Junk mail junkie

My sister-in-law and her family left today. It was a fantastic visit with all sorts of hijinx and hilarity involved. We even toured the South Island together, where I got to take a little break from food photography and shoot some of the stunning vistas that surrounded us in paradise. Heaven. But, it's back to the real world now, and back to the kitchen for a send-off meal worthy of their 13-hour return flight.


We didn't have all too much food left, but there were plenty of leftovers from previous bacon-and-egg breakfasts, a hunk of really old and molding feta from a friend's failed pizza experiment, a red bell pepper purchased earlier ("just in case"), and my ever-present giant block of Edam. I decided that quiche was the way to go here. Of all places to find a recipe, I saw this delicious looking one in a promotional mailer for eggs. So there's my secret guilty pleasure: I like to read through junk mail. I'm not typically enticed by advertisement recipes, but we just seemed to have all the ingredients for this one. So I set to work.



I made the pâte brisée the night before. No fancy equipment involved, just the simple ingredients and my fingers. It came together very quickly, then spent the night in the fridge while I spent the night in an equally frigid bedroom. The rest of the quiche was simple enough to make the following day, if a little more time-consuming. We were all starving by the time the quiche went into the oven and had resorted to snacking on ice cream and breakfast cereal before it was halfway done. Poor us. However, as our game of Settlers of Catan wound down and the timer signaled lunchtime for us, our appetites renewed themselves with gusto at the smell of the quiche coming out of the oven. The general consensus was that this was hands down the best quiche anyone in the company had ever tasted - and we've eaten our fair share of them. The sour cream and feta created a smooth, creamy texture and tangy zip that you just don't find in most quiches, while the bacon added the perfect amount of smokey saltiness for balance. The roasted bell peppers were wonderful for sweetness and color. Seriously, this was good.


Roasted Pepper and Feta Quiche
adapted from egg promotional mailer

Pâte Brisée
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons (75 g) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
2 tablespoons (25 g) cold vegetable shortening
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup very cold water

Quiche
6 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
1 large onion, chopped
1 teaspoon oil
6 strips of bacon (more or less), chopped
2 ounces (50 g) feta cheese, crumbled
3/4 cup grated Edam cheese
1 red bell pepper
salt and pepper
chopped parsley, optional

Make the crust
Combine flour and salt in a bowl, then add in butter and shortening. Working quickly, rub mixture with your fingers until it resembles coarse meal (with pea-sized bits of butter). Add the water, a little at a time, until mixture holds together when squeezed. If it's still too dry and crumbly, continue adding more water by the teaspoon until it sticks. Dough should be relatively dry. Dump dough onto a countertop and knead about 3 times to get everything to stick together, then form into a disk and wrap tightly in plastic. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to one week.

Make the quiche
Rub the bell pepper skin lightly with oil, then grill until skin is blackened and blistered all over. If you don't have a grill, simply stick a fork in each end and roast it spit-like over a gas stove's flame, making sure to turn evenly. That method takes about 10 minutes. When the skin is sufficiently charred, remove pepper from heat and wrap tightly in foil to cool (without the forks, of course).

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll out pie dough into a 12-inch circle and place inside a 9- or 10-inch pie dish or quiche tin with removable base. Trim off excess and make the edges pretty if you want. Prick bottom all over with a fork, then place a piece of parchment paper (or foil) over it and fill with dried beans or rice to weight it down. Bake 15 minutes.

Heat oil in a small pan set over medium heat and cook onion and bacon until softened. Set aside. Whisk together eggs, sour cream, milk, and salt and pepper to taste. When the bell pepper is cool enough to handle, remove the skin (it should come right off) and core, then slice thinly.

Scatter onions and bacon into pastry shell, pour in the egg mixture, sprinkle the crumbled feta evenly, and scatter on the bell pepper strips. Add a sprinkle of parsley over top and bake until quiche is golden and set, about 30-40 minutes. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

Do you know the muffin man?

