Spring Quiche and the Perfect Gift for Mom

In which Lauren supports food bloggers by buying their cookbooks


I started this blog in earnest within the last month. The whole idea started here, which eventually sent me here and then here and here and here. I somehow missed the whole blog explosion over the last three years, yet in the six months since Matthew showed up in my life, I not only have a feed reader, but approximately 30 food blog subscriptions and a del.icio.us profile full of other people's recipes. And now, my own site. Wow.

I was a French literature major in college--my French acquaintances always said I spoke like a 19th century novel thanks to my studies. During my semester abroad in Paris, I was fortunate to live with an amazing cook. Mme Biard was a widow who lived in a vintage apartment in the 16th arrondissement, which I was told was very bourgeois. Mme Biard went to market every day , which at the time boggled the mind of this Midwestern farm town girl. She never made a chicken breast without pounding it into a cutlet and topping it with a delicate sauce. She lit her ancient stove with a match and served meals in a dining room with gilded moldings. Mme Biard introduced me to endives with ham, and Dover sole, and ratatouille. She was also extremely worried about my wanton tendency to eat pasta for every meal she did not prepare. (I still do this.)

So to make a long story short, I passed my love affair with Paris on to my mother via our tummies and mouths. For Mother's Day this year, I wanted to get her something special. I was excited about this new venture of mine and wanted to show her the (well-earned) successes that bloggers sometimes find... so I got her a copy of Clotilde's just-released and gorgeous new book, so we could relive memories of Parisian food together. I loved the book. I was sad to see it go to Indiana. (I hope Mom likes it too.)

Mom came to visit this last weekend, and we made a glut of recipes from or inspired by Clotilde... starting with a quiche. When I told Mom we were having quiche and that I had never made a crust, she cast a vote of confidence by saying, "I've always hated making pie crusts."

To both of our amazement, however, Clotilde's crust was a breeze. If you are scared of making crusts and you own a food processor, give it a try. Phobia conquered. I foresee many tarts in my future.

And as for the filling, asparagus is in season even at the big, bad, commercial grocery store in Pittsburgh right now. I had some goat cheese around the house because I am an addict. In-season asparagus + warm, creamy goatieness + eggs and cream + Clotilde's crust = a fantastic spring brunch with your parents.

Asparagus and Goat Cheese Quiche
Inspired by Clotilde

For the crust (which is also in the book):
1 cup flour
1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 tsp salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp ice-cold water (or more as needed)

Combine the flour, salt and butter in the food processor until combined. Add the egg and run the processor until the dough forms a ball. At first, nothing will happen, but after a few seconds, the dough will come together all at once. If you need a little more moisture, add ice water a teaspoon at a time.

Dump the ball out of the processor, shape it gently into a slightly flattened ball, cover it tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. (I did overnight.)

For the filling (based on my fridge):
1 bunch asparagus
4 oz goat cheese, cut into cubes and crumbles
4 eggs
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup half-and-half
A few scrapes of fresh nutmeg
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 10-inch pie pan.

Take the dough out of the fridge and let rest at room temperature until it is warm enough to roll out. This took about 20 minutes for me.

Meanwhile, blanch the aspargus for five minutes in lightly salted boiling water, until it is just tender. Drain and dry.

Whisk together the eggs, cream, half-and-half, nutmeg, salt and pepper in a bowl and set aside.

Roll the crust out to a 12-inch circle. Transfer to the greased pie shell. Trim and crimp the edges, then poke it all over with a fork. Bake for 7 minutes with no fillings.

Remove the shell from the oven and arrange the blanched asparagus in the bottom of the plate. My asparagus was too long and bountiful to make the spoke pattern, so I alternated the spears in two layers to create the cute rows you see above. Top with the goat cheese, then pour the egg mixture on top.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until the eggs are set. Turn off the oven and let the quiche rest in the oven for 5 more minutes. Then remove and serve! Also delicious as breakfast for the rest of the week, fyi...

