Pi day pie – a rustic quiche

I was supposed to host a brunch today for my fellow nerds who wanted to mark the best Pi Day of our lives (3/14/15 9:26:59) by eating pie together. Alas, the best laid plans were laid aside when I slipped on ice in my driveway last Sunday and fell hard and twisted my left knee. It's healing, but I couldn't possibly host anything today.

But we did have pie this morning. I decided to try to make a pie that didn't require a lot of measuring or extra fat and could be committed to memory. Here's what I came up with and it was very tasty.

If you don't have ham, use crumbled cooked bacon or sausage or sliced hot dogs. If you don't have chopped fresh kale, used thawed chopped spinach squeezed until dry. Any medium hard cheese you like will do. Chopped green onions or any color chopped bell peppers would be good, too. And if you like it spicy, use cayenne pepper instead of nutmeg. If you don't have a 7-inch spring-form pan, an 8-inch pie plate will do.


Lori K's rustic quiche for two 

 Crust
½ stick of frozen butter (2 oz)
1 cup whole-wheat flour
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ cup ice cold water

Filling
2 eggs, beaten
¼ cup Greek yogurt
¼ cup skim milk
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon black pepper
2 slices of deli ham, chopped
½ cup chopped kale
¼ cup part-skim mozzarella

Instructions
Grate butter into mixing bowl. Add flour and salt and combine well. Add water slowly until it looks like everything is sticking together but not not sticky; you might not need the full amount of water.
Knead a little until it holds firmly together in a ball. Flatten the ball a bit, put it back into the bowl and put in the refrigerator while you make the filling.

Heat the oven to 475°.

Make the filling: Whisk together the eggs, yogurt, milk and spices. Roll out the dough so that it's large enough to cover a 7-inch spring-form pan. Press it around all the bottom edge, and flatten the folds. Take off any overhanging dough (you can roll it out thinly and bake at the same time to make crackers; they may be done before the quiche is, so keep an eye on them if you do this). Sprinkle the kale, ham and cheese on top of the dough, then pour the filling over.

Put in the oven on a baking sheet and turn the heat down to 375. Cook for 20 minutes. The sides will slip down and it will look like a rustic tart. Take out of the oven and cool for at least 5 minutes.

Lettuce bring back memories

It's hard not to think of lettuce but as a backdrop for salad, a prop for "the goodies" such as tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, etc. And the lettuce that is picked elsewhere and shipped to where we are shouldn't be expected to be much more than that; the most you can ask of it is to be crisp and bright.

A trip to Provence opened my eyes - yes, even my jaded, Californian I-only-eat-mixed-baby-lettuces eyes - to what a difference it makes when the lettuce comes fresh from the garden only minutes before. We were day hiking near Mount Ventoux and our guides led us up a terraced hill to a stone farmhouse past a corral of goats. As we entered the quaint structure, a peaceful farm woman greeted us and bid us to sit at one of four long, sturdy wooden tables in the great room. She then went into the kitchen and returned bearing only three things: a platter of goat cheeses, from hours old, to aged 3 months; a platter of thinly sliced, salty jambon (ham) and a large shallow wooden bowl of romaine leaves, dressed only with olive oil and a sprinkling of herbs and salt. It was one of my best lunches ever.

The part I remembered most was that the lettuce tasted so ALIVE, that it didn't need a splash of balsamic vinegar to perk it up. The advantage to not using vinegar to dress the salad was that the acid in the vinegar would not ruin the tongue for the light wines we had with lunch. (That is also the reason that many French people serve the salad after the main course, to more fully enjoy the wine with the meal.)

So while the weather is reasonably cool, I grow lettuce in my flower boxes (the photo was taken this morning) where the bunnies can't get to it. I've been just clipping the leaf lettuces as needed for salads, and tearing off a few leafs of romaine for sandwiches and tacos. I'll harvest all of it before I take off for California over Memorial Day, and then plant again the week before Labor Day for the fall crop.

Hashbrowns, ham and eggs

Ack! Life has interfered with Lori K's Cafe this week. To make up for it, here's the yummy hashbrowns I made this morning. They didn't look as neat as this picture, but I'm sure they tasted better.

