper to taste, or, at least as much as the salt

Cauliflower Broccoli Filling:
1 tsp oil
1.5 cups grated cauliflower
1.5 cups grated broccoli
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp cumin powder

1/2 tsp chili powder

You may be wondering where in the world to get garam masala from, what it looks like, etc. It's a reddish brown spice that I got from my local Coop. It is absolutely wonderful and blends well with the other spices, so I highly recommend you use this specific spice and not a different blend, although you can if you like.

I boiled the potatoes and when they were almost done, threw in the peas until it was all soft.

Look at them potatas!

So then you MASH THEM! MASH THEM ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!! No, wait, STOP!! PUT THAT MASHER DOWN! Back away slowly. Now grab your colander and drain them potatas! Now you can mash them to your hearts content. Then add the spices for the crust and mix it all together. More. More! MORE!! Okay, stop. Now cover it and put in the fridge for an hour. I can't actually remember if mine was in for the whole hour, and I'm not sure why it was necessary, but whatever. I do as I'm told. BEHOLD!

Mmm. Mashed taters. I actually used too much potato, I bought two huge potatoes when probably one big one would have done perfectly well. Oh well.

Now the filling. Grate your broccoli and cauliflower (I used by smoothie blender for this and it wasn't great, so if you have like an actual veggie dicer thingy, use that instead). until they're pretty small and delicious. Heat up a bit of oil in a pan and dump in the veggies and spices, cook for about 5 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated from the veggies but it isn't very dry. I used waaaaaaaay too much oil and therefore had to cook mine for a really long time and then they looked all gross and weird but still tasted good.

Looks a little like baby diarrhea, doesn't it?

Preheat the oven to 350, remove the taters from the fridge and shape into a pie, cover with broccoli mix, and cook that business for like, 35 minutes, or more if you want it crisper. I was going to put tomatoes on mine, but my tomato was bad. I put goat cheese on top instead and it didn't really add anything.

This could be both a before and after photo because they kind of look the same. 

Basically, everything is cooked before you put it into the oven, but you're cooking it so the crust is crunchy. This pie was pretty good with interesting flavor and the potatoes are so so delicious. However, I didn't use enough broccoli and cauliflower and I did use too much potato, so this could have been better. Also, it seems like it's missing something. Like a sauce or something...I'm not sure. Still, it's pretty good and if it didn't take so long to make I would probably make it again. 

Sheepherder's Breakfast Recipe

I'm a little behind on my blog, I made this almost two weeks ago. I got this recipe from here and if you want it without all my alterations, feel free to get it from there. Me and my baker-in-crime made this together, but it's been so long I'm not sure I can remember everything we did. Anyway, here goes!
Ingredients
2-4 strips of bacon
Half a white onion
30 ounces of hashbrowns (I used the frozen ones because I'm lazy)
Salt and pepper to taste
Like...4-8oz of goat cheese. I think I used four or five oz.
7-8 eggs

I've realized that you all probably don't get why I use goat cheese but won't use cow cheese. I can only tell you that there is something in cow milk that is impossible for me to digest, and it isn't lactose or else my life would be 100% simpler. However, goat cheese is significantly less bad on my digestive system, and I don't explode after eating it. With that picture in mind, look at these potatas

This isn't the first time I've mentioned that I have a vegetarian friend. Therefore, I did not cook the bacon first and then cook the potatoes in the grease because I am not a sneaky d*** like that. Instead, i cooked the bacon separately and cooked the potatoes in margarine. Lots and lots of margarine. So. Cook your potatoes and onion and salt and pepper in a large skillet until the bottom is golden brown and then flip. BACON BREAK

I want to say I also put garlic in the potatoes, but I can't remember. Maybe garlic salt. But I love garlic so there was probably garlic something in there. Also, you can add peppers to this and it would probably be real tasty, you could put in spinach (much to my dismay my spinach had just gone bad) or a whole broad variety of vegetables. I didn't because I'm a loser. Any way, when the potatoes are pretty much done, make as many egg wells in the potatoes as you can with a spoon (I managed 7) and then crack some eggs in them.

This is the censored version of that. Naked eggs are not appropriate for children. 

But really, what you are *supposed* to do is crack the eggs and then cook covered for a set amount of time but it doesn't work. At least, not when you don't have a proper lid for your pan. Instead, I painstakingly transferred everything into my cast iron skillet and broiled it in my oven until the eggs set. It worked within very few minutes. The cooking on the stove was a huge waste of time. 

After it was done, I covered it in cheese and kind half in bacon and served it up. It was delicious. 

