You Win Some, You Lose Some

It was a quiche-tastrophe. (Sharyl's comments in pink)

It looked like this: 

But it tasted like this: 

Mom and I diligently followed Ben’s quiche recipe.  Made the crust with all it’s beautiful herbs.   

Mixed up the eggs and other yummy goodness.  Poured it into the crust and popped it into the oven.  It emerged looking beautiful, perfectly set.  We were very excited to try it because it looked so beautiful.  It was like biting into a bunch of very salty grass.  No really.  It was bad.  You couldn’t taste the cheese or the eggs, not even the bacon.  All you could taste was salt and green. (It was a deep dish pie pan and it needed more filling, however, thank goodness we didn't use any more ingredients cause there would have been that much more to throw away)

: (

 We think it is a typo in the book.  The recipe called for 2 teaspoons of salt. (Oh Ben, you Salty dog you)  Together with the teaspoon of salt in the crust and we might as well just dumped the salt shaker on our plates.  I triple checked that recipe.  I did not read it wrong.  2 teaspoons of salt.

 The same day as the quiche incident, we also made a lemon cream pie.  Called for the rind and juice of 6 lemons.  That was way too much. (and Lord knows Deanna and I LOVE lemon) We used an electric juicer and it created  A LOT of juice. (can you say "PUCKER UP" )  Half the lemons probably would have been just right.  Or squeezing them by hand. (The book should have said squeeze by hand because those of us with an electric juicer went overboard)                                            

These are not the Lemon Cream Pie

 We also made yeast rolls like the kind that they serve at Road House Grill.  Our local Road House has sadly closed its doors.  I adore their rolls so I am trying to find a recipe for them now that I can’t get my fix at the restaurant.  Yes, we cheated on Ben.  Get used to it, it’ll probably happen again.  (Good thing we have no hopes of getting a book deal out of this adventure)  Lots of work, with all the rising time.  Definitely not a quick thing to cook, more of an all day commitment.  Anyway, they were very good but not as good as the restaurants.  I’m still on the hunt. (I would like to find a recipe for the yummy biscuits at Red Lobster)

So, in order to redeem ourselves, we had a guest Chick come down and bring her quiche recipe.

My cousin Vickie brought her tried and true recipe down the next weekend and we made 5 (!) quiches. 

They were yummy. (The was about an hour's worth of veggie prep work before we started making the crusts)  Lots of veggies, lots of cheese and lots of bacon! (Holy Quiche Batman!)

Not a lot of salt.  All 5 turned out perfectly. (We could have fed an army)   I ended up freezing the pieces I took home, cut into wedges and wrapped in foil.  For the most part, they held up well to freezing.  But the ones with zucchini and mushrooms got a little soggy. (I ate mine every morning for breakfast, cold, right from the fridge, YUMMY)

Mushrooms, Ham and Cheese

Asparagus, Mushrooms and Ham

Classic Spinach and Bacon

Sorry this took so long to post.  I suck. (Yes you do! HAHAHA)  Actually, you are a very busy Mommy and work and children come first. : ) Up next is Tomato Basil Soup and Angel Biscuits.  That post will be up later this week.

Our first day

Posted by Deanna:  Sharyl's comments in PINK.  Tisha's comments in ORANGE.
It's our first day of cooking and we've decided to start with recipes found on Ben's website.

Up first is Cheesy Potato soup.  This is a fairly straight forward recipe, calling for, well potatoes and cheese.  Velveeta to be exact.  It also calls for bacon.  How can you go wrong with a soup that has cheese, potatoes and bacon?  You can't. If only the screen allowed for a scratch-n-sniff.  Nothin' smells better than bacon.

The soup was quite good.  It's a thinner soup, not typical of potato cheese soups I've had in the past.  It has a rich flavor and the bits of bacon were a really nice addition.  We doubled the recipe so that we could each take some home.

Excuse the bread in that picture, the cornbread was still in the oven. (and we couldn't wait for the corn bread to be done to taste the wonderful smelling soup)

Speaking of cornbread, that was the second recipe of the day.  This is the Green Chili Cornbread that Ben made on MasterChef, to go with his Pork Butt Chili. (teehee, you said butt) Pork Butt must be said with a redneck accent, btw, as in "Gimme sum of that porkbutt JimBob". This recipe is a little more labor intensive with the roasting of the chilis and corn but still not an overly complicated recipe.  This was new for me.  Queen Spatula aka Deanna, put them in the oven roaster like she knew what she was doing. Wait. She does know what she's doing.  The flavor of both the corn and chilis was sooo good. 

The chilis roasting in the oven smelled so good!  We subbed Anaheim chilis as the grocery store near mom's house did not have Poblanos.   I've never roasted corn this way, it took a little longer than the chilis but it was definitely worth it.

Once everything was mixed together, it was a very thick batter.  The color was beautiful.  We used feta because mom couldn't find the queso fresco crumbles. 

We didn't have a cast iron skillet (I know, shame on us) so we had to use a 9 X 13 glass pan.  It took about 33 minutes to cook and came out perfectly.

Yum!  It's a very savory cornbread which is not what most people are used to when it comes to cornbread.  You could taste the roasted corn and chilis.  None of us could taste the feta at all, even though we could see it.  We all agree that chunks of pepper jack cheese would be a great addition. 

So, our first foray into the world of cooking like Ben.  Total spent was $37.37 for the ingredients.  Keep in mind though, this included things that we didn't have in the pantry and only used a little bit of in the recipes, like the dry mustard and peppercorns.  There is now a dedicated stash of items that will be used in this endeavor, so the cost of the recipes will most likely go down as that stash grows.

Leftover report:   The soup did not hold up well to being microwaved however, it was just fine when heated in a saucepan slowly on the stove.  I did not notice any change in the consistency and the flavor was the same.  The cornbread is actually better the next day.  The chili taste is stronger however, it does dry out fast.  
This was fun!  I know Sharyl noted it took one hour from start to finish with the soup.  All hands on deck made both recipes easier.  Something new for me, in addition to the roasting of corn and chilis, was sauteing (sp?) the onions in bacon grease.  Have mercy---did that smell good or what? 

Next up:  Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas that will make your mouth wattah.