Quiche! With hash brown crust!

On Pintrest, I found a recipe for a quiche with a hash brown crust.  There are a ton of them.  The one I referred to was a Martha recipe.  The crust is basically a bag of frozen hash browns thawed and drained well, a couple tablespoons of butter melted, an egg, and some salt and pepper mixed together.  You press it into your pan and bake it for about 15-20 minutes.  You don't need to weigh it down like you do a traditional pie crust.  Win-win!  Easy-peasy!  Faster, in fact, and less messy than a regular pie crust.  

Pumpkin waffle mix, optional.

I used a traditional quiche pan instead of the springform pan Martha wants you to use.  I also used 365 Brand hash browns from Whole Foods, so I'm not sure if that made a difference.  My crust didn't quite come up to the top of the pan.  No biggie.  I have grated swiss, thawed and squeezed frozen spinach, and this amazing Nieman Ranch uncured ham steak (also from Whole Foods) that I couldn't stop eating.  I was hungry and it was just... so... tasty.

A traditional quiche batter is one large egg to one half cup of dairy.  Traditionally, it's heavy cream.  Oof.  I can't do it.  I can't help but equate that to a giant serving of whipped cream.  Double oof.  Don't get me wrong, I loooove whipped cream, but I don't want to eat a pint of it.  I use whole milk.  It makes a lighter quiche and I don't miss the fat, personally.  You could use anything from skim (but why?!) to heavy cream.  A nice touch is to whiz up your batter with a stick blender (or real blender).  It smooths out the eggs and gives it a nice texture.  But don't go crazy, you just want to combine those things.  For this recipe I used four eggs and two cups of whole milk.  I added a stray egg white to this since I needed a yolk for the egg wash for my cheddar dill bread that I'm also making (tune in tomorrow!).  If you end up with a bit of extra batter, never fear!  I added it, a little cheddar, and a little dill to a small baking dish.  Et, voila!

Dinner is served!

In my crappy apartment oven, this baked for about 40 minutes.  Your (nicer) oven time and temp may vary.  Another point worth mentioning, if you make a cheese quiche, use a little less cheese than you might think.  If you really load it up, it gets hard to cut when it's done as copious amounts of cheese make it really soft.

The verdict?  Delicious!

Now, get cookin'!

Pie. It's what's for dinner. And breakfast. And lunch.

Friday's baking lab found me with a working camera battery and pie. Three pies, to be exact. We had three hours to make three pies. I was done first. No comment. Because of the instructor, a lot of people have been dropping the class. Unfortunately, it's almost all of the good people. So, I am left with people like the grandmother of 8 who forgot to put flour in her cookies and the Art Institute drop out who asked why we don't use baking soda in bread three weeks into class. Sweet. I spoke to another one of my chefs before Fall Break about this instructor. He offered to speak to the department head. Apparently, I am not the only one who has complained. The good news is that she won't be back to teach again. But I digress.

Here are my pies.

Apple pie (My illustrious instructor was kind enough to demo on MY pie how to cut the top. This was not my decision. Thus is the problem of being finished first.)

Cherry pie

Coconut cream pie

I brought home the coconut cream pie. I shared a piece with Mary Jane and have been powering through the rest. My love for pastry cream is strong. I make good pie. I make good pie crust too!

Pie crust is deceptively simple to make and homemade tastes infinitely better than store-bought. You mix a lower-gluten flour with a little sugar and a little salt. Cut in the butter. Add just enough ice cold water to bring it together. Roll. Done. You have pie. I suggest adding a little sugar to a dough to be used for savory pies as it helps in browning. It will not make the dough sweet, but it looks nicer.

I found this detailed recipe on Epicurious for pie dough. The only thing I'd do differently is to add maybe two teaspoons of granulated sugar to the flour as well, again, for color, not taste.

I don't recommend making the dough in a food processor since you have a lot less control. I really do prefer to mix and knead my doughs by hand. I find I have a better sense of when it's ready with my hands than by sight or smell. This pie crust recipe would be great for a chicken pot pie too! We've got some serious fall weather going on here. That would be great today.

I encourage you all to try pie dough soon! Report back with the results! I'd love to hear how it goes!

Speaking of going, here's what's left!

Brandied Cherry Pie, or I finally found the cable for my camera!

Earlier this week, I made pie. It had a homemade crust, a homemade filling and tastes divine. I know know the origin of the phrase, "easy as pie."

For the crust, I used the Pate Brisee recipe from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. This book is fantastic! I highly suggest you add this to your collection. If you already have it, let me know what recipes you've made! I picked this book up the other day for 50% off at Williams Sonoma. Score! As I sat down to read it, I wondered why I didn't already own it. It has a lot of excellent basic recipes with pictures. Ever want to make your own puff pastry? Martha shows you how! It's an amazingly comprehensive book.

As for the filling, I was just winging it. A homemade pie filling is deceptively simple. No magic or pixie dust required. You need to taste it a few times, but otherwise it's crazy easy. I bought a bag of nice, ripe dark cherries at Kroger. Once I pitted and halved them, I added them to a bowl. I poured on 1/8 of a cup (or 2 TBSP, or 1 oz.) of brandy and let soak overnight stirring well. I actually had on hand a small bottle of Mt. Gay Sugar Cane Brandy from a trip to Barbados a few years ago. It's quite lovely! I try to use it only for cooking and special occasions since I won't be able to get it again in the US. The next day, I added about a half of a cup of sugar to which I had mixed in 3 TBSP of sifted cornstarch. This was the first time I tried cornstarch in a pie filling rather than just flour. I think it worked much better. I sifted the cornstarch to get out the lumps. I added the filling to the bottom crust, covered it with the top crust, made my super cute star-shaped vents and baked. I baked it on 350 degrees just as long as it took for the crust to get a nice golden brown and the filling to be visibly bubbly. Voila! We have pie.

You can see here that no filling fell out or leaked all over when it was cut. Okay, a little is falling out here, but that's because I put it in a bowl first then realized a plate would be easier for photographing, but trust me, nothing fell out until it had been moved several times.

The cornstarch worked beautifully here! The brandy really adds a richness to the cherries. I am not going to post a formal recipe here because there are just too many variables. My cherries were pretty sweet on their own and didn't need too much sugar. Your might need considerably more or even none at all. Shoot for about 2 pounds of cherries here. Taste them. Add the sugar gradually. Start with a third of a cup mixed with the 3 TBSP of cornstarch. Taste again. Needs more sugar? Add a little more. Trust your tastebuds here. Once you put it in the oven, pay attention. Give it 40 minutes on 350 then peek. Is the crust golden? Can you see the filling bubbling? No? Then give it another 10 minutes. Repeat as necessary. This is not the time to sit down to a movie or call your mother. As long as you measure carefully and follow the rules, baking is not hard.

I even had enough crust left over to make a few pocket pies with some fresh raspberries I had on hand.

Here is my pie warmed up with french vanilla ice cream. Yum!