Baked Cheesy Chicken Rolls

First, to give credit where credit is due, I got this recipe from this website and you will find the original there. I once again made this recipe my biatch by changing it to things I actually had in my fridge or could actually eat. Without further ado, INGREDIENTS!!

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts 

A cup or two of breadcrumbs, just as much as you need
4-8 oz of goat cheese 
About half a head of broccoli 
1 clove minced garlic and olive oil for sauteeing
3 egg whites
About a cup of marinara sauce

Here I should mention what I changed. This recipe calls for spinach, not broccoli, but wouldn't you know it, I threw away my spinach mere hours before I made this and forgot to buy more. It also calls for 8 chickens but I didn't want to make that many because it's just me and what do I need all that chicken for. It calls for ricotta, parmesan and mozzarella cheeses but again, I am allergic to all that, and it calls for fresh basil for topping and why bother buying it if I'm just going to use it for one thing? Anyway, all of that is in the link, so if you want to make it with spinach and cow cheese instead, follow that link. 

To start out with you pound the pieces until they get thin. I can't tell you what you are supposed to pound it with, I used a mug. It kind of worked out, I managed to cut some pieces off that way but who is counting. Then you put the breadcrumbs in a shallow bowl (I used a pie tin) and add in a bit of cheese. Next! You chop up the broccoli into pretty small pieces. Put it in a saucepan with olive oil and garlic (I also used balsamic vinegar because I thought it was the olive oil until I started pouring it) and saute it for a few minutes. I had mine in for about ten, but that is because I dropped my entire bottle of olive oil on the floor and that's how long it took me to clean it up. Anyway, then put it in a bowl with goat cheese until it looks good and two egg whites (I got yolk in there too but it turns out absolutely fine) and mix mix mix. 

Delicious, delicious filling. You should have a lot more of that, this picture was taken with the leftover stuff after I had stuffed all the chickens. 

Have the last egg white in another shallow bowl. Lay out each piece of chicken, throw a spoonful of filling on it, and roll it like you've never rolled before!! Dip it in egg white then roll it in the breadcrumbs and put it in a greased pan. If you are making a mess, you are doing it beautifully. Check it  

 The first one is the chicken with the filling on it and the second one is what it should look like when you are done breading it. 

As I said, I had extra filling leftover so I breaded that also and put it in with the chickens. You bake it on 450 for 25 minutes or until the chicken is cooked. Don't put the chickens too close together or the sides won't get crunchy. After it's cooked, DON'T TURN OFF THAT OVEN!! Pour some marinara on top of each of them and you can opt into putting more cheese on top. I swear if I had used as much cheese as the original called for I would be in the hospital with a severe allergic reaction. It was kind of ridiculous. Anyway, bake for a couple more minutes, then pull it all out and enjoy!

This is what it looked like after I had put it in the fridge because I forgot to take pictures beforehand. 

I have to say this was a really great dish. It was really delicious and not too time consuming my SO MESSY!!! Your counter will be a real pigsty by the time you finish with this. But it's really yummy. And stuff. The end. 

Call To Recipes

You all know I live in a dairy-free world of sadness that I can occasionally make peppy again by being creative. I often go on pinterest to find recipes before I go shopping so I can have ideas about what to cook. Sometimes I struggle to find food that I can eat on there. I can't really do spicy, I can't really do marinara sauce, and if something calls for a dairy product I either have to replace it or skip the recipe. Goat cheese is expensive, I can't keep using that to replace the cheese products. You know what is consistently dairy free? Soup. I don't want to eat soup for the rest of my life.

Here's what I really want. I know if you are reading this, you cook. You have recipes you are hiding away in your little brain space. I want them. Especially if it is cheese-free or easy to adjust to make it less spicy/heartburn-inducing/dairy-full. Tell your brain to give up its secrets to me because I need delicious food more than it needs to hide your recipes. Also, please don't give me time consuming recipes. If it takes longer than 1.5 hours, I really just don't have time for that. I haven't even cleaned my kitchen in a week because I don't have time for that (and I haven't been cooking).

So here's what you get from this deal. If I make your recipe, I will give you a shout out and full props and all that good stuff and tell everyone how great you are for giving me your mind grapes so I can squish them into delicious delicious juice. I will give you bonus points if you don't give me recipes for beef roasts or stews or anything like that. Beef is expensive and hard for me to cook in a tasty way. I know I'm making this hard, but want I want from you is to hear CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!! Also, it doesn't have to be dinner recipes or meal recipes, it can be literally any kind of food recipes. I can make a meal out of anything.

Thank you my lovely flowers. Ready, GO!

