Quiche! Finally!

It's been a long time coming, but we finally have a quiche that turned out okay. This is from complete SCRATCH! I didn't measure anything, but I'll try to list everything we included:

Dough:

Flour
Water
Salt

Vegetables (Estimated Quantity):

2 Mushrooms
1/4 Zucchini
1/2 Red Pepper
1/4 Broccoli Stalk
1/4 Onion
8 Black Olives
1 Tomato
1 Carrot

Filling:
Flour
Bisquick (or any pancake mix)
Eggs
Milk
Mayonnaise
Shredded Cheese of your choice
Breadcrumbs

Directions:

Grease a pan of your choice and mix enough flour and water to make the dough to coat the bottom of the pan. The thickness of the crust is up to you, but make sure you coat the pan or the filling will stick to the sides.

Chop up the vegetables. The quantities listed were a rough estimate for our pan size, but you could proportion however you like.

In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, milk, flour, bisquick, mayonnaise and cheese until you have a thick uniform mixture. Fold in the chopped vegetables and spread into the pan. Sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs and more shredded cheese.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes. Our dough was a little overcooked, so check on it often. When a toothpick comes out clean, you're done!

Everyone should post some baking recipes. I'm sick of pastas, stir frys, and burritos. It's time to bake some shit.

Spaghetti Sauce

When I was in Italy in January, we went to this terrific restaurant in Florence. One item on the menu involved chili powder in pasta sauce. It sounds weird but it turned out to be really good. Since I've come back, I have yet to buy a single jar of premade pasta sauce.

INGREDIENTS:
28 oz. can diced tomatoes or equivalent amount of fresh, peeled, diced tomatoes
2 (give or take) cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, diced
olive oil
cooking wine
rosemary
oregano
black pepper
chili powder
any other veggies you want to add

PROCEDURE:
Combine onion, garlic, and olive oil (enough to cover the onion and garlic, and then some) in a pot big enough to hold everything. Sautee the mixture until onions are soft. Put some of the tomatoes in a food processor (fewer tomatoes food processed gives chunkier sauce) and have that chop them up. Add processed tomatoes and diced tomatoes to pot. Add veggies, spices, and cooking wine to taste. Cook until significantly thicker. Serve over your favorite pasta or use to make pizza.

If I'm feeding several people or if I'm planning on eating pasta nonstop for the next week I double the recipe.

Vegetarian Chili

I recently ventured into the world of homemade vegetarian chili. To start, I based my recipe off of the whole foods website recipe for vegetarian chili, but I changed some things (I forgot garlic, and as much as I like the stuff, it was fine) and made it more general.

As a side note, I've been trying to make basic things from scratch (recipes for bread and stuff coming soon). I don't usually measure things out when I cook, I just sort of eyeball it with the idea that good ingredients with thoughtful preparation will yield a good enough product, or at least a good and edible learning experience. Things have turned out well, so I guess it's a decent approach. Without further ado . . .

TOTAL COST: about $25
MAKES: enough servings to feed you and a few roommates or guests for a couple days at least, plus you'll have leftover fresh veggies.
TIME: 1-2 hours, but you will be able to check facebook while shit's cookin'.


INGREDIENTS
About 2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
About 2 qt. crunchy veggies. I use:
    2 Stalks Celery
    1 Carrot
    1 Onion
    1/2 Green Pepper
    1/2 Red Pepper
2 x 28 oz. cans diced tomatoes
Spices. If in doubt, buy a new, full container. I use half of a McClanahan's container of cumin in a single batch. I use:
    Cumin (Sort of essential)
    Oregano
    Chili Powder (Again, sort of essential)
    Sea Salt
    Red/Cayenne Pepper (some like it hot)
Beans, etc. I use:
    1 x 15 oz. can kidney beans
    1 x 15 oz. can black beans
    1 x 15 oz. can corn
    1 x 15 oz. can garbanzo beans (chickpeas)


PROCEDURE (sorry, I was a chemistry major)

Combine olive oil and crunchy veggies (chopped finely or to your desired chunkiness) in a big pot. Mix well and apply low to medium heat until veggies are somewhat softened but nowhere near brown. Add canned tomatoes (include juice) and spices (munch on some of the mix as you're adding them to make sure you like it that way). Heat a little more (low to medium) until it's bubbling just a bit and starts to look like chili. Add beans and stuff. Cook until beans are soft enough that you're happy (I usually eat a few chickpeas . . . once they're not crunchy anymore, you're probably good).

Serve, share, refridgerate or freeze leftovers. Add some cheese (I'm a die-hard mozzarella guy) if you're not vegan and so inclined. Freshly baked bread (recipe coming soon, I swear) goes well also. Drink some milk if you overdid the cayenne pepper. Leftovers are probably good for burritos and stuff, though I've yet to muster the energy to do anything but scarf them down cold.