QUICHE ADVICE?

[Triple Zero]

ok question

i'm making 3 quiches tonight.

i already madde the dough from water+flour+olive oil+pinch-o-salt

for all three, i will coat the metal pie spring thing (you know what im talking about) first with butter, then with flour, then i'll put the dough on the edges so i'll get a pie shape. the filling will all have a egg+milk mixture in them.

ok that's all standard quiche procedure.

now for the real filling i need your advice:

QUICHE THE FIRST: RED BEETS

i have red beets cooking. they were cheap at the veggie market/bazar. i'm gonna bake some onions till they caramelize and mix them with the cubed beets and creme fraiche (sour cream, but slightly less liquid) and the egg+milk for the filling. bit of pepper and salt and that's it. my gf said the red beet flavour is not to be fucked with.
now because i wanna make it look cool i was thinking of one extra layer on top of the beets. the choice fell on celery. my gf thought the tastes might combine well. since our synergetic cooking usually tends to turn out more awesome than either of us expected, i tend to trust her on this.

question 1: do i boil the celery? i was thinking of very lightly boiling (blanching?) it, but not much cause it goes into the oven as well.
question 2: personally, i think a quiche needs cheese. she says creme fraiche is cheesy enough. i was thinking of slicing up some mozzarella and mixing that with the celery slices and using that as a sort of celery-mozzarella layer on top of the bright red beets. thinking mozzarella doesn't taste like much (esp the cheap one i got) it cannot hurt, and it's cheese.
question 3: general advice? see anything to do horribly wrong with this plan?

QUICHE THE SECOND AND THIRD: UNKNOWN YET

i ahve a bunch of other ingredients:

- 1kg (2.2lbs) of red/orange/yellow bell peppers
- a cauliflower
- one fucking big orange carrot (looks a lot like the middle one at the bottom of this pic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CarrotDiversityLg.jpg )
- a cucumber
- 0.7kg (1.54lbs) of pre-cut frozen broccoli (only the flower bits)
- two unpickled gherkins (they were at the market/bazar and i always wondered what they taste like without pickling. probably like cucumber. i think they'll go into the salad. or possibly for dipping in the hummus i will be making as well! i'm brilliant! i must get more carrot for this as well! and some of the celery i haven't cut yet! woooo)
- enough danish blue cheese to exactly spoil two quiches cause of blue cheese overdose (i only wanna do this to one quiche)
- easily enough gouda yellow cheese for two quiches (hey i'm in dutchland)
- a nigh infinite supply of onions, garlic, minced chillis (sambal oelek), herbs, spices, mustard and other obvious must-have things.

i think i'll make one with cauliflower and broccoli, gouda and danish blue and some spices.

the other one will then be with bell peppers. but .. is bell peppers enough? oh, i know. i'll add bacon, and it'll be like quiche loraine only with added bell peppers. i already got two veggie quiches anyway (got two vegetarians tonight for a group of 10)

question 1: yes? sound idea? got any generic advice?
question 2: more advice? thoughts?

i got 4-5 hours left before everything really needs to be ready (i already done quite some work). i'll get some extra hands in maybe 3 hours.

i will go to the shop two more times today, which is now, and in about 1 hour. so if your advice includes extra ingredients, hurry. otherwise, pick from what i list above. [edit: shopping will be delayed as i'm going to finish the red beet quiche first]

okay, i'm gonna continue cutting and making stuff.

pics will be provided later.

(also, yay for the first time i think i'm not going crazy because of this periodic "cooking for 8-11 friends" deal ... thank you alprazolam)

[Richter]

Cooked spinach works in it too, though I'm ignorant of the proper veggie / other miture ratio.

[Triple Zero]

NEON PINK BEETS MIXTURE + NEON GREEN CELERY == AWESOME COLOURS

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK WHY DOES MY CAMERA EAT BATTERIES WHILE IM NOT USING IT

mobile phone pics will have to suffice.

[Cain]

Dont put oil in the pasta water!

[Jenne]

Aw, I'm too late.  Well, I like to make quiche like I do omelets, so ham, muchsrooms, herbs, sun-dried tomatoes...those are all things I like to put in them.

[Triple Zero]

the beets quiche was simply awesome!!! (not only qua colour) i will post recipes and pics later.

the other quiche was broccoli+cauliflower+gouda+dana blue cheese, which was not very special, but still very good as well.

i have four pieces left in my freezer, and enough ingredients to make the bell pepper quiche loraine kind of thing.

also my fridge is super full i gotta clean that thing out, it's dirty and full.

and i don't have time for this.

oh well.

pics + recipes will follow!

definitely gonna make the beets quiche again, i feel there's room for improvement. especially more celery, cause the colour contrast looks too good to pass on. (and the taste, yeah)

[Triple Zero]

actually since my funds are dwindling fast (birthday parties are expensive, but i got an AWESOME blender-on-a-stick* as a present, so that's great), i need to find a way to make this stuff into something that'll keep for a long time (cause it's more than i want to eat in a week, since i also have rye bread + cumin cheese to finish for breakfast--like the next 4 or 5 days).

i posted the ingredients above, if anyone's got any better ideas than making it into quiche slices.

if only i had a bigger freezer ...

cleaning out the fridge will be a start.

* used it immediately, smoothest hummus i ever made 

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

some basic quiche fillings:

ham
bacon
spinach
caramalized onions
tomatoes
mushrooms
did you say beets? srsly? weird.
guryere cheese
mozzarella cheese
provolone cheese
gouda cheese
fresh garlic
lil salt, lil pepper

these can be used in almost any combination though it's best to not use more than 3 ingredients or your palate becomes confused or overloaded and can't distinguish different flavors so it kinda all melds together in one weird flavor. if that makes any sense.

