Spinach Tomato Potato and Egg Salad

Dinners that are fast, fresh, cheap and delicious are not always the easiest to come up at the drop of the hat, but is the holy grail of week night cooking. In the winter the solution is easy - stews and soups that I make in big batches and freeze. In the summer I usually just make big salads, but I was craving something a bit more creative than just a salad recently and then I had a brain wave! I had spinach, eggs, tomatoes and potatoes!

What I present here is by no means fast since I had to roast the potatoes! But, with a little fore thought you could easily roast a batch of potatoes on the weekend!

Spinach, Tomatoes and Eggs, Oh My!

Here is what I did:

Pre-heat oven to 450 F. Clean and cut up 3 small red skinned potatoes (single serving). Toss potatoes in olive oil, sea salt, pepper and other herbs (as desired). Arrange on a foil lined cookie sheet and bake for 30 to 45 minutes (until soft). You should probably stir them around half way through the roasting time.

Meanwhile, put a pot of water on high heat. Once the water is nearly boiling add an egg. Boil for 15 minutes. Immediately remove from heat and chill in ice water (will help the shell peel off easier and the yolk from turning grey).

Tear up desire amount of washed spinach leaves. Half some grape tomatoes. Chop up the egg and add to the spinach and tomatoes in a bowl. Once the potatoes are done roasting add them while still warm to the partially assembled salad. Drizzle a little red wine vinegar and olive oil on top and enjoy. If you have crumble bacon on hand this goes well one top as well! Or grated cheese!

Obviously - when I made this salad it was not quick because I had to roast the potatoes. But I have repeated this when I had all the ingredients fully prepared and on hand and it took less than 5 minutes. I would like to point out the well balanced nature of this meal as well. Wouldn't you rather eat this for dinner or lunch than grabbing food out somewhere? Planning can be a busy cooks best friend during the week!

Happy Cooking!

Gorgeous Tomato Spinach Quiche

I think some of you may have picked up that ESFSW and I like eggs - whether it is an omelette (his domain) or a quiche (my domain) we do enjoy a well prepared egg dish. I had been planning on making a fritta one weekend and informed ESFSW of this. His reply was "what is a fritta?" I told him it was like a quiche but without a crust! He thought for a while and said "can we have quiche instead?" I paused for a second and thought...I really didn't want to make a pastry crust. While they are not difficult I seem to be plagued by bad luck and problems that last several times I have made one and I really didn't want to deal with the roller coaster of emotions that go along with a failed pastry crust. Now I know it is ridiculous to have yourself worth wrapped up in the success of a pastry crust and yet some how I do! When one turns out I am flying above cloud nine and when it fails I am in purgatory. I think the most upset and angry ESFSW has ever seen me was when I realized I had seriously screwed up a pastry crust of a quiche. I mean with three ingredients: flour, fat and water, how one earth can one forget one!! And yet I did. I blame it on my roommates! Some how they have frequent success using oil for the fat and so I have tried, and tried and tried and have yet to turn out a pastry crust that I find acceptable. So I went back to my roots and returned to Crisco and butter....ah my old friends! 

What I used:

Crust -

1 1/4 cup flour

1/3 cup Crisco shortening (vegetable shortening)

2 Tbs butter

1/2 tsp salt

~ 2 to 4 Tbs ice water

* optional 2 tsp cayenne

Filling - 

1/4 onion - sauteed

10 medium mushrooms sliced and sauteed

2 Roma Tomatoes sliced and de-seeded

2 cups fresh spinach leaves

8 eggs beaten well

1/8 to 1/4 cup milk

1/2 to 1 cup Shredded cheddar cheese

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

~ Crust ~

In a medium bowl measure out flour and salt (and cayenne) - give the ingredients a quick stir. Add shortening and butter. With your hands (take off any rings - saves cleaning them later!) or with a pastry cutter or two knives incorporate the crisco+butter with the flour until the mixture resembles sand clumps. Add 1 to 2 Tbs ice water and incorporate into the mixture until it starts to come together. If it is too dry add more water. Don't over water you want the dough to be a tad dry but holding together pretty well. Turn out dough on to a large sheet of waxed paper. Wrap up and refrigerate dough for ~ 30 minutes (up to 1 day).

ESFSW does have a rolling pin - so a wine bottle stood in as a substitute!

When ready - unwrap dough and form a ball - leave it on the wax paper. Cut another sheet of wax paper and put it over the top of the ball of dough. Using a rolling pin (or anything about a foot long and round). Roll out the dough into a circle. Once it is the desired size and thickness to fit into a pie plate remove the top later of wax paper. Put the pie plate over the top of the exposed dough and with one motion holding on to the bottom layer of wax paper and the pie plate flip. Remove the wax paper and arrange the dough into the plate and style the edges any way you please! Set aside while you prep the other ingredients.