And now, learn from my mistakes:
1. Yeah, poke holes all over the crust with your fork before you bake it. Don't miss the sides; if you do, your sides may... um... collapse somewhat and make big bubbles. You can ask your mom to tame the bubbles if she is around.
2. If a spoke pattern of asparagus is important to you, remember to cut it small enough. I had mentally planned for spokes but didn't plan ahead. Good thing the crosshatch pattern had such a fun result!
3. If all of the egg mixture doesn't fit in the shell, it's not absolutely required to keep pouring. No one will know if 1/4 cup of eggs goes down the drain... but they might notice if the side of the crust that happened to collapse because you didn't poke it has egg outside as well as in.

P.S. As I was buying the Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook for Mom, I had to spend another $12.50 so I could get free shipping, so I got another food blogger's cookbook for myself. More on that later!

Endive Lettuce Cups with Citrus "Caesar" Vinaigrette and Frico

In which Lauren makes a Caesar salad that is... well... actually not a Caesar at all.

Anything that features garlic and hard Italian cheese in a starring role is on my stuff-to-eat list. I love Caesars, but there are some challenges to creating a great new Caesar: 1. Isn't the point of a Caesar salad that you already know exactly what's in it? and 2. SOME PEOPLE don't like anchovies.

So I could have done a wrap or a pizza or something that puts the Caesar into bread somehow - again, yummy - but I'm really trying to make myself eat more salad, so instead I tried to find a way to make a beautiful, different sort of Caesar. The payoff came from knocking off two recipes at once: a gorgeous use of endive from a Christmas present cookbook by Dave Lieberman, and a Caesar-inspired vinaigrette from Michael Chiarello. Presented below is the mashed-up recipe I created from them.

Despite this being my entry for HHDD #12: Caesar Salad, I've realized since I made it that this isn't actually a Caesar at all. It doesn't have anchovies because of SOME PEOPLE and there's no egg. There isn't even any bread. But if you like citrus, love cheese and are a sucker for a fun presentation, this is the salad for you.

Endive Lettuce Cups with Citrus Vinaigrette and Frico

Citrus "Caesar" Vinaigrette
2 garlic cloves
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon TJ's Orange Muscat Champagne vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 dash hot sauce
1/2 teaspoon fresh coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 cup pure olive oil (or to your own vinegar-olive oil ratio taste)
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan

Chop the garlic and mash with the lemon zest and salt to create a paste. Put the paste in a bowl and whisk together the vinegar, lemon juice, Worchestershire, hot sauce and pepper. Whisking quickly, add the olive oil in a light stream until the the vinaigrette has your preferred consistency. Stir in the parmesan and set aside at room temperature.

Endive Cups
2-3 large heads of endive
1/2 head radicchio
3-4 ounces baby arugula

Wash all the lettuce well. Take the largest, nicest leaves off the outside of the endives. If they are large, plan on 1-2 per person; if they are small, like mine were, plan on 3-4 per person. Arrange the leaves like cups on your serving platter.

Shred the radicchio, arugula and remaining endive and toss. The lettuces need to be cut small in order to stay in the endive cups. Divide the lettuce between the reserved endive leaves.

Frico
Your goal is one long, thin frico cracker per endive cup. The amount of parmesan you need to accomplish this will vary, so just have a good store of shredded, not grated, parmesan by your side. Those shreds should be fairly large. I used the small side of the box grater but not the microplane.

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Carefully put 1-2 tablespoons of parmesan into a long, narrow strip in the pan. You can do more than one at a time. Heat for 2-3 minutes until golden brown, then remove the pan from the heat for 1 minute. Slowly and gently, peel the frico from the bottom of the pan and flip it. Return the pan to the heat and cook for one more minute, then carefully remove the frico from the pan to a paper towel to cool. Repeat until you have enough frico for all your endive cups.

Top the endive cups with vinaigrette, then give each cup a salty and deliciously crispy frico cracker. Serve immediately.

Learn from my mistakes:
1. Get the biggest endive heads that you can find. Mine were tiny, and they barely held any lettuce at all. Getting the frico to balance in the endive cups was a challenge, too, given their diminutive size.
2. Don't try to use a nonstick pan that has a nubbly bottom, like my Calphalon, for the frico. The shreds go into the nubs and it's just a mess.
3. Frico don't keep, not even for a 10-minute trip in the car. By the time I took my prepared creation over to Matthew's for dinner, they had gone a little soft. Have the endive cups ready-to-go before you make the frico, and serve immediately.
4. If you don't have PEOPLE who don't like anchovies, you could certainly mash some in with the garlic and salt. They'd be delicious.

