Thursday, August 2, 2007

Chapter 2 -- The Pie Part

I'm a pretty darn good cook. I'm a little scattered, though.

I decided Tuesday that Wednesday's dinner would be sausages with pinto beans, left-over coleslaw with julienned Armenian cucumber added and spoon bread with fresh cut off the cob corn in it. Then I found out I didn't have any pinto beans.

I don't do canned beans. I buy dry beans and cook them for hours because they taste better and I know what's in them.

So no sausages and beans for Wednesday dinner.

But I had some left-over sockeye salmon in the freezer. Ooh, quiche! Salmon, cheese and onion quiche, crusty Le Brea French bread (if your local grocery store carries Le Brea, you owe it to yourself to try it, it's the best!) and oh, I don't know, some kind of vegetable. And since I needed to make a pie to take to Idaho in a couple of weeks, I'd stop by the produce stand and buy some berries, make enough pie crust for quiche and pie, then freeze the resulting pie. Am I brilliant, or what?

Then Wednesday morning I got all wound up in The Great Potty Hunt (see yesterday's blog) and having lunch with my pregnant friend. I also took my Wacom Intuos digitizing tablet along because her employer's letting folks ask for the tools they'll need for the coming year and she has to do lots of computer drawing in her job -- she makes newsletters among many other duties. The Wacom was the hit of the office. Everybody had to come in to her cubicle and try it out -- even the big boss, so I think she has a lock on getting one.

Running late, I rushed about my errands and swung by the grocery store for a bag of pinto beans (I had this faint nagging feeling I was forgetting something, but it wouldn't come into focus) and the produce stand for berries. They had beautiful, big blueberries Wednesday.

I got home about 5:30, put the beans on to soak for the next day, picked over and washed the berries (made a few of them disappear in the process -- yum!), then got out the stuff to make crust with as the Engineer was pulling into the car port. I put the salmon in the microwave to thaw and started sautéing the onions, then opened the fridge for the eggs...

Oh, crud! I only had two eggs. That's what that nagging feeling was at the grocery store.

This was not going to work. When I make a quiche, I make a large and robust quiche that takes over an hour to bake. The salmon had already been broken into small pieces and there wasn't enough for a whole meal in any case.

"I'm going to the grocery store for a dozen eggs," I announced. "You're not going to have quiche for dinner, you're going to have a frittata." Out the door and back to the store I went.

The frittata was very good. It's just like a quiche except no crust and it cooks one heck of a lot faster. We had French bread, so who needs crust.

I did bake the blueberry pie after dinner. Kind of a shame to have to freeze it instead of eating it.

6 comments:

In Ink said...

Good call on not putting the pies too close to the poop. Especially the moose poop.

You put salmon in your frittata? Sounds awful...must try it.

Don't be offended. I'm usually pleasantly surprised by recipes that sound awful.

Wunx~ said...

I must tell you that it was wild sockeye salmon, not the farmed stuff, and grilled over mesquite coals, so it was high caliber leftovers. Here's the recipe:

Spray cast iron fry pan with Pam, then pour in a bit of olive oil.

Add medium dice onions, sauté until translucent. Add warm flaked salmon (I just nuke it in the plastic bag it was frozen in then kindof squish it to appropriate size bits right through the bag -- keeps fingers from getting too stinky.)

Mix up half a dozen eggs with milk, about a third of a cup of sour cream and seasonings, pour over salmon and onions and let cook without stirring on low heat until mostly set but still jiggly in the middle.

Sprinkle grated swiss or jarlsburg cheese generously over top then pop into 375 degree oven until cheeze is bubbling and starts to brown.

Not low fat, but quick, easy and tasty.

In Ink said...

OK I tried it...with a variation...I used tuna...canned...lots of black pepper...some mesquite grilling sauce (stolen)...it was delicious.

I am so glad I caught your recipe before I made it. Sour cream. Genius.

I'm now looking forward to making up a whole bunch of frittata recipes. Next time I go shopping I'll buy some real food to throw in there though.

I might also try it with guacamole too :)

Wunx~ said...

Thank you. Guacamole sounds good too. Smoked salmon is even better than fresh -- I consider it to be the bacon of the sea.

Let me know how your fritattas work with "real food" -- and what, BTW, is real food?

In Ink said...

Real food is that which is not found in a tin or box...in its natural state...unprocessed.

The bacon of the sea....mmmmm bacon.

Wunx~ said...

Oh, real food. That's the good stuff. I buy very little pre-processed food. I will, however, make an exception for bacon. Mmmmm!