Quiche Lorraine Sounds So Sophisticated

Back when I was a new cook, I didn’t know much of anything.  Every recipe I looked at impressed me.  When one of my sophisticated friends invited me to dinner and made Spaghetti with Garlic Sauce, I was enthralled.  Only when I dared make it myself did I realize how easy it was.

My first taste of Quiche Lorraine came at a cocktail party.  By then I was slightly more ambitious in the kitchen.  I liked the bacon-y flavor of the quiche but had no idea what was in it.  There was no Internet then, so I went to a bookstore and searched through cookbooks.  That may be when I bought my first copy of “Joy of Cooking,” which included a Quiche Lorraine recipe. 

A New Kind of Omelet

When I was just learning to cook, I shared an apartment in New York with a friend who worked in the Standard Brands test kitchen.  One day she came home with a new product her department was testing.  It was called Egg Beaters.  It looked like beaten eggs, but in fact it was made of egg whites and yellow coloring.  It tasted pretty much like regular eggs, but I couldn’t figure out why I would want to use it instead of real eggs.

Now that I’m older and think more about healthy food choices, I understand

A Cheap Emergency Meal

Thank goodness for eggs.  Most people who have refrigerators also have a box of eggs in them.  Eggs are cheap, versatile and full of protein.  They’re one of the basics of my life, whether I’m making a dessert, an omelet or a heavy-duty soup that can serve as a main course.

When I’ve assessed the contents of my freezer and can find nothing I want to eat for dinner, I turn to Oniony Egg Soup.  I don’t know where the recipe came from, but I’ve been making it for years. 

It doesn’t require many ingredients:

Goat Cheese – How to Use It

 Occasionally my bargain-hunting outruns my common sense, and I buy way too much of an ingredient because it’s on sale.  About a week ago an irresistible double package of goat cheese landed in my shopping cart.

Once I got it home I began to wonder what I was going to do with 20 ounces of this soft white cheese.  I took one package to a dinner party.  The other sat forlornly in the cheese drawer for a week until I remembered a quiche recipe an English friend sent me.  Conveniently it called for goat cheese.

The directions said

How Far Can You Stray From a Classic Recipe?

I’ve been aware of Gado Gado, an Indonesian salad, for years.  I’ve admired pictures of it and even considered making it at one point.  But I never did because 1) it looked like too much work, and 2) it didn’t appear filling enough to be a main course.

Sunset Magazine’s July issue carried a recipe for this salad, and I finally decided to try it.  ‘Too much work’ and ‘not filling enough’ still seemed valid concerns, so I decided to add a few of my own touches and subtract one of theirs--the bean sprouts, because there were enough cold vegetables already on the platter.

Ingredients Hiding in Plain Sight

Right now my refrigerator is stuffed with food that doesn’t quite add up to dinner: a slice of mushroom pizza, at least one cup of cottage cheese, a huge pan of rice left over from a business meeting, some mushrooms, 2 bell peppers + the usual block of cheddar cheese and several dozen eggs.

I really should pop out to the store or find something in my freezer, but I want to clear out the fridge shelves first.  What can I make from these ingredients?  Click on the links below for the three recipes.

Mom Money-Saving Tip 65

Spinach Quiche

Use up leftover cooked vegetables or small bits of cheese or cream cheese in Quiche.  Here’s an easy Quiche recipe that effectively uses up half an 8-ounce package of cream cheese.  It can also absorb a cup of leftover cooked vegetables.

Kippers: What Are They and How Do I Cook Them?

Kedgeree

Kippers are herrings that have been salted and then smoked.  Sometimes you can buy them whole, but usually you will find them sold as boneless filets in cans near the canned tuna, sardines and clams.  They are also available online and might be labeled ‘Kipper Snacks” or “Kippered Herring.”  Canned kippers, which are fully cooked, are modestly priced.

I first discovered kippers when I lived in London.  I became a fan and would buy them whenever I saw them at my local fish stall or grocery store.  Fresh kippers require a quick broiling (2-3 minutes per side) with a little melted butter on top.

Pancetta: What Is It and How Do I Cook It?

Pancetta falls somewhere between ham and bacon.  Also known as Italian bacon, it’s made from pork belly that has been salt-cured.  It’s available in thin slices, like prosciutto, and also in tiny cubes.  I use it to flavor soups and pasta in the same way I would use bacon, although bacon is saltier and smokier—more in your face in terms of taste.  It is pronounced pan-CHET-ah.

