Quiche! Yum!

I've got another recipe that is awesome for its yummiosity and easability (new words--look for them in the next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary). This is a spinach feta quiche, which is technically crustless but which forms a kind of pseudo crust because of the flour and baking powder in it. I got it from the blog www.bakingbites.com (check it out), which has a ton of recipes that all look good. I've only tried this one so far and it's a winner! This took me hardly any time to put together, it's healthy, and it makes such a quick and elegant breakfast or even dinner if you put it with a salad. I added olives because I love em and of course you can add whatever you want. Here's the recipe:

Crustless Spinach, Onion and Feta Quiche
1 medium onion, diced
6-oz fresh baby spinach
2 large eggs
2 large egg whites
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
pinch cayenne pepper
1 1/3 cups milk (low fat is fine)
1/2 cup feta cheese

Preheat oven to 400F.
Lightly grease a 10-inch quiche/tart pan (or a pie plate)
In a medium frying pan, cook diced onion with a bit of vegetable oil (or cooking spray) over medium-high heat until translucent and tender. Add in fresh spinach and cook until just wilted. Set aside to cool for a few minutes
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk in milk, then stir in spinach-onion mixture.
Pour quiche base into prepared pan. Top with feta cheese.
Bake for 25 minutes, or until center is set and the outside edge is golden brown.
Let set for 5 minutes, then slice and serve.

Serves 4.
salt and pepper, to taste

More fabric painting

Here's a shirt I made for Ellie. In the picture you can't tell that the bears each have a letter on them so it spells out "Ellie." In person you can kind of tell but it's not very clear and until I painted the letters you couldn't tell at all. But it's a really cute shirt and kind of reminds me of Grateful Dead bears, which I like. I'm going to practice painting a bear on some fabric and if I don't mess it up I'll try painting these bears. It still works for me as line drawings, though. I have a feeling she's never going to wear it (like the gorgeous tie-dyed dress that she made that she never wears), but I hope I'm wrong!

Fabric Painting

I started a three-week fabric painting class and I finished a little picture on a piece of fabric that I think I will sew onto something else as a pocket or something. Maybe on a tote bag. Cause I don't think I have enough tote bags.

The quilt is coming along

I've been working on the quilt and I've got all of the four squares blocked into 24 blocks. Now I'm planning on sewing the blocks together into six rows of four blocks and then sew the rows together into the final piece. I'm anticipating lots of problems lining it up, so I've been putting it off a bit. But I think I'm ready to give it a go tonight. Ellie got a new bed a few days ago and it's a twin, so I think this quilt is going to be very big on her bed. We'll see.

Here's how the four squares look together (wrinkly fabric, I know):

Awesome bread

I got really into making bread a few years ago. I made it from total scratch in the oven and it was really good but it took me awhile to get the hang of it and it took sooo long. So I bought a bread machine and that was a lot easier but it didn't taste great. It was just alright. NOW I have a new recipe and I tried the other day and it is amazing. I found it on craftster.com (greatest site ever) but that recipe was taken from one that was in the New York Times and there are similar recipes around that all have the same basic principle.

Basically, you put some very simple bread ingredients together and instead of kneading it and kneading it again, you don't knead it at all and you just let it sit in a bowl for 12-18 hours. Then you shape it once or twice, let it rise for 2 more hours, then throw it in a preheated bowl and bake it for about 45 minutes. It seems like it's a lot of work, but it isn't because there's so much time when you don't have to pay attention to it. I put it together before I went to bed and let it sit all night and most of the day. I took a few minutes to shape it and then instead of letting it sit for the 2 hours it suggested, I had stuff to do and I didn't get back home for four hours. It didn't matter! It was still yummy! In all, it was under an hour of my time and attention. I'm going to make it again and again.

Here's the recipe:

3 cups/375g bread flour
1 1/4 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp instant yeast
1 5/8 cups/13 oz water, warm but not hot

In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients to combine. Add the water and stir until it’s a blended and shaggy dough. It will be very wet.

Cover with plastic wrap and set aside to rise for 12 -18 hours.

Dump the risen but still-sticky dough onto a well-floured surface and turn it onto itself once or twice to deflate. Drape with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minutes.

Heavily flour your hands and a cotton dishtowel or silicone sheet. Form the dough, as best you can, into a ball and place it, seam-side up on the towel. Cover with another floured towel and let rise about two hours, until doubled in size.

Place a large covered pot in the oven and preheat to 450 degrees/ 230 C/ Gas Mark 8 for at least 20 minutes.

Dump the dough into the hot pot, seam-side down, and shake to distribute, if necessary. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove cover and bake another 15-30 minutes until bread is browned.

Cool on a rack.