Real men do eat quiche

Tags

cooking, ham, postaday2012, quiche, Sunday dinner, swiss cheese

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This was our Sunday dinner, a good old fashioned ham and Swiss quiche. My hubby requested the quiche mid afternoon and I said good idea. Quiche is very easy to make as long as you have all the ingredients on hand and if not, you have a grocery store near by. The pastry crust is very easy to put together, especially if you have a Cuisinart food processor. The ingredients for a flaky pastry dough is one cup of flour, 7 tablespoons of butter, 1/8 teaspoon of salt and 3 tablespoons of ice water, pulse all the ingredients together until the dough is just coming away from the sides of the bowl and you are done. Scrape the dough onto a piece of Saran Wrap and form it into a disc to put in the refrigerator for at least thirty minutes. This is for one pie crust, for two, you simply double the ingredients and when the dough is ready to roll out, you cut the dough in half with your knife.

Once you have rolled the dough out and lined both pie tins, the oven gets preheated to 400. I like to prepare each quiche separately to make sure that each quiche gets the correct amount of egg and cream. I start with the ham and cheese first, with both pie tins lined with the pastry dough, I layer the Swiss cheese and then the sliced ham and then in two bowls, I crack three eggs into each and I add one cup of heavy cream to each bowl, I grate some fresh nutmeg, add salt and pepper, and pour the cream and egg mixture onto the ham and cheese. Finally, I grate Swiss cheese over the top of each quiches and add a knob of butter to each as well. Into the oven they both go at 400, until they get golden brown on top which takes about 25 minutes and then I turn it down to 350 for an additional 10 minutes. Voila the quiches are ready.

Honestly this recipe couldn’t be easier, I have been making the quiche the same way for years. Why? Because they are so good, you really don’t need to change anything. I would only change the way I make quiche if I were to make a quiche with a different filling, other than that, this one is a keeper.

My hubby is going to take the second quiche with him to work for lunch and possibly dinner, he likes it that much. I hope that the baby boy stops by for a helping or two, because at least if he does, I know that he had something healthy to eat in his body.

News Sources

Newspapers B&W (3)

I get my news online. I receive e-mail updates from Alternet, WorldCrunch, Der Spiegal, Huffington Post; these publications lead me to other publications such as the Financial Times, the Economist, the Washington Post, The Guardian, Le Monde, Les Echoes and so on. I have always loved reading and political science interests me, as a topic, more than most others. I could spend hours reading and reading, it is one of the most pleasurable things in the world.

Doing our parental duty this weekend

Tags

College, food, restaurants, scripted activities, soft shell crab, travel, vacation

When the baby girl calls, my hubby and I answer asking, “what can we do for you and where would you like to eat?” We both remember being away for the first time from our parents, granted it was eons ago, but we still remember. So when the baby girl calls several times during the week, asking if we are coming for Parents Weekend and if instead of doing the scripted activities, we could come and take her out for sushi, bring her the horseback riding stuff that was left behind in her vast room and perhaps go walk around the mall and visit a few stores, how could we say no?

We are lucky that her college is only an hour and twenty minutes from our house so a round trip isn’t too much driving. My hubby found a really nice sushi place where they even had an all you can eat sushi buffet for 15 dollars. We didn’t do the buffet, I can’t picture buffet and sushi together in a good way. We ordered from the menu, my baby girl and I shared four rolls between us, a monster roll, a dragon roll, a caterpillar roll and a Philadelphia roll. They all share avocado in common, rice, nori, the philadelphia roll is the only one that had cream cheese and smoked salmon, the other three had smoked eel, spicy tuna and Maura tuna. My hubby had scallops tempura and a spider roll, this one has soft shell crab tempura, avocado, cucumber, rice and nori. So lunch was a hit.

The mall was another homerun, the baby girl found her favorite store, found the things she needed really quickly and before it ever became too painful, we were done with the mall. So after good food and good shopping, we dropped off the baby girl in front of her dorm and we were back home to Rex and Jack in time for their early evening walk since our baby boy was over earlier to feed them.

As parents we are feeling very productive today, don’t worry, we never let that go to our heads. We are parents after all to young adults, what do we know?

Your Default Look

jeans watch pocket

In an ideal world, I would be in plaid pajamas, a short set for summer and long ones for winter. Comfort being one of my favorite things in the world. On a more realistic note, I could see myself wearing blue jeans, dock siders, a nice tee shirt and a belt. Another outfit laid out for comfort.

I have a confession to make

Tags

Craig Fergeson, lat night show, loon, potaday2012, sidekicks, T.v

I have become a big fan of the Late Late Show with Craig Fergeson. He is simply a loon, he tries to be off colour but he does it politely with his lilting Scottish accent so it’s just endearing not offensive in the least. His sidekick, whose name is Geoff, is a robotic skeleton voiced by I don’t even know, but he is just as silly as Craig and they make a hilarious couple. They sometimes argue like a married couple. Craig also has a two man horse named Secretariat who comes out to dance now and again. He also has a mounted Rhinoceros head on the wall named Sarah, she doesn’t speak too often. There is a gag CBS executive who is there supposedly to keep Craig in line but she is very attractive so He just acts more like the adolescent he still is, the loon.