Is It Possible to Make Dinner for $1?

That used to be my goal when I got my first job and was just feeding myself.  Obviously that was quite a while ago, and it was a goal I could usually meet.  My dinner was not a lavish three-course meal, but it did include a main dish and at least one side dish. 

Most of my kitchen experiments were bland because I grew up with bland: meatloaf, hamburgers, boiled chicken and brisket   However, I did try to make Egg Foo Yung, the oddest dish I’d ever eaten before I left home.  It was exotic and strange yet somehow familiar.  My date had ordered it at a restaurant and gave me a bite.  I recognized an egg taste, but only later did I discover what it actually was--a Chinese omelet filled with bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, sliced cabbage, scallions and water chestnuts.  Maybe there was some kind of meat in it.  I don’t remember.

When Someone Offers to Cook Me Dinner, What Do I Choose?

I choose blini, which are Russian yeast pancakes.  They remind me of all the traveling Bart and I did while we were living in London some years ago. We met our first blini in Moscow, when we were part of a package tour that included all our meals.  One night we escaped and went to a club filled with prosperous young Russians.  Everyone was eating blini, so we ordered them too.  We’ve been eating them ever since.

By now, the whole family likes them.  Instead of sulks and arguments at the table, everyone is filling their plates with little pancakes and covering them with sour cream, jam, smoked salmon or, on the rare occasion, a very inexpensive caviar.  Sometimes we play some Tchaikovsky to get us in the right mood.

Who Can Resist a Recipe Called Shakshuka?

Not me.  When I recently saw a New York Times recipe for this Middle Eastern dish, which I’d never heard of, I was intrigued.  A few hours later I opened my daily email from The Guardian, a British newspaper, and what should be featured but a big story about Shakshuka.

Popular for breakfast in Israel, Shakshuka may have an exotic name but

If I Were Making Airline Food...

I would work hard to provide a decent breakfast, not one where sugar is the first or second ingredient in packaged "cakes" and yogurts.  It would be hard to make anything less appetizing than the breakfast I was served a few days ago on a non-stop flight to London.  Unfortunately my stomach was captive, and I had failed to bring any snacks.

Granted, the breakfast was free, even though we were flying economy.  But the airline just reported a $3.3 billion profit for the final quarter of 2015.  How about taking 1 percent of that to upgrade the meals?

Had I planned ahead, here's what I would have packed:

A Happy Meal

What is a Happy Meal if you’re cooking it?  Definitely no toys, but otherwise anything is possible.  It just depends on whose happiness is at stake.  Do you want to make yourself happy by preparing your favorite meal?  Or would you rather be happy because you made someone else’s favorite meal and thus prevented bickering at the table?

As an eater, I’m easy.  I can make myself several dozen different dishes that qualify as a Happy Meal.  I recently discovered the joys of a fried egg sitting on a bed of couscous—but not the tiny granules of couscous I was used to.  I tried out some of Sadaf’s Toasted Couscous, which swells into BB-size granules when cooked.  It makes a perfect base for a fried egg.  Add salt, pepper and salsa.  I couldn’t be happier.

How Cookbooks Reflect Eras of Your Life

Seafood Pie

I learned to cook from books because my mother was not too skilled in the kitchen.  She made good chocolate chip cookies, but it was downhill after that.  Her go-to guide was “The Settlement Cookbook: The Way to a Man’s Heart,” originally published in 1903.  I wasn’t a fan. 

Much more interesting to me was “Joy of Cooking,” a book I heard of when I got my first apartment in New York after college.  I bought a copy and was thrilled with the huge variety of recipes, although many of the dishes I picked out to cook were on the bland side.  That was probably my fault because I was afraid of seasonings.

That changed when my mother bought me “The Spice Cookbook.”  Here were recipes with major flavor.  During my four years of cooking for myself and my roommate, I toggled between “Joy” and “Spice.”  They’re still in a prominent place in my kitchen, and whenever I pick them up I remember my young and fun days in The Big Apple.

Do You Have Trouble Boiling Water?

Don’t be embarrassed.  The kitchen can be a mysterious place and just as dangerous as a chemistry lab.  On the plus side, you are unlikely to explode.  But you can burn yourself, cut yourself, even poison yourself if you’re not paying attention.  Weapons of death are within your grasp. 

There’s a famous short story by Roald Dahl, who wrote “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” about a woman who bops her husband over the head with a frozen leg of lamb.  She then destroys the murder weapon by cooking it and serving it to the policemen investigating the death.