Now's a good a time as any for some excuses.

Hi everyone. I feel deep deep guilt for not posting much recently.

But worry not everyone, I have EXCUSES!

I got the flu last week. It was miserable and I was lucky to have a beautiful wonderful gal take care of me.

I also have been packing like a madman and moving down to Hawthorne as well. I should be just about done with the packing and shipping out of my apartment. Not having electricity is a real doozy when it comes to packing!

Anyway, Hawthorne, in spite of its geographical distance from my work, I think should have positive effects upon my cooking. The kitchen is marginally bigger, and with a new mindset I can organize it in a bit more form friendly fashion.

And I'm close to these great ethnic markets where I can get food much cheaper than I ever did in Santa Monica. So! We shall see how this progresses. I look forward to updating much more regularly, and with perhaps more of a... regional flair?

A favor and Shredded Potato Quiche

A man's gotta do, what a man's gotta do. And sometimes what needs doing is helping out a good, dear friend make some breakfast for 25 of her friends who you don't know. Ok, maybe that doesn't happen to some men, but it happened to me. She wanted to try quiche, so I looked for a quiche recipe.

This is the recipe we settled on. With hash browns taking place of the crust, I knew it was breakfast worthy. Not willing to settle on frozen though, I opted to make my own crusty shredded potatoes from scratch for this.


Ham, Swiss cheese, potatoes, butter, milk and spinach (optional). We're not using OJ but it sure looks pretty doesn't it?

This is the other stuff she'll have at her breakfast. I'm really glad we didn't go for cinnamon buns from scratch.

I brought over some of my cooking implements too. Look at her pretty table! Sure wish I had one that nice.

I peeled the potatoes and got ready to shred. Was quite a pile, just take my word for it. I'd preheat the oven now to 375.

And we diced up the ham and cheese real fine.
Ever seen 26 cracked eggs? Well there you go.
Beat em.

Milk em. Is that the right terminology?

Add the swiss cheese! I would have cut these strips in half given a second shot.
And ham!
Glorious cooked ham....
And might as well make it colorful.
Looks delicious already.
I sprayed down some pans with Pam and layered the potatoes on them, leaving them in the oven (already preheated to 375) and kept an eye on them, tossing on occasion. I'd probably grease the pans with butter next time.

Good and crispy huh? I bet topping it with butter would quicken the browning and add some good flavor here.
Scraping the goods off.
Almost forgot to season the quiche mixture. Pepper.
Salt.
In a stroke of inspiration I decided to make mini quiches since we had a cupcake tin lying around.

So you don't make my mistake, layer the potatoes in, let them toast a bit more in the oven, THEN add the quiche mixture. I just got a little excited to do this though.

Soon my pretties...

And voila! Don't they look divine?

It was fluffy and nomtastic.

But I wasn't done. Still had over half the mix left. Trust me when I saw there's a big fat layer of toasted potatoes down there (I did learn from my mistakes).

Holy mackerel. Actually some smoked salmon would probably go great on top of this. I'm sorry, I was so tired at the end of the night that I forgot to take the finished shot of it.

But I think this is proof of satisfaction.

This is Cast Iron Therapy, signing off.