It’s my show to watch because my hubby isn’t really a fan, so I sit with Craig and laugh at him being a big ham with his crazy entourage. His guests really like coming on because they are extremely relaxed and let their hair down. Often on other shows they stick to the scripted questions and answers whereras with Craig, his questions come from out of the blue and you never know where the conversation is going to go or where it was headed in the first place.

Cutting Out a Habit

IMG_0049

I can't think of anything that I need to stop doing, except maybe lay off the ice cream but I do love my chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream brought to me by Edy's Slow Churned.

Rex and Jack; my boys

Tags

changing colors, dogs, foliage, leaves, pets, postaday2012, town park

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As I was walking Rex and Jack and noticing that with everyday passing, the leaves are changing into the beautiful fall foliage that we in the Northeast are famous for, I know that we aren’t the only ones to have spectacular fall colors, but it is pretty nice to live right smack in the middle of it all. I thought that this would be perfect to capture with my cell phone to write about and share.

 

The leaves are accumulating everywhere in my front yard and in the back. Soon I will be outside raking them up and putting them into plastic leaf bags, one of my least favorite things to do. I tell myself to get through the onerous task, that it is burning calories and I am ashamed to admit it, but that logic is all I need to get me out there raking and stuffing bags.

 

While I was walking the boys I was thinking about this coming winter and what to do about Rex’s need to go out in the middle of the night. My mind was wondering to the thought of a doggie door, my Tonton had one installed for his German Shepard and his Labrado,r but Rex is much bigger than your average Lab or German Shepard. We would need a door that opens in half, while the top is closed the bottom opens or when the bottom is closed the top opens. I forget the name for those types of doors.The only problem is that having a half door open during the night in winter will send our heating bill though the roof.

Actually it isn’t that bad waking up in the middle of the night to put the boys out for ten minutes or so, I fall back asleep fairly quickly. I’m getting at least three hours of sleep at each stretch so cumulatively it works out to about eight or nine hours. Go to bed at midnight , get up at three, get up again at six and then back up again around nine. Thank goodness I am a stay at home wife and mother. I would be fried if I had to work outside the home only because at work you normally can’t set your own pace whereas no matter how much I have planned to do, I can go as quickly or slowly as I feel because I am the boss.

 

Best Month of the Year

Sun

I think that it would be June because that is when summer starts. I am in the garden, all my favorite fruit is available such as peaches, nectarines, and cantaloup. The weather isn't too hot yet, the warm healing rays of the sun makes everything more pleasant and the days are longer. June is quite a delightful month.

The annoyance of political ads during election season

Tags

commercials, elections, government, political ads, postaday2012, TiVo

We are now about six weeks away from our presidential election and congressional elections. It is not just the Fall season that reminds you of the upcoming big decision but the non-stop avalanche of political ads that have started appearing on almost every single channel. I think that because of commercials in general and especially now during political ad season, TiVo is the best invention known to man. TiVo by far has out-shown the VCR on many different levels by allowing you to watch the show while it is being recorded so when you get a little bit of time-lapse you can actually watch it and fast forward during commercials. Another way it is superior is that while TiVo is recording two shows simultaneously you can watch a show that has been recorded previously without interfering with your recording schedule. Brilliant I tell you.

I am protesting the political ads because I get all of my news and information on-line. I despise watching news programs because the pundits absolutely never ever ask hard questions and they all ask the same questions regardless which program you are watching. They all receive the same corporate memo so in essence if you watch one show, you have effectively watched all the others.

I’m frustrated because I just wish the elections were over now, instead of worrying that Romney might win which would be a big blow to the middle class and the less fortunate. Most everyone agrees that this election is the most important election of our lifetime. That might be a tad hyperbolic but President Obama did state in his convention speech that this election is a clear choice between two visions of government and its role in people’s lives.

My view is that unlike Ronald Reagan who stated, famously by the way, “Government isn’t the solution to our problems, government is our problem”.

His statement is very simplistic and it creates an entity deemed to be separate from society as a whole and that is purely illogical. Our government as envisioned by the founding fathers was a government for the people, of the people and by the people. We are our government and we shouldn’t think of it as some bad institution trying to control our lives, Abraham Lincoln had a few important ideas on the merit of our government, “government is essential to do and provide for the people those things that they are unable to do for themselves but can do together as a society”.

That’s it for me today. I will get off my soap box and leave it at that.

Taking a Class

Museum of Anthropology

When I was in college, I had a double minor in French and Anthropology. My major was International Political Science but I feel that I more or less keep up to date with what goes on with the world through my own reading and initiative. However, in my other area of interest, Anthropology, I haven't kept abreast of much of anything and I have wonderful memories of several courses dealing with all areas of Anthropology, my favorite was a course that dealt with Greek Mythology and its usefulness in Cultural Anthropology, something like that interest me a great deal.