[Triple Zero]

hey everybody, thanks for all the advice.

pictures will come, honest, but no time yet.

but i have another question. as i said, i'm short on funds, and a got 1kg (2.2lbs) of red, orange and yellow bell peppers (for only one euro at the veggie marketplace!!) either way, i bought them on tuesday and i really need to do something with them. preferably something that keeps well, because i still got 3 (frozen) quiche slices left, quite some hummus, tomorrow i'm eating at a BBQ, and from the dough that was left over because i didn't make the third quiche, apparently some airborn yeast got into it because the next day it was all fluffy and risen, so together with Mango (friend of mine, some may know her from the IRC channel) we made little buns, bagels and even some pretzels with them (i kneeded some pulverised cashew nuts though the dough, as i like nutty bread). they're not brilliant (shoulda used more yeast, they could have been fluffier, actually i shouldn't have kneeded the dough after it was risen, ah well), but they still taste kinda good.

anyway so i have food for the coming couple of days. so what to do with the bell peppers?

i'm thinking of two possibilities

- either i just cut them all up into little pieces and put them in the freezer for later use. i need to sort out and clean my (small) freezer anyway, so i guess i can fit some more stuff into there.
- bell pepper soup. i use some (sour?) cream, veggie stock and cheese (no bacon, my gf is visiting next week and she's vegetarian) and blend the fuck out of it. probably onions and add some non-blended bell pepper chunks to the soup as well. garlic. maybe something green. except i don't wanna spend money on chopped parsley. i have some fresh dill growing on my balcony that i never use, would that go well? idunno?

it's a LOT of bell peppers (like 10-15 of em, not very big though) so suggestions like making stuffed bell peppers are not very useful.

- maybe i cut slice em into thick strips and grill em? or broil em? and then preserve them in some oil (cheap, so sunflower, sorry, i already spent loads of olive oil on my hummus) with garlic and herbs? how do i make sure that this actually keeps and doesn't secretly start rotting anyway? boil the jar au-bain-marie? or simply nuke the fuck out of it (and give it to the jews)? how long does this actually keep? cause i can't imagine eating this more than twice a week, in pasta sauce or so.

- any other ideas what to do with a large amount of bell peppers? something that would make a cool use of the different colours would also be awesome.

- maybe another quiche then? with three layers in three colours? that would be cool. but a lot of work. a bit too much work maybe.

i also got small amounts of the other ingredients (carrots, cucumber, broccoli, gherkins, dana blue, gouda, cherry tomatoes, and the default kitchen inventory stuff) so if you think i can work them into it (in the soup would be easy), otherwise they'll find their way in my food anyway.

[East Coast Hustle]

if you have a good broiler or a char-broiler (like a countertop grill), you can "fillet" the peppers (cut so that you get 3-4 big flat pieces out of each pepper), toss them in oil with garlic, salt, pepper, and maybe some fresh rosemary if you have any until they are well coated, then broil/grill them skin side down until the skin has mostly blackened and separated from the flesh. turn them over and grill for another minute or two, then remove from heat and allow to cool. once they are cool, remove the blackened skin (leave little bits here and there to give it true fire-roasted taste). for short term storage, you can put them in a jar with oil. for longer term storage you can put them in a strong ziploc bag with enough water to cover them, squeeze the air out of the bag, and put them in the freezer.

these are good on salads, pizzas, sandwiches, antipasto plates, stir-fry, all kinds of stuff.

[Triple Zero]

if you have a good broiler or a char-broiler (like a countertop grill), you can "fillet" the peppers (cut so that you get 3-4 big flat pieces out of each pepper), toss them in oil with garlic, salt, pepper, and maybe some fresh rosemary if you have any until they are well coated, then broil/grill them skin side down until the skin has mostly blackened and separated from the flesh. turn them over and grill for another minute or two, then remove from heat and allow to cool. once they are cool, remove the blackened skin (leave little bits here and there to give it true fire-roasted taste).

excellent idea!

and meh i usually have fresh rosemary on my balcony, but this year i neglected to take proper care of my tiny herb garden pot. and i'm pretty sure i spotted some growing in the wild during my running route just today, but fuck me if i remember exactly where

i always have too much of it, and now i have none

about broiling/grilling. i have two options. an electrical oven with a top grill (broil?) feature, and one of those pans with grill-stripes/bumps in them. whenever i've seen it done, people used the grill-pan, but using the oven would probably be faster/easier (as i can fit a lot more paprikas into one go)

for short term storage, you can put them in a jar with oil. for longer term storage you can put them in a strong ziploc bag with enough water to cover them, squeeze the air out of the bag, and put them in the freezer.

this is a great idea. i think i will try both types of storage. i have one ziploc bag that i can (re)use for this purpose, but it won't be big enough to store all of it, so the rest is going in oil, and some perhaps just one day in the fridge for pasta sauce tomorrow.

[Triple Zero]

i promised pictures, so here!

this is the red beets/celery quiche in various stages of progress, CHECK OUT THE AWESOME COLOURS OF AWESOME:


and another quiche, which has broccoli, cauliflower, gouda cheese and danish blue cheese, and possibly something or other:

[Suu]

The broccoli and cheese one looks amazing, but I'd have to replace the blue cheese with something else, lest risk my life.

[Triple Zero]

The broccoli and cheese one looks amazing, but I'd have to replace the blue cheese with something else, lest risk my life.

1. in that case, sorry but there's no point. then it's just a random broccoli-cauliflower quiche. you'd need to switch it with something else for to have a proper "kick". but replacing the kick, will change the entire recipe. it's a dilemma wrapped up in a conundrum, i tell you!

2. it amuses me that you point out that the quiche that is not HOT PINK and NEON GREEN looks amazing, but you already told me you don't really like red beets

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Wow YUMMMM!