Caffe Intermezzo: Snob-Proof Gourmet Coffee

Lauren and Matthew visit Caffe Intermezzo, a coffee shop in the Strip serving Intelligentsia coffee.

“Can I please put your macchiato in ceramic?”

That little sentence started it all. Matthew is, of course, a coffee expert, and he even used to run his own coffee business. Now, it’s rubbing off: I’m becoming a bit of a coffee aficionado myself. At first, I couldn’t tell the difference between the watered-down swill that comes out of the machine at work and Matthew’s French-pressed Costa-Rican fancy-schmancy super-roast. A few months later, I’m having heart palpitations over my mom’s instant coffee granules. This is a real moral challenge for me, since I’m already in danger of becoming a total snob.

So when Matthew ordered a macchiato at Caffe Intermezzo in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, and was greeted with the question above from owner Lucas Shaffer, I could tell right away that he was intrigued. After all, for most people a macchiato is a caramel-coated Starbucks confection, not a concentrated shot of espresso marked with a touch of foamed milk.

Lucas’ wife Alexis pulled the shot with care, grinding the beans, cutting and compressing the grounds by hand, inspecting the finished shot for quality and topping it with a tiny dab of milk foamed moments before. Matthew’s eyes sparkled.

Thirty-year-old Pittsburgh boomerangs Alexis and Lucas Shaffer have opened a real gem in their Strip District location, a tiny coffee bar that’s intimate, approachable and completely snob-free. Their menu is simple: a classic selection of hot and iced espresso drinks, drip coffee, gourmet teas and coffee-friendly nibbles.

Caffe Intermezzo serves Intelligentsia coffee, which Lucas proudly calls “the best coffee I’ve ever tasted.” Intelligentsia is a direct-trade coffee company that works with individual growers to find the best sustainably-grown coffee in the world. The company works equally with the coffee shops who sell its wares, providing training, education and assistance to ensure the best-possible espresso.

“Coffee’s just like wine, olive oil or cheese,” said Alexis. “You can get it just about anywhere, but some is definitely of higher quality. Our hope is to help people recognize when they’re getting a coffee that is truly spectacular.”

And whether you’re a coffee snob or you can’t tell really good coffee from crude oil, Caffe Intermezzo offers a punch-card that rewards you with a free drink after 10 visits. Don’t be surprised if Lucas and Alexis encourage you to try a new offering with your no-risk freebie—that’s one of their signature moves.

“We’ve had plenty of customers who just drink drip coffee or cappuccino or something else, because it’s what they know they like,” explains Alexis. “They don’t want to spend money on something they’re not sure they’ll like. The punch card program gives us the opportunity to educate people about coffee and expand their horizons. Frequently the new drink we suggest as the freebie becomes a customer’s new regular drink!”

And it’s really that attitude, one of sharing and conversation and community, that makes Caffe Intermezzo so unique. And best of all, even after a handmade macchiato of my own, I am not a snob (yet).

Caffe Intermezzo
2048 Smallman Street
Strip District, 15222

… and a (sort-of) new second location
Frick Building
437 Grant Street
Downtown, 15219

Indian-Spiced Picnic

In which Lauren plans a party for three and ends up with eleven (if you count cats)

The day my Bon Appetit magazine comes in the mail each month is my birthday. I tear into it like Christmas morning, and I devour it in one sitting. I know I can get all the recipes online, but I derive such pleasure from that monthly gift in the mailbox, I could never cancel it.

So I had picked the recipe for Bombay Sliders out from the moment I had torn into the March issue. My biggest challenge with the magazine--other than the fact that every recipe seems to call for pounds and pounds of meat--is that there simply aren’t enough guaranteed tummies around to fill for me to make every recipe that looks fun. I don’t want to turn into the person at the office who ruins everyone’s diet, and I don’t want to eat all of it myself. Also, I am not Midas, though I do blow a disproportionate amount of my paycheck on food.

So this dinner was definitely an all-dishes-dirty marathon, but I also was able to pull it together in an afternoon without feeling rushed. Because the menu was planned, but the party wasn’t. Matthew and I had invited one person to hang out for the night, and that grew to two people, and then four, and by the end of the night, seven friends and two cats.

