Our First Guest Post: Brunch Quiche

This weekend seems like the perfect time to introduce our very first guest post on Between Three Kitchens! The following recipe is for brunch quiche, which would be perfect to serve on Mother's Day, if your mother enjoys a hearty breakfast. Our contributor is Ciara Melançon; we all know her because the four of us actually grew up in the same hometown and went to school together! Now she lives in Portland, Oregon and in October of last year she started her homemade desserts and quiche company, Sprinkles and Spice. If you live in the Portland area, order some cheesecakes, cupcakes, or quiche from her for your next event! Now, without further ado, here is Ciara's take on brunch quiche.
- Marine
So I've been thinking about what I wanted to make for my first blog post and it's been bugging me until I woke up this morning after being out at the bar and started pulling out breakfast stuff. Eureka! Breakfast quiche! Mothers day is coming up too so this is the perfect easy dish to make for mom if you're having her over or it has everything you need to recover from a night out. It takes about an hour total from start to finish.

Brunch Quiche

Ingredients:

- 4 eggs
- 1⁄2 cup flour
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup cheddar cheese
- 1⁄2 lb ham
- 1 9-inch pie pan

First things first, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. So let's take a look back at this recipe. This is really a variation on my quiche recipe so it's pretty easy to make variations to it depending on what you like.

If you want something that's all veggies, you can do that too but for our purposes I'm using regular medium cheddar that you can get in any grocery store along with thin sliced honey ham you can get from your deli counter. If I have it, I prefer ham steak but sliced deli ham is just as good!


Our first step is to crack open some eggs. You'll need to use the whole egg not just the whites along with the milk. Whisk well then add flour...


Whisk in your flour. You'll see that we have quite a few lumps and that's okay, just make sure that you whisk well enough that they are as small as possible.


Let's go over to the ham now. We need to cut it up small so it's in easy bite size pieces. I actually rolled up all the slices of ham and cut through them length wise then again perpendicular to my original cuts. It makes for little pieces with a heck of a lot less work.


Then throw those pieces into the pie pan. Try and separate the pieces through the pie pan so that we have an even distribution, we want to make sure each slice has ham in it.


Then throw in the cheese! I love cheese so I might have used a little extra...


Once we have the cheese and ham in the pie pan pour in the egg milk and flour mixture. It should be enough to cover all the meat and cheese, if not just shake the pie pan a little so that things settle and even out. Then put your pie in the oven for about 30 mins and crack open the bubbles. I personally prefer some Cava because it goes really well with orange juice for mimosas!


The really nice thing about this dish is that you can walk away from the kitchen while it's cooking and clean up before your guests come over. I would keep the light in the oven on towards the end of cooking time around 20 mins or so because you'll want to keep an eye on the pie. It will rise in the oven which is perfectly normal! Don't panic and pull it out of the oven, just let it rise and get nice and golden brown. You'll know the quiche is done when you see the top of the pie getting golden and a little crispy on top.


So yummy! There shouldn't be any liquid in the pie, no jiggly parts either. Let it sit for about 15 mins so that it settles and then dig in!


With this recipe the pie is going to be a little denser than quiche, but is still light enough to have for brunch. My fiance likes to eat it late at night when he gets home from work and I've taken a slice with me on my way to work and eaten it while walking. Another variation would be to add some veggies like onion or peppers, or even swap out the ham for bacon or sausage. Give it a shot and make it your own!

- Ciara

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With the end of flu season and the beginning of allergy season upon us, nothing sounds sweeter to my ears than a steaming hot bowl of chicken noodle soup. Now, I realize that a steaming bowl of soup doesn't actually make any noise, but for the sake of this post lets just pretend that this bowl of soup sounds like the smoothest of smooth jazz music. And heck, if you don't like jazz, then I really don't know what to tell you other than just make some damn soup already and forget I ever even brought sound into this tasty equation!

Before I share the recipe I should mention that the ingredient list for chicken noodle soup is very flexible. The key things are (of course): chicken, noodles, and some sort of liquid base. A quick google search for "chicken noodle soup" will yield all sorts of different recipes. In my initial search I found that most recipes use chicken stock but I only had chicken broth on hand and decided to use that instead. After some research I learned that the only difference between the two is that stock is made from bones steeped in water, and broth is made from meat/veggies steeped in water. I just winged the rest and tossed in whatever else we had on hand, so if you want to follow a strict recipe, the one that follows will work but keep in mind that you can add and omit ingredients to your liking.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients:

- 1 pound chicken breasts
- 3 medium carrots
- 1 stalk celery
- 1 small white onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 3 sprigs thyme
- olive oil to coat pan
- 2 quarts chicken broth
- 8 ounces pasta (I used orzo)
- salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

Chop all the vegetables to whatever size you desire and set aside. Season the chicken to your liking and cook completely, then chop into bite-sized pieces and set aside. Coat the bottom of a large stockpot with olive oil and add the vegetables and thyme. Cook and stir until the vegetables are softened but not browned. Pour in the chicken broth and bring the liquid to a boil. Add your choice of pasta and simmer until tender. Toss in the chicken and continue to simmer until heated through; season to your liking. Ladle into bowls and enjoy!

When I'm cooking I've found it's easiest to prepare all of my ingredients ahead of time, so that I'm not caught off guard with my timing when it comes to actually putting it all together on the stove. So start by chopping all your vegetables. I'm not going to tell you how, because I don't know how big/small you like your vegetable chunks, but this is what everything looked like once I chopped it all up and tossed it into a bowl, for photo-taking sake.

If you must know, I always aim for bite-size chunks when it comes to carrots and celery, but I like my onion chopped slightly finer. The garlic was smashed with a knife and then minced.



Next, I cooked my chicken breasts. I seasoned them with salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder, but you can season yours however you'd like. Just make sure they're cooked all the way through, then move them to a cutting board and cut into bite-size chunks. Alternatively, you could shred your chicken, if you're into that sort of thing. Personally, I like big chunky pieces of chicken in my soup.



Remember all those vegetables you chopped up? Heat some olive oil in a big pot and toss them all in there. Toss a few sprigs of thyme in with them too, then give everything a nice stir and let the heat slowly soften the vegetables. Depending on how thick you cut your vegetables this could take anywhere from 5 - 10 minutes. You'll know they're soft enough when they have a slight give upon being pressed with a wooden spoon. You don't want to cook them so long that they start to brown.



Add both quarts of chicken broth and let the whole pot come to a boil. If you're anything like me, patience is key at this point. That broth takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to boil... once it finally comes to a boil, add your pasta of choice and let it absorb that delicious chicken flavor.



Remember to give it a nice big stir every once in a while!



After 8 minutes or so (depending on your pasta cook-time) add the chicken and season the soup to your liking. If you want to keep it traditional, salt and pepper are all you really need. If you want to get a little fancy though, you can toss a pinch or two of cinnamon and nutmeg in there, along with the juice from half a lemon. Anne Burrell says these things give the soup a homey, comforting feel. Out of curiosity, I added a small amount of each, but to be honest, I don't know if it really made much of a difference in my soup. There are plenty of other things you could toss in there at this point too; garlic powder and paprika amongst them. It's entirely up to you.



I made my soup an hour ahead of time and the pasta soaked up a good amount of the broth. Personally, I love a chunky soup that's more substance than liquid, but if you want a brothier soup, I'd recommend eating it immediately. The longer it sits the more the pasta will soak up the liquid. Whatever your desired consistency is, this is the end of the recipe, so go enjoy your steaming hot bowl of soup!


Happy eating!

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