Fresh Tomato and Basil Quiche

This dish is perfect for summer time as it uses fresh basil and tomatoes ... both abundant and delicious during the summer season. Do this dish justice and only make it when tomatoes are in season. It is just wrong to buy tomatoes in winter when they are hard, pale and tasteless!

I want to post this recipe now as our local farmers market is having a tomato festival this weekend!

Fresh Tomato and Basil Quiche (adapted from Cooking Light)

1 frozen/ refrigerated roll out style pie crust thawed
olive oil
1 cup sliced onion (I halved my onion then sliced)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup sliced tomato (I mixed cherry and traditional tomato on my quiche)
1/4 cup shredded fresh basil
1 cup 2% milk
1 1/2 TBS flour
salt and pepper to taste
3 large eggs, beaten

1. Unroll pie crust and carefully place in quiche pan. Par bake at 400 degrees about 10 minutes. Poke a few holes in the crust before placing in oven.
2. Add a bit of olive oil to a non-stick skillet. Heat over medium-high until hot. Add onion and garlic, saute 8 minutes or until lightly browned. Spread onion mixture in bottom of the prepared crust.
3. Sprinkle cheese over the onion and arrange tomato slices over the cheese. Top with basil.
4. Whisk milk and flour together. Add to beaten eggs and whisk a bit more. Pour over tomatoes. Bake at 400 degrees for 35 - 45 minutes until golden and knife inserted near center of quiche comes out clean.

Serve with a fresh summer salad! Yum!

Spring salad with grapes, pistachios and goat cheese

Alright all those who love a good Spring salad this is for you. I love goat cheese and am lucky enough to have a few local farms that supply it, although if I need to keep our food budget in mind, store bought works just fine. The dressing used for this salad is wonderful and it makes ALOT and you only use a little to coat the salad, so plan to store it in a jar and have for salads later in the week.

This recipe is from Cooking Light

Easy Herb Vinaigrette

9 TBS white wine vinegar
1 1/2 TBS honey
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup EVOO
3 TBS fresh chopped basil
3 TBS fresh minced chives

1. Combine all ingredients, stir well with a whisk. Store in mason jar or other container in refrigerator.

Spring Salad

1/4 shelled dry-roasted, pistachios, finely chopped
1/2 cup (4 oz) goat cheese
1 (5 oz pkg) mixed salad greens or spring lettuce
1 cup seedless grapes, halved
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1. Place pistachios in a shallow dish. Divide cheese into 12 equal portions, rolling to form 12 balls. Roll each ball in the pistachios until well coated. Set aside.

2. Combine herb vinaigrette and greens in a large mixing bowl, and toss gently to coat. Add grapes to salad and gently toss. Top salad with cheese balls once served on salad plate.

Cheese Making

My girlfriends and I embarked upon a mozzarella cheese making adventure this weekend. Having read the wonderful and inspiring book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, we really wanted to try her 30-minute mozzarella recipe. After months and months of talking about making cheese, we finally did!

While I had my doubts about mozzarella being made in 30 minutes, it is true. The recipe is easy and the cheese tasty. I'm lucky to have a foodie friend that just happened to have rennet and citric acid to share.

We used 1/2 gallon of 2% milk and 1/2 gallon of whole milk from a local dairy. This seemed to work out well since the recipe does not specify fat content of the milk. We also realized that it may be good to save some whey to store extra mozzarella as it dries out in the fridge. If you don't want to store it in whey, try making an olive oil marinade with some spices...

So, tie on your aprons and make some cheese!

30-minute mozzarella (as written in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver)

Measure out all additives before you start, in clean glass or ceramic cups. Use unchlorinated water.

1 gallon pasteurized milk (NOT ultra-pasteurized)
1 1/2 level teaspoons citric acid dissolved in 1/4 cup cool water

Stir the milk on the stove in a stainless steal kettle, heating very gently. At 55 degrees add the citric acid solution and mix thoroughly. At 88 degrees it should begin to curdle.

1/4 teaspoon liquid rennet, diluted in 1/4 cup cool water

Gently stir in diluted rennet with up-and-down motion, and continue heating the milk to just over 100 degrees then turn off the heat. Curds should be pulling away from sides of pot, ready to scoop out. The whey should be clear (if it is milky, wait a few minutes).

Use a large slotted spoon or ladle to move curds from the pot to a 2 qt. microwaveable bowl. Press curds gently with hands to remove as much whey as possible, and pour it off. Microwave the curds on high for one minute, then knead the cheese again with hands or a spoon to remove more whey (Rubber gloves help - this gets hot!). Microwave 2 more times (about 35 seconds each), kneading between each heating.

At this point, salt the cheese to taste, then knead and pull until it's smooth and elastic. When you can stretch it into ropes like taffy, you are done. If the curds break instead, they need to be reheated a little bit. Once cheese is smooth and shiny, roll it into small balls to eat warm or store for later in the refrigerator.

Lacking a microwave, you can use the pot of hot whey on the stove from the heating-and-kneading steps. Put the ball of curd back in with a big slotted spoon, and heat it until it's almost too hot to touch. Good stretching temp is 175 degrees.