Lori K's hashbrowns with eggs and ham

Serves 2

Ingredients

2 medium white potatoes

1 medium yellow onion

2 tablespoons oil

1 tablespoon butter

Garlic salt and pepper

2-4 free-range eggs

Sea salt

2 thin slices ham (I used ham-off-the-bone from the Harris Teeter deli)

Instructions

Grate the potatoes into a bowl of cold water. When completed, swish all the gratings around in the bowl and drain well. Chop the onion.

Heat a large cast-iron skillet to medium-high heat, then lower it to medium-low heat and add the oil. Swish it around so that all the surface and up the sides a half-inch are coated. Add the potatoes in a clump in the middle, then move them out to the sides. Sprinkle the onions on top. Cut the butter into small cubes and distribute evenly atop the potatoes and onions. Season with garlic salt and pepper.

Cook for 5-10 minutes until the edges of the potatoes are brown. Cut the round of potatoes into quarter sections by slicing across the pan with a metal spatula, then slicing again perpendicular to the first slice. Flip each quarter so the toasty side is now up. Make a little well in the center of each potato quarter and put an egg in each (or 2 of them, for 1 egg apiece). Season with pepper and a grind of sea salt. Cook for 10 minutes, or until the whites have set.

When almost ready to serve, heat the ham slices for 30 seconds in the microwave.

Put the ham on the plate, put the hashbrowns with the eggs atop them over the ham, and garnish with parsley. Add hot sauce if you'd like. Serve immediately with strong coffee.

A light country ham supper

Since coming to Virginia, I've been experimenting with country ham and what to do with it. Originally, tasting it on the ham biscuits (that seemed to pop up at all the parties we went to when we first got here), I thought it was similar to the jambon of Provence or prosciutto, but it's courser than the latter, and not quite as dry as the former. It's delicious, but not good to eat as is or by itself.

Last night, I prepared a couple of thin slices (did I mention it's extremely salty?) in the following manner:

Slice a large yam in half, then each half in quarters. Spray with olive oil, season lightly with salt and pepper, and roast at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes until soft. 

Rinse ham briefly,  and fry to the recommended temperature of 160 degrees in a deep skillet. Remove, cover and keep warm. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan (or if you have any drippings, enough olive oil to make a tablespoon). Sauté a large onion, sliced, and a clove of garlic, minced, with a few grinds of black pepper. Add a can of plain (not marinated) artichoke hearts, drained. Cook until the onions are golden and the artichokes are lightly browned on all sides. Serve with the ham to one side and the yams on the other.

All in all, as a meat, it makes an excellent seasoning (if you don't have to watch your salt intake too closely).

A spring salad

Here's an unbeatable mixture: Fresh English peas, asparagus, new onions, shaved fennel, frisee, roasted pistachios, Virginia ham sliced thin and crisped with a little garlic. Toss with a little high quality olive oil, sprinkle with a little kosher or sea salt and pepper to taste. Mmmmm, spring!

Smithfield ham, where art thou?

The Associated Press reported today that Smithfield Foods plans to cut 1,800 jobs and close six factories as part of a restructuring.
Smithfield Foods Inc., based in Smithfield, Va., announced the closures and layoffs as part of a plan to consolidate and streamline its pork business. The company plans to save $125 million a year by 2011.
Plants slated for closure include: Smithfield Packing Co. plants in Smithfield, Va.; Plant City, Fla.; and Elon, N.C.; as well as a John Morrell plant in Great Bend, Kan.; a Farmland Foods plant in New Riegel, Ohio; and an Armour-Eckrich Meats factory in Hastings, Neb.

The report that this was excerpted from leaves out a few key facts, from what I've been able to determine.

First: There will still be a plant open in Smithfield; the operations from the Smithfield South plant will be transferred to the Smithfield North plant, according to the press release from the company today, and more than half the employees will be offered transfers there.

Second: The world-famous "Smithfield Ham" isn't one of the products produced in Smithfield. This may come as a shock to many people. In fact, according to the Virginia legislative site:

§ 3.1-867. (Repealed effective October 1, 2008) Smithfield hams defined.

Genuine Smithfield hams are hereby defined to be hams processed, treated, smoked, aged, cured by the long-cure, dry salt method of cure and aged for a minimum period of six months; such six-month period to commence when the green pork cut is first introduced to dry salt, all such salting, processing, treating, smoking, curing and aging to be done within the corporate limits of the town of Smithfield, Virginia.
(Code 1950, § 3-667; 1966, c. 702; 1968, c. 140.)

