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Savory Spinach and Artichoke Bread Pudding
This is a dish I’ve adapted from one posted on Food Network by Emeril Lagasse. It has a lot of ingredients, but is really very simple to make. Instead of Italian seasoning, I dash dried basil and oregano into it at the appropriate times. One thing that I think would enhance this dish is a sauce, but I haven’t quite come up with anything. I think a marinara would overwhelm it. Maybe a balsamic reduction would be good. If anyone comes up with something interesting, let me know! I served this with baked salmon the other night and it was a good accompaniment.
The first thing to do is prepare the spinach by steaming it, cooling, draining and wringing it as dry as possible, then chopping. Set aside.
Saute onion in olive oil until golden brown and tender.
Add garlic and cook for about 30 seconds longer.
Add 2 tsp. Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Mix in artichokes. Heat for another 2 minutes. Set aside.
Prepare 7 cups French bread by slicing into cubes. Add onion mixture to bread cubes.
Cut Brie into cubes and stir into bread mixture, along with spinach.
Mix together eggs, cream, milk, lemon juice, more Italian seasoning (about 2 tsp.). Add to bread mixture, along with minced parsley and 1/4 cup Parmesan. Let mixture rest for 20 minutes.
Pour into greased (sprayed or with olive oil) 13 X 9″ baking dish. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese. Drizzle olive oil over top. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.Serve warm. Yields about eight servings.
Savory Spinach and Artichoke Bread Pudding Ingredient List
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves chopped garlic
2 Tbsp. Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper (divided in half)
1 14-oz. can quartered artichoke hearts
7 cups cubed French bread
1# spinach (steamed, cooled, wrung, and chopped)
½ # Brie, rind removed, cut into cubes
3 eggs
1-1/2 cup cream
1 cup milk
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tbsp. minced parsley
Olive oil for pan and drizzle
Line a baking sheet with foil and drizzle olive oil on it.
Trim the blunt end of asparagus spears by bending each spear and discarding the part that breaks off. Place the asparagus on the olive oil.
- Chop a shallot.
Toss the olive oil, asparagus, and shallot with your hands, then arrange in a single layer across the foil-lined baking sheet.
Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.
I made quiche today because my time to cook has been so sporadic that I wanted to make something that could be thrown into the refrigerator when finished, yet would make a nice lunch or light dinner without any further preparation. Quiche is basically a custard pie. If you have an uncooked pie crust and eggs and cream (or evaporated milk for you Bush types), all the other ingredients can be whatever you want. The basic custard proportions are 1 egg to 1/2 cup cream. Today I made two 9″ quiches and used 6 eggs and 3 cups cream. I’ve made quiche using canned salmon, ham, cheese, or broccoli. There are a lot of different things you can put into it. I have another recipe for quiche which calls for smoked salmon and uses cream cheese. Some day I’ll make that and post pictures/recipe. It’s sublime. For now, you get this.
Quiche
Quiche
4 Tbps. butter
2 cups sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup sliced onions
2 handfuls asparagus, trimmed (tips kept longer than stems for even cooking)
1 garlic clove, minced
6 eggs, beaten
3 cups whipping cream
1/2 tsp. sugar
Salt and pepper
2 9″ unbaked pie crust
1 cup cheese, shredded (any kind)
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Saute mushrooms in butter until nicely browned, remove from skillet and set aside. Saute onions, asparagus, and garlic until onion is transparent and asparagus is cooked al dente. Set aside. Mix together eggs, cream, sugar, salt, pepper. Prepare pie crusts into pans and distribute mushrooms and asparagus mixture evenly across the crusts. Sprinkle with shredded cheese. Pour the egg mixture over all. Place pies into oven and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Lower the heat to 300 degrees and bake an additional 30 minutes. A knife inserted into pie should come out clean.
Saute mushrooms in butter until nicely browned.
Saute onion, asparagus, and garlic. Distribute evenly across pie crust, along with sauteed mushrooms.
Sprinkle evenly with shredded cheese. I used a Monterrey Jack/Cheddar blend.
Mix together eggs, cream, sugar, salt & pepper. Pour over the other ingredients in the pie crust.
Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, then lower heat to 300 degrees and bake 30 minutes more. Remove when knife inserted into center comes out clean. Can be served hot, warm, or cold.
Didn’t last long
Pan-Fried Flounder and Quinoa Cake
Quinoa is all the food rage nowadays. I’ve tried it a couple times and it’s okay, not that much different from rice. The blog Portuguese Girl Cooks has an awesome recipe for quinoa cakes. Now, I am really impressed. The cakes were simple to prepare, not messy, and came out looking like they are supposed to. They are very flavorful. I could make a batch of these and put them in my son’s lunch box this summer, they make a real firm cake, easy to eat with fingers, but moist inside. Yes, yes, I’m a fan. I served these with the Pan-Fried Flounder and it was a nice combination.
I made a half a batch for two of us. It made 5 or 6 patties. There was one left over.
Quinoa Cakes
This is the recipe for two people (Portuguese Girl has the doubled recipe . . . you should visit her blog):
Bring 1 cup of water to a boil and stir in 1/2 cup quinoa. Cover. Turn heat to very low and let simmer for 20 minutes. Cool before proceeding with recipe.
Stir in 1/2 cup bread crumbs, 2 Tbsp. parsley, 1 tsp. lemon zest, 1 clove minced garlic, dashes of salt, pepper, cayenne, 3 Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese.
Beat 2 eggs with 1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard. Stir egg mixture into quinoa mixture.
Form into patties and fry in a little olive oil on a skillet over medium heat until cakes turn a golden brown color.
This is a dish I make frequently. It is so simple.
You will need olive oil, one eggplant, bread crumbs, and seasoning. That’s it!
Slice an eggplant crosswise into 1″ slices. Drizzle olive oil into a 9X13″ pan. I start with a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Dip each eggplant slice into olive oil so that each side of the slice is coated. You will need to add more olive oil as you go through the slices. As you’re done coating a slice, just slide it to one edge of the pan. When finished, both your pan and your eggplant should be coated with olive oil. Lay the eggplant out in a single layer (I have done this by offset stacking and it works, too, just not as pretty). Now, sprinkle the top of each slice with bread crumbs. Sprinkle the bread crumbs with seasoned salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and parsley (whatever floats your boat). Drizzle a little more olive oil over the top, not much. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40-45 minutes. You can stick a fork in one slice and it should feel quite tender.
These are meant to be eaten at room temperature so can be baked ahead of time, but they taste okay while hot. They tend to lose quite a bit of firmness in the refrigerator, but still taste okay. Usually, we don’t have any left to put in the refrigerator. My favorite way to eat these is to snatch them from the pan with my fingers about half hour after baking and pop them into my mouth. I can go through quite a few of them that way. I dislike sharing, I guess. Last thing: sometimes you can buy really small eggplant and I have prepared them the same way as this, only slicing in half lengthwise and sprinkling bread crumbs, etc. on each half.
This is the dish just before the last drizzle of olive oil
Here's how it should look right before you place it into the oven.
Out of the oven
Finished product
Foods Passion 