I'm not really obsessed with muffins right now. Really, I'm not. I mean, sure, they're really quick and easy to make. Sure, they're good to have on a road trip and my kid actually eats them. And you can adapt them to suit your taste in so many ways. And they're perfect portion control. And...



Fine. I'm obsessed. But with good reason. Did you SEE that muffin?? These ones are particularly addictive. Not only because they taste so darned good, but because you know they're so healthy that there's no guilt involved for making them. I usually make a batch of these every week until we burn out, wait about a month, and start all over again. My friend Abby got it from a friend of a friend of a friend, who got it from some unknown cookbook. I hope you'll forgive my lack of proper citation, but I'm hoping that the recipe has changed enough by now that it wouldn't be an issue. I've certainly made plenty of my own adjustments to healthify these little gems without sacrificing on taste.



The Friend-of-a-Friend Zucchini-Carrot Muffin
Don't let the long ingredient list scare you - it's mostly stuff you have lying around already. Makes 12-18 muffins

1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 plain yogurt or sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
zest from 1 lemon
1 1/2 cup coarsely grated zucchini (about 1 large or 2 small zucchini)
1/2 cup grated carrot (about 1 large carrot)
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or line a muffin tin with paper cups.

In a medium bowl, combine flours, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg and whisk thoroughly. In a separate large bowl, whisk together the sugars with the eggs, then add oil, yogurt, vanilla, and lemon zest, mixing to combine thoroughly. Add zucchini and carrots to the liquid mixture and mix to combine. Add the dry mix to the liquid mix and stir until just combined (do not over-mix). Fold in chocolate chips.

Divide batter evenly into prepared muffin cups. Bake until tops are browned and springy, about 20-25 minutes. Cool in pan set on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove muffin to rack to finish cooling.

Bingeing on blueberries

I took Isaac to a pick-your-own blueberry farm this weekend. It was about an hour's drive out of Wellington, and it was gorgeous. We walked from a bushy hillside down to a grassy clearing where a small stream lazily babbled its way through the property. Birds were chirping, bees were humming - could this place be any more idyllic? In a word, no. It was so lovely there, in fact, that I've already planned to buy the farm from its current owner when I'm ready to retire. If she won't sell, I'm just going to have to plan a hostile takeover.



Bucket full of delicious blueberries, I set off for home, my mind near the point of exploding with the possibilities of 2 1/2 pounds of blueberries. I normally can't stand cooked fruit, especially berries. I feel like they are such a precious commodity that to cook them only adulterates their pure flavor and texture. Then again, 2 1/2 pounds is a lot of blueberries. Blueberry pie was the most obvious way to use up so many yummy berries, but we're set to go out of town in a day, and pie doesn't travel well. Sadly. So, I'll just have to make blueberry muffins with some of them and eat the rest by hand.



I love muffins. I love that my son eats them when he won't eat anything else. I love that they're excellent road food. And I love this recipe I found in Gourmet. It's tender, it's sweet but not too sweet, it looks gorgeous, and it's bursting with blueberries.



Blueberry Muffins
adapted from Gourmet, Sept. 2003

Muffins:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/3 c. buttermilk (or whole milk)
1 whole egg, plus 1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 c. fresh blueberries

Topping:
3 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2" cubes
1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

To make muffins: Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line or grease a 12-cup muffin tin. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together melted butter and buttermilk, then add eggs and vanilla, mixing thoroughly. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mixing just until combined. Gently fold in blueberries. Divide batter evenly between 12 cups. Set aside.

To make topping: In a bowl, rub together the butter, flour, sugar, and cinnamon until mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle topping evenly over batter in cups, pressing down gently to adhere.

Bake muffins until tops are golden, about 18-20 minutes. Cool on rack 10 minutes, then remove muffins from tin to finish cooling on rack.

