Recipe: Egg Puff Stuff

This recipe is great for a brunch or a bridal or baby shower. The green chilies give it flavor but not heat and that with the eggs and cheese make a wonderful mix. I seriously love this stuff. My friend Jan made it for a bridal shower I was attending and I had to have the recipe. You can change out the cheeses, but if you use a cheddar, the cheddar cheese seems to have a lower melting point and will likely burn, so I would just stick with jack or mozzarella.


Egg Puff Stuff
10 eggs
½ cup flour
1 lb. Jack cheese, shredded
½ cup butter
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 cans (4 oz.) Green chilies
1 pint small cottage cheese

Beat eggs in mixer until light and lemon colored. Add flour, baking powder, salt, cottage cheese, Jack cheese and melted butter. Blend until smooth. Stir in chilies. Pour into a buttered 9×12 inch dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until the eggs are set all the way through.

Recipe: Quiche

We really like quiche, it is an easy "go to" meal for me because I almost always have a few eggs sitting around and some cheese and can usually find a few more things to put in there. This is also a crust-ess quiche. As much as I love the crust, I figure I save a few calories by leaving the crust off. However, feel free to throw in a crust and bake it a little before you put the quiche in or just use one of thos frozen crusts.

I start out by taking 3-5 eggs, depending on your pie plate. For the one pictures below in the pink glass pie plate, I used 4 eggs. Take the 3 eggs and crack them in a bowl and add one slightly heaping teaspoon of mayonnaise...whisk them all together or use a fork and just beat the tar out of them until it is all well blended. Then add 1/4th to 1/2 cup of milk...or if you are feeling really rich, use cream or half and half...its so good! Anyway, the amount again depends on the size of your plate. Tonight I made 2 quiches and I thought the plates looked the same size, one was glass and one was metal and for the metal one I had to add another egg. Anyway, take the egg mixture and set aside.

Now, spray the pie plate with Pam or some other kind of non-stick spray. Then add your fixins. For this one pictures, I had some leftover ham that I slices up and I sauteed some onions and bell peppers. You really can add whatever you think would be good, I have had all sorts of quiches over the years and have loved almost all of them, even the ones I thought sounded totally bizarre. I put in the bottom of the pan probably about 1/2 cup of chopped up ham and probably 3-4 tablespoons of sauteed vegetables that I chopped up and spread throughout the plate. See below...



Then I added about 3 medium sized handfuls of cheese, in this case I used a Mexican blend but really you can use whatever floats your boat. Sprinkle the cheese over the ham and fixins.

Then take the egg mixture and pour it over the ham and onions and you are ready to bake.
Place the quiche in a 350 degree F oven and cook for about 35 minutes. Basically you want the eggs firm and the edges to be a little browned. If you use a faster melting cheese, the cheese may be brown as well.

Tonight I made 2 quiches and I will freeze one for later, they freeze really well. you can also cut them up into slices and freeze the slices individually and then grab them in the morning on your way to work and just pop them in the microwave for a minute. I actually made quite a bit of the onions and peppers and ham bits so I put the rest back in the saute pan and added some eggs and scrambled them. This mixture went inside some whole wheat tortillas with cheese sprinkled in them and then wrapped up for a breakfast burrito or taco. I have some in the fridge that we will eat for breakfast the next 2 days and then I froze the rest for a quick grab and go breakfast like the quiche slices. I just wrap the burritos up in saran wrap and make sure they are sealed well, then pop them in the freezer. I wrap them up individually so they are easy to grab and warm up.

Some other yummy quiche combinations...

Ham and cheese

Spinach and artichoke with Gruyere

Tomatoe basil

Mushroom and bacon

Sausage and mushroom

Spinach and cheese

I put cheese in all my quiches, so its a given for me.

For breakfast, this is great with some fruit and crusty bread. For lunch or dinner, I would serve it with some crusty bread and probably a soup. This is a great brunch item as well and it also works well for a bridal or baby shower. You can easily double or triple the recipe and make it in a casserole dish, in fact I have a recipe for a fabulous Egg Puff that is really excellent for showers, I will post that recipe later, or email me and I can send it to you. If you make up a 3 egg quiche and after you put it in you think you might need a little more egg (like I did tonight), then all you have to do is beat another egg and just pour it on top and make sure it evens out by moving it around a little with a fork.

If you want it more decadent, then I would use the half and half or cream and use a little more cheese or fancy cheese like Gruyere. Gruyere is a rich nutty Swiss cheese made in Gruyere, Switzerland that is really stinky but tastes so wonderfully delicious. I first had this cheese when my mom and sister brought some back from their trip to Europe and they toured the cheese place in Gruyere...it was so good. I occasionally splurge at the grocery store and get a small hunk (its expensive) and indulge in some fabulous recipes with my Gruyere. I have heard someone say that smelling a good cheese is like smelling the feet of angels...meaning its very smell but also heavenly.

Enjoy!

Food: Cup Cake Mini Cones

These are a cute little desserts that could be used for lots of things. I love these because they are self contained and you don't have to peel off a wrapper like a regular cup cake. I think these are great for kids. It is a cupcake that you cook in the ice cream cone and then just top off with frosting. Here is the finished product.

I had planned to make these in regular sized ice cream cones but when I opened the package, I realized I had bough "kids" cones and there were miniatures, there were 60 in a box instead of 20-ish. So, I thought I would go ahead because this is a fun way to do dessert and for people who don't want too many calories, they can eat one and not feel guilty or you can eat 2 or 3 and not feel guilty! I think these would be fun at a birthday party or a shower.

Here are the ingredients...
I took a regular cake mix, in this case it was a funfetti white cake, and followed the instructions to add water, oil, and eggs and mix as normal. Then I put a large zip lock baggie in a container and filled the zip lock with frosting.

Then you take get the air out of the bag and seal it and hold it up like this...VOILA...a piping bag!

Just cut off the tip and you are ready to go.



Just put the batter in each cup and then I took a knife and wiped off any batter that got on the top or sides, I didn't want it to burn on the edges and look yucky.

So, when I was finished, I had 60 cones filled about 3/4 full and enough left over to fill a small ramekin and make a mini cake.

Then they went into the oven. For the cooking time, you just have to watch them but mine took about the same amount of time as it says to allot for cupcakes, which was about 20-22 minutes. If you have a bunch in the cake pan, make sure you test the middle ones with a toothpick because those did not get done as fast as the ones in the smaller ramekins.

Once they are done baking and cooled, I took the frosting and put it in a ziplock, the same way I did the batter, and then piped on the frosting and it looks like a little bitty ice cream cone.

They were a hit at my party and I love that they are not messy! You could use any kind of cake and any kind of icing. You can also put sprinkles on them too.

Yummy and cute!

Hope you all have a beautiful week!

Heather