Melted Butter Cookies (Chocolate Chip)

It's been awhile. I've been cooking, I've just been too busy entertaining to remember to record my adventures. To remedy this, I'm going to put up my latest experiment: melted butter chocolate chip cookies. You may or may not be aware that I don't own a mixer, and you may or may not also be aware that making chocolate cookies without a blender is a lot of manual labor. The only time I want to do manual labor is when I'm working or playing my new favorite sport. So, a friend who shall remain unnamed but identified as that-lady-that-lies-across-the-internet gave me this recipe. She gave me the dry stuff in ounces so I used a converter, and it led to very awkward measurements, like so:

Ingredients:
4 1/2 oz butter (0.56 c)
6 oz brown sugar (0.75 c)
1 egg (1 white oval ball of protein you crack)
1 tsp vanilla essance (aka extract)
5 oz all purpose flour (0.63 c of that awkward white stuff that gets everywhere)
1/2 tsp baking powder (that other white stuff)
pinch of salt (a further white thing
4oz choc chips of choice (I used dark chocolate)

Very awkward measurements. I don't know how people that don't use our system measure out freaking ounces of flour and stuff, but however they do it, I don't have the right mechanism. So, I used about half a cup of butter, three quarters of a cup of brown sugar, and I actually did about a cup of flour because it's really runny and I wanted the consistency to be thicker.

You know, flour is kind of the shittiest ingredient ever. I opened by bag and it just exploded all over me and my floor.

So much flour it turned my sock white again!
But anyway, I mixed all of this together and then greased a cookie sheet and used a greased spoon (it was covered in butter from me using it to get butter out of the tub...of butter) to move the liquidy substance to a pan. Not being sure how much these would spread or rise, I just kind of made awkward lumps of batter the same distance from each other as I do with normal cookies.

I'm going to warn you now, this is a mistake! Do two to a row and only do like, six cookies to a pan because they spread faster and farther than swine flu. So I cooked it for what was probably ten minutes but I'm going to be honest, I wasn't keeping track. I cooked 'em til I could smell 'em. They came out like this:

So it doesn't look great. The bottoms cooked way to fast (and the oven rack is actually up pretty high) and it looks like the tops didn't cook much at all. However, they have that weird look that brownies have when they cook, the sort of cracked outer surface so I think they are done. And if not, raw cookies for myself. This only made a dozen, partly because I put so much batter per cookie and partly because the recipe is small. I don't mind, I like it this way. Cooking takes too long as it is.

Result: These are okay. I probably would not make them with dark chocolate chips again, they just don't have the substance to handle it. They are also not round and puffy like regular cookies, which is actually a huge bummer for me. However, they were super easy and did not take very long and made the perfect amount of cookies, so there is a possibility that I will make these in the future. I mean, they are still cookies. Well...they are still like cookies' second cousin, flatties.
Update: So these cookies are much better when they've completely cooled. I really like them and will be partaking of them again.

Nutrient-Packed Fruit Smoothies

Recently, a friend of mine has turned me onto avocado smoothies, found at this website. I know, you're thinking that sounds incredibly gross, right? Well, it's not. The avocado makes the smoothie very smooth and creamy without needed ice or ice cream or anything like that. The citrus covers the taste of avocado, and avocado is crazy good for you. Pop in some citrus, coconut milk, and honey/cinnamon/sweet stuff, and you will turn into the healthiest mutant fruit monster ever created.
My friend uses banana, clementines, avocado, cinnamon, honey, and probably other stuff that I can't for the life of me remember. Now, citrus is all fine and dandy, but I want something else, you know?

This is what mine turned out looking like. It really looks a lot like puke. It didn't turn out very thick probably because I put in too much milk and I forgot the banana.

BUT! It's pretty good. I put in half an avocado, two bunches of grapes, two clementines, and squeezed in one lime. Then I put in something between 1/2 cup and 1 cup of coconut milk. I also neglected honey and cinnamon because I was too hungry when I made this to think through all the good stuff I should put in. It's very strong, I put in too much lemon and probably one too many clementines. Still, it's pretty good. I threw it in my one-serving blender and viola! One fruit smoothie that is not so very smooth.

WAIT DON'T LEAVE YET.
I made another smoothie that was much more smooth. Half an avocado, one peach (canned), one clementine, about two handfuls of pineapple tidbits, a banana, some honey, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Then a dash of coconut milk (just a dash!) and this is what it'll look like.

NOM NOM NOM
Then you blend it til it bleeds smoothie goodness. This one turns out very smooth and creamy and it more-or-less citrusy with a very strong taste of banana. I'll put in half of one next time because I prefer less of that banana taste. Cheers.