Rolled out dough

Crimping the edges

~ Filling ~

In a fry pan saute onions and mushrooms til they are cooked through in either butter or oil (your choice - just never use margarine because I may have to hunt you down and lecture you on why this is NOT a healthier alternative to butter! I'm a chemist so I know!).

Set the onions and mushrooms aside. Mean while heat a little olive oil in the pan. Once hot add the de-seeded tomato slices to the pan in a single layer. Let them cook about 2 to 3 minutes each side. 

Once those have cooked - turn off heat and set aside. In a large bowl beat eggs with the milk and a dash of salt and pepper (and any other spices you want). If the cheese isn't shredded yet you should get on that! Or in my case get a kitchen helper to do it (aka. ESFSW).

Bring the pie plate with the crust back over and layer the mushroom and onion mixture with the fresh spinach leaves (make sure that they are well washed and dried). Pour the egg mixture over the top of this. Carefully lay the tomatoes on top of the egg mixture and sprinkle the cheese on top and sprinkle some pepper for good measure! Now place the assembled quiche into a pre-heated oven at 375 F. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes. The egg should only jiggle the slightest when it done. Remove from oven and let rest for 10 minutes before cutting and serving.

Assembled quiche ready to be popped into the oven!

The baked quiche resting after all its hard work in the oven!

Using fresh spinach means that - it ribbons through the quiche , as seen by this cross section.

We served the quiche with mango and grape fruit salad and paired it with a dry rose wine. It was a lovely meal. and I was thankful that my crust came out wonderfully!

It looks as lovely as it tasted!

Left overs can be re-frigerated and re-heated for up to a week. While it takes a while to assemble and bake it is worth it and yields a meal for 4 to 6 or leftovers if it just you. And is a balance of all the food groups!

Happy Eating!

If you hadn't noticed the pictures in this post are much better than previous posts. That is mostly due to using ESFSW's newest toy to take the pictures and not my tablet. 

Omelette Night 2

Time for omelettes again! 

There was a little hiccup in ESFSW and my communication over who was actually going to be cooking the omelettes. In the end he ended up doing the omelette making although I put the salads together and cooked the sausage. It wasn't until after I had started cooking the sausage that I realized I could have made sausage patties to have with the omelettes....que sera sera!

The photos for this post were taken by myself using a tablet, so they aren't the best. In time we will work out the kinks and I will have my actual camera back.

Here's what we used:

4 Eggs (two each omelette)

Sausage (uncased, spicy breakfast sausage)

1 Avocado

Shredded cheddar cheese
salt
white pepper

Salad: Spinach, Tomatoes and Radish

Here is what we did:


Brown sausage in a small fry pan/omelette pan with a little olive oil.

Browned sausage - set aside on paper towel to soak up extra oil.

Mean while whisk four eggs together with a small amount of milk/half and half with a dash of salt and white pepper. Make sure the eggs are beaten well!

It is best if you are making multiple omelettes to have multiple pans so that who ever is enjoying the omelettes can enjoy them together! Using one pan that the sausage was browned in dump out any pooling oil. It can be poured into a second pan. Heat both the pans over medium high heat until water droplets sizzles when splashed in the pan. Pour half the egg into each pan and let the egg cook. Adjust heat as needed so that the egg cooks evenly. Using a soft spatula you can gentle nudge the egg around the pan so that the bottom and edges set well.

Once the egg is starting to set up you can add the omelette fillings that you want. We chose sausage, avocado (cubed) and cheddar cheese (grated).

Cheddar and Avocado! One of my favorite combinations!

Add fillings trying to keep it on one side of the egg

The tricky part is folding the omelette in half. This works best not to do it too soon. I've always used a hard spatula but ESFSW uses a soft one which makes turn delicate egg easier without it tearing.

Folding the omelette in half.

After the egg has been folded over let it cook a little bit more. If you have an electric range you could probably turn the burners off at this point since they remain hot. If you are lucky enough to have a gas range just turn the heat down to the lowest.

Spinach and Green Leaf Lettuce

In the mean time, prep the salad that you will serve with the omelettes and toast any bread that you decided to serve with the omelettes. I used spinach and green leaf lettuce and then added some radish and tomatoes.

ESFSW's Omelette!

ESFSW definitely pulled through despite having to deal with a different stove, different pans, a small kitchen and trying to work around another person cooking! He made wonderful omelettes despite him not be in his element! I can't wait to taste his future cooking endeavors!

Happy Eating!