Special treatment

When I think of luxury, I don't typically think of mansions, Bentleys, or formal balls. No sir, luxury in my mind is more like fluffy pillows, cozy slippers, and food. Good food. Warm food. Comfy food. I think of things like fresh-from-the-oven scones slathered with clotted cream and jam, eaten in one's pajamas on a chilly morning. The warmth, that delicate texture that crumbles lightly in your mouth. The way the whole house smells delicious for hours afterward. This is the stuff perfect, lazy mornings are made of. And what better a way to welcome my sister-in-law and her family than with a warm batch of cranberry-orange scones? Anyone willing to fly over 13 hours overnight with two layovers to visit us certainly deserves a little luxury, don't you think? Did I mention they're traveling with a toddler? Yep, luxury.


After hours of scouring various cook books, magazines, and websites trying to decipher exactly what constituted a scone (pronounced "skawn" by most of Great Britain) and what made it different from a biscuit served with gravy, I finally came up with my own recipe. It makes a very tender scone that isn't too sweet at all - perfect for all that jam I'm sure you'll be slathering on. Oh, and my favorite part? It's perfect for the freezer, both before and after baking! It's great for early morning breakfasts - just place the scones (unbaked) on the prepared pan the night before, pop them in the freezer, covered, and transfer to the oven straight from the freezer the following morning. Or later that week. Or month. Of the times I've made scones, the results are always best when I bake them from a frozen state.


Cranberry-Orange Scones
This recipe is incredibly versatile. I hear tangerine is also a lovely partner for cranberries. If you're not feeling citrusy, simply omit the orange components and increase the amount of buttermilk to compensate. Don't like cranberries? Use dried currants or cherries, or go entirely without. Love chocolate chips? Go for it! Get the point? Now get baking!

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• zest of one large orange (about 2 tablespoons)
  
• 4 oz (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 3/4 cup dried cranberries, chopped
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
  
• 3/4 cup chilled buttermilk
• 1/4 cup chilled freshly squeezed orange juice
  

Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl, then mix in orange zest and whisk until evenly distributed. Add butter and rub in with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. This is not the time to be OCD about uniformity - it's okay to have some larger chunks of butter (aim for pea-sized, more or less). Mix in dried cranberries.

Mix egg and buttermilk together, reserving about 2 tablespoons for the glaze. Stir in the orange juice. Gradually add the wet mixture to the dry mixture, tossing gently with a fork until moist clumps form.

Turn dough out onto lightly a floured work surface. Knead briefly to bind dough, about 4 turns. Dough will likely be a little wet and sticky - just flour your hands and not the dough. Form dough into 1-inch-thick square. Cut into 9 equal squares (like a hash mark), then cut each square diagonally to form 2 smaller triangles (total of 18 scones). Or, if you can't be fussed, just pat the whole thing into a circular disk (1 inch thick) and slice it into 8-12 wedges. Transfer to prepared baking sheet, spacing 2 inches apart. (Can be prepared up to this point and frozen, covered, on pan)

Brush tops with reserved egg wash. Bake until tops of scones are golden brown, about 10-20 minutes. Let stand on baking sheet 5 minutes. Serve scones warm or at room temperature. I recommend jam and clotted cream - lots of it!


Speaking of clotted cream, unless you live in Great Britain, it's probably a little hard to come by. Or, if you live in New Zealand, it's impossible to come by. Not to worry - clotted cream is easy to make! Just get some unpasteurized cream, let it sit out for 12 hours, heat it gently over low heat until it isn't quite boiling, then let it sit out again overnight. Piece of cake! If you don't happen to live on a farm where you have access to unpasteurized anything, you could do Alton Brown's method with a coffee filter. Or, if you're like me and you don't drink coffee (nor do you feel like buying a coffee filter for this express purpose), you can do this:

In a small saucepan, put 2 cups pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized) heavy cream on the lowest heat setting possible until a skin forms and the surface just begins to ripple on the edges (do not let it boil). Remove from heat and let it sit uncovered in a cool place (fridge works fine) overnight. In the morning, carefully skim the top part (the clotted cream) off the surface. Mix it up and add some liquid cream from the pot, mixing until everything is smooth and combined and has the consistency of very thick whipped cream. It may not taste too phenomenal on its own, but it will transform your scones into something magical when served with a bit of strawberry jam. Enjoy!