Proposal for Dinner on Sunday Feb 4th, 2007

These things either come about quick, or take about an hour. This fits into the latter category.

When figuring out what I wanted to suggest to Alexa (my wife) for tomorrow, I got sidetracked for awhile in Herbs and Spices by Jill Norman. Its pages contain in depth info on a spice or herb, and wonderful photography of all of the forms of the spice. I was looking for some suggestions on what to use turmeric in beyond Indian food (my principle use of the spice).

Its a "Warm" spice. That means, well, it feels a little warm when eating it. Its yellow, and stains many things (hands and clothes included). Warm spices are excellent in spicy foods and in winter. I buy this spice already powdered. You don't use it by itself, but as something to make many flavors cooperate to make the dish good overall.

The H&S book says it combines well beans, eggplant, eggs, lentils, rice, root vegetables and spinach (some things omitted from this list). Other herbs and spices it handles that stick out to me are chili, cilantro, cumin, garlic, lemon grass, mustard seed, and pepper. These complements say to me as possibilities:

Veggie Fried Rice (eggs, lemon grass, rice)
Citrus Lentil Stew (lemon grass, lentils, root veggies)
Spinach and Swiss Quiche (eggs, spinach)

Of those, the last one screams to me because its easy (It could cook in the convection toaster oven)
The first one screams to me because I've not had it in awhile.

But what if I took the best of both worlds:
Fried Rice Quiche :o)

The Japanese regularly put rice in their omelets, so that should work out.

I source my quiches off the Refrigerator Pie recipe from Alton Brown's TV show, Good Eats, except I ditch the nutmeg

1 cup heavy cream or half-and-half
2 eggs
2 pinches kosher salt
Frozen 9-inch pie crust
Stuff

Time to be a dork here: How much fits inside a 9in pie pan? Well measuring an empty pie pan with water tells me about a quart (humans are horrible at guessing the volume of wide deep things so I don't try).

We have about 2.75 cups of "stuff" to fill this thing up with.

I'll use the recipe out of Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone to suggest a cheese to me (she uses Provolone on her Rice and Eggs recipe on pg 548). I'll use provolone for the dish. Quiche has cheese. This is a matter of common law. You will be put in gaol if you do not follow this law.

For the fried rice (which I don't think I've ever made before), I'll go a searching on the interweb:

I find this one

Our internet recipe search usually goes like this:
Check the internet
Check the food network site
Reject anything that just won't work, or is made by Emeril Lagasse (but I repeat myself)


Remember I wanted to add turmeric. And lemon grass. So we will. And we get:

3 cups cooked rice
2 Tbs oil
1 carrot, shredded or thinly sliced
1 stalk celery, thinly sliced
1 small onion, chopped
1 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon tumeric
1 shaft lemon grass
salt and pepper to taste
Peas


I took out the eggs and meat because there will be plenty of eggs, and the meat is non-essential (I'd put in a fake meat if it was essential). Likewise, the "milk" is unneeded since all the half and half will be there.

We've got a main dish now.

For sides...... Chili always goes over really well at Superbowl parties, as do sandwiches. Avocado Sandwiches with 4 bean chili as the other two dishes. We can toast the toast whilst the quiches set. A high fat meal, but the large amount of polyunsaturated fat in the avocados will make this probably a good meal all in all in LDL vs HDL battle

I think we have a winner folks:
Fried Rice Quiche (with Shredded Provolone)
Avocado Sandwiches
4 Bean Chili

Let's see what the wife says....

--Michael