new week, new recipes, new ways to burn down my kitchen

This week I began my attempt at a few new recipes, and right now I'm sitting at about a 50% success rate as far as whether I liked the meal, and a 100% success rate on not burning the apartment down! (hip! hip! hooray!) Seriously, no flames so far this week. That's got to be a good sign, right?

Monday night I made quiche, and served it with a strawberry and almond spinach salad. It was delicious. Not only did I think so, but the Mr. did too! Here's the recipe I used (it's from a custom recipe book I got from a sweet girl at church as a wedding gift). I did customize it for our tastes a little bit (look at me altering recipes!) The original recipe called for spinach, but I used ham, turkey, bacon, mushrooms and chives instead.

1 Pillsbury Pie Crust, pre-baked 4-5 minuts
1 pkg. Plain Cream Cheese, softened
3 eggs
Garlic Powder to taste
Salad and Pepper to taste
2-1/2 c. shredded cheese (I used a Colby mix)
Sliced Ham, Turkey and Bacon
Green Onions, diced
Mushrooms, diced

1. Arrange pie crust in a 9" pie plate
2. Sprinkle 1 c. shredded cheese on bottom of pie crust
3. Mix together everything but cheese with electric mixer
4. Spoon mixture over the top of cheese already in the crust
5. Smooth out and top with remaining cheese
6. Bake on 350F for 35-40 minutes until slightly golden on top
7. Allow to set about 10 minutes before serving

After I got that in the oven, I started getting my salad together. In a bowl I mixed together spinach leaves,  cut strawberries and about 1/4 cup of almonds. For the dressing, I used:

2 c. sugar

4 tbsp. olive oil

1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar

I placed the ingredients in a small saucepan, and heated together on med-high heat. Once I took the quiche out of the oven, I poured the dressing over the salad, and mixed together (I waited so the leaves wouldn't get too soggy.)

If your mouth is melting about now? One thing I love about this is we have lots of leftover quiche (a whole pie for two people is a lot!) so we have built in breakfast and dinner for a few more meals. It was also pretty easy clean up. Since the quiche had to bake a little while, I was able to clean the kitchen before it was even time to eat!

Tonight I made something called "Chicken n' Ritz." It's essentially a casserole with chicken, sour cream, green beans, brown rice and cheese, and topped with crushed wheat ritz crackers. I didn't really care for it. My favorite part of the meal were the cheese biscuits I made to go with it, and the strawberry cheesecake ice cream I'm going to have a little later for dessert. Ice cream is truly the way to my heart. :)