Dairy-free Quiche

Laughing Cow. La vache qui rit? La valkyrie. Brand name origins via Mental Floss, right there.

Well, now we've got la quiche sans vache. My brand name will be? Lucky Sandwich. If you say it like you're drunk, or maybe like your face is really cold. Luh-kee sahn-vash.

It's 8° right now.

This is all a preamble to one of the most beautiful - and delicious - quiches I've ever made. Instead of heavy cream, I used regular coconut milk from Thai Kitchen. It's a crustless quiche, based on Martha Stewart's recipe, Crustless Broccoli-Cheddar Quiche.

I just decided to make it spinach, tomato, and mushroom. Organic chopped frozen spinach, about two cups. Two nice organic - hydroponic because it's fucking winter - tomatoes. Ten lovely crimini mushrooms, sliced. Sauteed until tender, tossed with three tablespoons of nutritional yeast. Flakes of pure umami, the yeast stands in for the absent cheddar.

Still with the pepper and frrrresh nutmeg, though. (LOVE my microplane!) Still with the 6 large eggs, 1/2 cup of "cream". Still with the oven at 350°, for 35 - 40 minutes. In four 8 ounce ramekins, or a 9 inch pie plate. I went pie-style.

Gorgeous. Delicious. Moist, and the slight coconut taste made the nutmeg pop. And we all know that nutmeg and spinach is a weirdly fantastic combination. And I love tomatoes in quiche, so. The mushrooms were fab as well. It's my lunch tomorrow. Makes four big tasty wedges. Comes out puffy, and golden. Love.

Lately, My Response to Everything.

Ah, Now I See!

Taza discs make excellent, fantastic hot chocolate. I made this cup with some vanilla coconut milk and my trusty whisk. The twirled-whisk-cum-molinillo is important! A Mexican chocolate whisk is hard to find in New England, and a wire whisk provides a delicious amount of chocolate foam besides.

OMG, the Taza website has this recipe for tahini and cacao nib cookies! WHAT. It's probably like a halvah cookie. YUM.

O, halvah. I love it when you put on that sexy little bittersweet chocolate tux.

I've rediscovered the pleasing taste and excellent mouth-feel of Sunshine burgers - basically brown rice, carrots, and sunflower seeds ground and pressed into a patty. Strangely delicious. Especially with peas.

New Year's Dinner and Drinks

It's a stay-cation with Rihanna off MySpace, and some Jeff Bridges courtesy of the BPL dvd collection. Good stuff.

Pasture-raised organic sirloin steak tips, grilled to Medium (pink inside and hot, slightly beyond tepid and bloody). Spaghetti squash, fresh broccoli, garlic, herbes de provence. A fourth cup of turkey carrot bolognese. A half liter of Schneider Aventinus, a delicious German eisbock with a hearty alcohol content. Yummy.


Now for a mug of my own eggnog, featuring a fresh organic cage-free egg - sad I don't have easy access to free-range eggs - coconut milk, fresh grated nutmeg, ginger, vanilla...oh, and Knob Creek bourbon. YES.

Currently I have resolved to pursue a doctorate in biology. Aquiver with excitement, fear, hope. Hoping I can make prerequisites happen without too much financial impact on me. Oh god. (Edit: Just the 'nog talking. I can't do calculus or organic chemistry to save my life.)

Taza chocolate discs with guajillo chili. Fine, I'll accept the roughhewn granularity as historically interesting and oddly compelling. Maybe comparing it to beautifully conched and cocoa-buttered Porcelana is the wrong thing to do. Taza is its own kind of cacao product. Not a smooth-melting chocolate on the tongue, but something crunchy and tasty to chomp up, with a strong chocolate flavor. In fact, it's only got three ingredients. It's more chocolate than Domori chocolate, in a way. But still, only appropriate for certain moments in sore need of spice and that Taza-esque stone-ground granular crunch.

Sirloin Steak Tips and Eggs

So delicious. Cage-free, organic. Pasture-raised, grass-fed, organic. Sirloin being one - if not THE - most tender and lean cut of beef. Even leaner on a grass-fed cow. Grilled on an awesome grill pan (which probably adds toxins via the nonstick coating, but gah!) Whatever, I try:

“I argue for being conscious, but perfectionism is an enemy of progress.” - Michael Pollan, Newsweek November 2010

Plus organic carrots, zuke, garlic, and haricots verts. With a little walnut oil. AWESOME. Dab of salsa. Guatemalan coffee with almond milk, of course. With an optional chaser of antidepressant and vitamin D supplement.

Omelet Mastery

Cooking spray, a nonstick flat-bottomed wok, a spatula...sesame-oil infused collard green chiffonade, avocado, salsa...HOT DAMN. I am the Omelet Master here! It came out beautiful and perfect. Great breakie for a dark and stormy day, with a good cup of coffee.

Fast Food Nostalgia

For my Mom, it's a Whopper with everything, or a McD's vanilla soft-serve ice cream cone.

For me, it's the Hardee's Frisco Burger, and a Wendy's chocolate Frosty. Oh, and curly fries from somewhere. And I drank a lot of Pepsi around that time, too. Was I a chunker? Totally.

Now I would just like to mention that I can do one-legged body-weight squats to the floor. And? I can perform both pullups and chinups. And? I weigh 129 lbs. Thank you! I no longer eat Frisco Burgers and chocolate Frosties. But today I'm thinking about how they tasted. Fast food nostalgia is so...weirdly vivid. Fat must make a deep impression on the brain and taste-buds, jeez. Like eating those profiteroles as a five-year old...and deifying chocolate profiteroles with ice cream stuffing since then.

Not so with Mom's favorite: banana's flambé. Pass! I'd like to keep my fillings IN my teeth, thank you.