Sunday, July 12, 2009

I'm back, baby!

Ok, so I've been on a bit of a hiatus recently- basically, I am changing jobs, I moved apartments, and everything has been generally chaos... I haven't cooked or made jewelery, and poor little Charlotte has been all aflutter. But, things are settling down, and I'm back!

Want some proof? I give you... veggie quiche, the healthy(ish) version!

This was my dinner.. mmmmm.... even though it requires the oven, it still feels summery.

What you need:
--2 eggs and 3 egg-whites (or some combination basically equivalent)
--half a cup of milk (I used non-fat)
--half a cup of shredded cheese (whatever you have, also, it could be feta crumbles)
--veggies- whatever you have on hand. I used about half a bunch spinach, half a zucchini, half an onion and some miscellaneous pieces of red bell pepper
-- a decent sized potato (or a couple red potatoes)

As you can see from the ingredients list, this is not an exact science.

First, we're going to make a crust, you could use a pie crust, but we're going to use potatoes to avoid something full of either butter or trans fats.

Spray a pie pan or a cake pan with some olive oil. Slice the potato fairly thinly, and cover the bottom and sides with slices. They should pretty substantially overlap because they will shrink. Spray with a bit more olive oil, and cook at 375 for about 15 minutes, until they look sort of cooked, but not brown- like this:

In the meantime, saute the veggies until basically cooked (start the onions first, then add zucchini, then last wilt the spinach)- mine looked like this:

Beat the eggs with the milk, and add the cheese. Then put in some salt and pepper. Dump the veggies in the potato shell. Then pour the egg/milk/cheese mixture over it. Bake at 375 for about half an hour - 45 min, until it is nice and puffy and brown, like this:

Let it sit for a minute, then serve (mine is with strawberries, because its the season, and they were 99 cents... NINETY NINE CENTS when I was at the store).

AND, for my budget cookers, I calculated the total cost here- this ENTIRE THING cost $4.27, and as far as I'm concerned it doesn't get much better than that! (as usual, the cost estimation assumes you're a savvy shopper- I have a grocery store discount club membership and shop accordingly. I also calculated just the cost of the actual items used- like, only 5 of the eggs not the cost of the full dozen). Anyways, for 4 servings, you have a very manageable $1.06- what else can you ask for?

3 comments:

  1. Glad to see you back! I am so impressed with your creativity in cooking. This looks delicious, healthy, and inexpensive. A perfect way to use summer veggies, and I'm trying it ASAP.

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  2. Glad you like it! I have to confess that the recipe is inspired by a recipe I found in a magazine a few years ago, but since I lost the recipe and don't remember what magazine it was, I didn't mention it, but they are 100% responsible for the potato crust idea which I think is genius!

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  3. Bookmarked! This looks AMAZING. I think I may make it for dinner tonight. Great recipe.

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