And for an accidental downtown rooftop party in late spring, this is a great menu. It’s light, easy to make in advance, and packs a delectable punch that’s between Indian takeout and All-American picnic. I served the burgers with three salads: one green, one grain and one fruit.

Bombay Sliders
adapted from Bon Appetit March 2007

So you’ll see a trend: I usually think that Bon Appetit recipes call for too much meat (at minimum, too much for my pocketbook!).
So as is almost always the case, I halved the ground turkey from the original recipe but did not halve the rest of the ingredients. One pound of meat made 8 mini burgers, just a few short of what the full load of meat promised. And oh. my. god. Do not skip these burgers. Skip the salad, buy premade rolls and mayo, but do what you have to do to eat these burgers. And don’t do like me: I put the sauce onto the burgers, instead of on the toppings. Thanks to this triumph of intellect, the toppings slid all over the place, but I don’t care: smear my face with this sauce and I’ll be a happy (golden) lady.

Sauce
3/4 cup mayonnaise, divided
2 1/4 teaspoons curry powder
1 1/2 tablespoons plain yogurt
1 1/2 tablespoons ketchup
1 garlic clove, minced

Mix it up. Let warm to room temperature while burgers cook, but it’s mayo, so refridgerate if you’re making it ahead.

Burgers
1 pound ground turkey
1/4 cup mayonnaise
6 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup minced green onions
2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger
2 teaspoons ground cumin
4 teaspoons curry powder
3/4 teaspoon Hungarian half-sharp paprika
1 teaspoon salt

8 small dinner rolls, cut horizontally in half, lightly toasted
Slices of cucumber, red onion and tomato, for toppings

Combine burger ingredients in a large bowl. I love this part, but if you hate it, use a fork for the love of god. Divide into 8 equal portions, and form them into 1/2 inch think mini-burger. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook about 4 minutes per side, until cooked through.
Place patties on rolls, add toppings and then top with sauce.

Mango, Avocado and Arugula Salad with Peanut-Coconut Dressing
adapted from Bon Appetit May 2007

I have to agree with Deb: arugula is just about the best green ever. Forget portioning it out neatly on plates; I just tossed the whole $2.69 organic Trader Joe’s bag (I love it!) into the salad bowl. And I chunked the mangos and avocados instead of slicing, and added chunked cucumber also--whatever was left from the cuke that topped the burgers. Light coconut milk worked great in the dressing, and the spicy arugula teams so nicely with sweet fruit and creamy avocado. (The recipe would have made the post too long, and I barely changed it, so click the link to see.)

Curried Couscous
Adapted from Barefoot Contessa

I halved the amount of grain in Ina’s recipe, at the time thinking there would only be three people for dinner. I threw this together on the fly without planning a grocery trip, so the recipe below represents what I actually had on hand and things I altered to match the rest of the flavors in the menu. With just half the amount of couscous, it still made plenty to feed everyone… if you don’t count the latecomers who have no idea it ever existed. This salad is perfect for a picnic: it’s gorgeous, vibrant yellow; tasty hot, cold or at room temperature; and safe to leave out of the fridge for a while (no eggs). Not bad for a salad that takes as long to make as couscous! I imagine a red curry powder would be yummy if you’re looking for a kick.

1 1/2 cups couscous
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup dried raisins
1/4 cup peanuts
2 scallions, thinly sliced (white and green parts)
1/4 cup small-diced red onion

Melt butter in a pan, then add water. When boiling, add couscous, cover and turn of the heat. Let sit for 5 minutes while you chop and mix, then fluff with a fork. In a separate dish, mix the yogurt, olive oil, vinegar, spices and seasonings. Add the couscous and the rest of the colorful, crunchy stuff.

Simple, Basic Fruit Salad
I prefer honey to sugar on fruit salad. That unique sweet tang just works for me on fruit. Just mix the stuff up, and of course you can use whatever you have lying around. Mint and mangoes gave this one a matchy-matchy feeling with the rest of the meal.

One banana, halved lengthwise and sliced
Two mangos, diced
One apple, diced
One pint strawberries, sliced
A glob or two of honey, to taste
A small handful of mint, chopped fine