Quiche

Hobby of the day: Cooking

I've always been a fan of quiche, whether for breakfast, lunch or dinner. My mother used to make a delicious quiche lorraine.  So, why not try? I mean cheese? Bacon? Who doesn't love those things? I am a HUGE cheese lover. I couldn't find swiss cheese, but they did have buy one get one bags of craft cheese, as well as string cheese.  So, yours truly came home with 6 bags of different cheeses. It was a toss up between colby-jack and 5 Italian cheese. I chose to use the colby-jack. The recipe calls for sauteed onion, but of course, I love garlic, so I chopped up was like an elephant size clove of garlic.  Breath is kicking now! It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself, and Gary went back for seconds, so that's always a good sign!

Recipe: Quiche Lorraine

Ingredients

• 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch single crust pie
• 6 slices bacon
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1-2 garlic cloves chopped
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1/4 teaspoon salt ( I didn't add salt because the cheese and bacon are salty enough)
• 1 1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).
2. Line pastry with a double layer of aluminum foil. Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 4 to 5 minutes more, or until crust is set. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). I used already pre-made Betty Crocker dough- next time I will make it from scratch
3. Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Remove bacon from pan, crumble and set aside. Reserve 2 tablespoons bacon grease in skillet. Cook onion in reserved drippings until tender, add chopped garlic; drain and set aside.
4. In a large bowl, mix together eggs, milk and salt. Stir in bacon and onion. In a separate bowl, toss cheese and flour together. Add cheese to egg mixture; stir well. Pour mixture into hot pastry shell.
5. Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until knife inserted into center comes out clean. If necessary, cover edges of crust with foil to prevent burning. Let quiche cool for 10 minutes before serving.

  

Mmmm..mmmm....good. G said it was even better than my mom's, but I won't tell her. Shhh!

Tattoo

Hobby of the Day: Being a Supportive Wife

The hubs getting his coloring done

So Gary's been waiting a few months to get the rest of his "ink" done.  He's been fairly patient.  This isn't his first tat.  He got one a few years ago in New Orleans with a friend.  He was originally going to get something small. HA! Ended up spending 4 hours getting a geisha on his ribs.  Apparently that's not a very fun place to get a tat done.  

He also has two Japanese cranes on his back perched on a cherry blossom tree.  Japanese cranes mate for life- enter in symbolism, plus the whole Asian theme.  

Apparently tattoos are addicting....and expensive! 

The Symbolism of the Tattoo:

We've traveled a little, not as much as we'd love to, but it's expensive! Each picture represents somewhere we've been

• The bird is a quetzal, a bird found in the Costa Rican rain forests.  
• The apple to represent NYC- a tradition every Christmas for the last 10 years
• Mountains- the Pitons in St. Lucia, where we had our honeymoon
• Fleur de lis- our trips to New Orleans
• The fan like shapes around the outside- reeds to represent rafting down the Nile
• The mask being held by the bird- a Venetian mask to represent out trip to Italy
• The "Mickey Moon"- our trip to the happiest place on Earth- Disney World
• The horns at the bottom- Spain

His tat began at 5, I didn't join until 6....and ended up staying until 9, yes it took 4 hours to do, but the colors are AMAZING!  Thanks to Cyn at Cirque du Rouge

We were both STARVING after and headed down to Granville Moore's .   It's a Belgian Restaurant and for beer lovers and mussel lovers, a MUST place to eat!  We ordered the Steak n' Cheese....mmm....nom nom nom... Just thinking about it makes me salivate. You get frites with it, drooling.... and a dipping sauce of your choice: Garlic Ranch • Truffle Mayo • Curry Mayo • Horseradish Cream • Chipotle Mayo • Ketchup • Dijonnaise • Bacon Blue Cheese. 

My personal favorite: Garlic Ranch, it's also amazing on the frites

Garlic Ranch and Chipotle Mayo

Do you have any tattoos? What of?

New Years Eve

My last night of eating like CRAZY!!! I was STILL full this morning!

Don't you love my sparkly NYE outfit?!

The lovely host and hostess

I was sick for most of Christmas break and didn't really feel like going out.  I did want to dress up, but didn't really want to spend the money either on flashy new clothes. Not to mention all the New Year's Eve shindigs around here were super expensive.  I have trouble wrapping my head around spending almost $200 to be with people I don't even know.

 Someone commandeered the fondue stiring, not that I will complain.

  

 

Enjoying my FABULOUS fondue

We ended up having a quiet night with some good friends at their house. We had a fabulous dinner if I might add.  I made cheese fondue- Yum!  One of my favoritest things ever.  It was half Swiss cheese half Gruyere and plenty of white wine.  Apparently the trick is to flower the cheese before you add it to the fondue pot, as well as add a splash of lemon which helps to prevent clumping.  Needless to say we engorged ourselves.  We had that with apples, bread and carrots. My friend also made baked brie, and smoked Gouda.  It's fairly safe to say that we had PLENTY of cheese!

Dinner:  beef tenderloin and a fabulous salad, complete with homemade seasoned pecans, feta cheese and green apples. Delicious!

No loud obnoxious drunk people that we don't know....I didn't say we weren't loud

Dessert:  Dark Chocolate Toblerone Fondue, complete with Baileys and heavy cream
Served with: strawberries, bananas, potato chips and pretzels

What's NYE with out Bubbly? Baby Prosecco with a splash of pomegranate liquor