Delicous, fabulous spinach quiche!

Dainty, non?
Don't worry, I made loads of mini-ones in a muffin pan. Plenty for all!
Except, sadly, you lot.

As you may or may not recall or even know, we here in my ramshackle apartment of love had a tea party not too long ago! It was quite delightful, complete with tea cups and hats and whiskey and so on and so forth. We dressed to impress! We were beyond lovely. Among our feasting options, I included a quiche. A spinach quiche, in fact, and no mushrooms anywhere since some guests dislike them and I am nothing if not accommodating. Sometimes.

Other times, I inform the nay-sayers to shut their mouths and let me be with my delicious whatever-whatever that has some food ingredient they dislike. Or I encourage them to try a bite. Whichever.

At any rate. Using a muffin tray, I made small quiches but then I had this ramekin and, well, look at that photo! How could I not? I admit to being nervous, as I had just experienced a great failure with my french macaroons and was determined to not fail again.

And I did not!

Super-Easy, Super-Tasty Spinach Quiche

- pie crust (either pre-made or handmade, honestly, it more depends on the time you have)
- three egg yolks
- two egg whites
- one whole egg
(NOTE. you could also just, you know, use five eggs. we just had these things about from previous cooking and didn't want to waste it and I am a big believer in an extra egg for such things, which is a trick my boy-roommate lives by)
- plenty of munster cheese, pref grated but if you, say, have no idea where the grater went? just chop chop cut chop nice and small
- rinsed spinach, which you can chop roughly. (you may also use frozen spinach, thaw it, and drain it, although honestly this is just fine.)
- onion, chopped
- garlic cloves, chopped if you like, as many as you like
- salt, pepper, cake spice (or, lacking The Spice House, you may also blend cinnamon and nutmeg, though the mix also includes cloves and such).

Cook the onion, garlic, and any other veg you'd like to include together. When largely done, chuck in the spinach and let cook down. Then cool. Whisk the eggs together until blended, mix in with the cheese and the cooled veg, season as you like - pepper, the spices, and a dash of salt.

Butter the muffin tin, the pie pan, the quiche pan, etc etc etc - just butter whichever you are using. Line with pastry. Bake for a bit first, I did about ten/fifteen mins - just getting golden! Pour the eggy mixture in the prepared pan and then bake for about twenty-five, thirty minutes at 350 degrees. Or until the top is deliciously slightly golden and it's firmed up proper.

SO DELICIOUS.

I mean, let it cool and finish setting.

I then like to fret over it - did I cook it enough? Oh, heavens! Am I about to kill us all?
Then! I like to watch everyone love love love it.

Also, you do not have to have a tea party to enjoys this...but maybe you should think about it.

Daring French Fail! Oh, the shame.

Well, that's sort of right.
Inasmuch as it happens to be objects sitting on a baking sheet.

I'm going to keep it real, here, gentle readers. I am not always amazing, all of the time. And I could explain that it was the wee hours (the clock, were you able to see it, reveals that it is six in the morning and does not reveal that I had work mere hours later) but that's not really the problem. The problem was, I suspect, egg whites. And my inability to make a french macaroon properly.

This is largely sad because I was making them for the tea party we were having the next day and also because I didn't have enough time this month to try again, but just the same, I am posting the recipe and such that, in theory, would have revealed lovely macaroons.

Mine were meant to be lemony. They were meant to have a sweet basil filling. The filling, actually, turned out wonderfully and so we dipped fresh strawberries in it and just devoured it like were were beasts (beautifully attired in party dresses and hats and things, but beasts just the same). So that much was nice.

At any rate! I shall try again, in the future, but am wise enough to say when I've made a mistake. My macaroons were cakey and dense, not at all proper, and even didn't taste all that great so I'll review it and see what went wrong BUT everyone should try this because it's good to try new things.

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Ingredients
Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Good luck guys! May your treats turn out better than mine!