Needless to say, the company didn't issue a press release on the repeal. But I could not find any stories on the Web about the repeal, either. Chalk that up to the shrinking media presence -- newspapers may be trying to do more with less, but when it comes to being the watchdog of the goverment, less is simply less.

According to the Smithfield Foods site, dry curing of hams now is done in Elon, NC.
But today's press release was rather terse: "The Smithfield Packing Company plant in Elon, North Carolina, will close late in the summer and country ham production there will cease. About 160 employees will be affected."

So where does that leave the world-famous ham? There are three other companies in Smithfield that cure hams. I put in a call to the Smithfield Foods corporate communications office in New York City, but have not heard back from them.

The town of Smithfield must be reeling. From its Web site:
Nurtured by trade and commerce, Smithfield soon became a town of industry with four plants devoted to the art of curing the world famous "Smithfield Ham". Once a commercial center for shipping, Smithfield has evolved to host one of the area's largest meat-processing industries as well as the home to one of Hampton Roads' largest employers - Smithfield Foods, Inc. - a Fortune 500 company with its corporate headquarters in Smithfield. Smithfield was just recently named "one of the 50 best small southern towns".

A New Orleans breakfast

Brennan's in New Orleans serves an incredible brunch, and it has been one that I have used as a benchmark for all others. It was three courses, beginning with a rich, sherried turtle soup, followed by eggs Hussard, followed by bananas Foster, and accompanied by milk punch. I don't think I can get away with serving turtle soup in California, but I'm going to do my eggs Hussard for a crowd (the real thing requires poaching eggs; fine for a party of six but for more than a dozen, I prefer a strata base). I may substitute thick hot cocoa for the milk punch, unless someone wakes up needing the hair of the dog.

Eggs Hussard for 14

Plain Strata for Eggs Hussard
6 whole eggs and 1 dozen egg whites
4 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 loaf of dry bread, torn up and crusts removed
Butter to butter pan with

Mix eggs, milk and salt well. Pour over bread. Soak overnight. Put in a buttered 9x13 pan.
Bake at 375 about 45 minutes until puffy and golden.
Top with 2 cups of marchand de vin sauce and 2-2/3 cups holandaise

MARCHAND DE VIN SAUCE
1/3 cup butter
3/8 cup onion
2 scallions
1 clove minced garlic
1/2 cup minced ham
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
1/3 cup flour
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 cups beef stock
1/2 cup red wine
2 teaspoons thyme leaves
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
Salt and pepper

Melt butter in a large saucepan and sauté the onion, garlic, scallions and ham for 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms, reduce the heat to medium and cook for 2 minutes.
Blend in the flour and cook for 4 minutes, then add everything but the parsley. Simmer until the sauce thickens, about an hour. Remove bay leaves and put in fridge.

Reheat sauce slowly. Add parley before serving and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Blender Hollandaise
1 lb butter, melted
1 dozen egg yolks
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Blend the yolks, juice and pepper slightly in the blender or food processor. Turn the blender on high, then slowly add the melted butter. Cover, then pulse on for 60 seconds, off for 30 seconds, until the sauce thickens to the point that it does not drip down readily from a spoon. Do not reheat.

A simple supper

Over the years, Jim and I have become quite adept at fixing hot dinners that travel well. Here's one I prepared the other night. Rice is a good choice for traveling dinners; it usually stays hot for a half-hour or more.

Winter's melange

Serves 2

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 yellow onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

3 ounces of ham, chopped

8 ounces sliced fresh mushrooms

Fresh ground pepper to taste

½ cup uncooked rice

1 cup water

Salt to taste

2 cups baby spinach leaves (or ½ cup frozen chopped spinach, thawed)

Heat oil in skillet over medium heat; add onions and garlic and saute for about 3 minutes, add ham and saute for another minute, then add mushrooms. Season with pepper to taste. Cover, turn down heat to low and cook until the rice is done, stirring occasionally.

To cook the rice, put it in a saucepan with a tight fitting lid with the water and salt. Bring to a boil uncovered, then put on the lid and turn heat to low. Cook for 15-20 minutes until the water is absorbed. Meanwhile, if using fresh spinach, process until well chopped; if using frozen, squeeze out the excess water, and remove any tough stems.

When the rice is almost done, add the spinach, stir well, cover and continue cooking until done. The heat of the rice will cook the spinach.

Put on plates or in traveling containers, then pour the ham mixture over the rice mixture. Eat within 30 minutes, or reheat in the microwave for a minute.