The Combination Of Flavors In This Easy Quiche Is Outstanding! 

I adapted this quiche recipe from a recipe I got years and years ago from my cousin Karen.  Besides being an excellent cook, my cousin is an amazing person.  She is a brilliant doctor with her own practice on Park Avenue in New York City.  She also has many other talents.  Number one, she is a devoted mother of her two amazing twin sons, Matthew and Douglas, and she is a loving daughter and sister.  Plus, she is an accomplished author, and she creates beautiful hand crafted jewelry.  I love spending time with my cousin Karen.  I just don’t get to do it enough!  Karen made this quiche years ago, and I loved it, so of course, I asked her for the recipe.  This quiche is so easy to make, so if you know how to boil water, I think you should try this!

• 1 deep dish frozen pie crust, such as Oronique
• 3 ounces French’s fried onion rings (1/2  of a 6 oz. can)
• 4 to 6 oz. grated or thinly sliced Swiss cheese
• 3 extra large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups half and half or light cream
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• a few grinds of freshly cracked black pepper
• 2 dashes cayenne pepper
• about 2/3 of a 10 oz. box of frozen spinach, defrosted and drained well

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Prick frozen pie shell all around.  Then bake for about 10 minutes; set aside.  Then, reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.

In a mixing bowl, whisk eggs with half and half or light cream. Add spices to taste.  On the bottom of the pie shell, place 1/2 half of the cheese to cover the bottom of the crust.  Then add the onion rings on top of the cheese.  Next add the spinach to complete the next layer.  Place the remaining cheese over the spinach.  Gently pour the egg and cream mixture over the top cheese layer.  Place the quiche on a half sheet pan and then put in center of oven. 

Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour until puffed and golden.  Let sit for 5 minutes before serving.  

Helpful Hint:  If you have an oven proof glass or ceramic pie plate, I recommend that you place the store made pie shell in  its tin right into your pie plate before you start the baking process.  This will give the quiche extra support, and if some of the custard leaks during the cooking, it will have somewhere to go.

Variation #1:  Instead of spinach, use 10 ounces of fresh sliced mushrooms, seasoned with kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper,  sauteed in 2 tablespoons of butter.

Variation #2:  Instead of frozen spinach, use 1 10 oz. bag of fresh, triple-washed baby spinach, seasoned with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper,sauteed in a pan in 2 tablespoons of butter just until it wilts for 1 or 2 minutes.   

Variation #3:  Use a combination of the sauteed fresh spinach and the sauteed fresh mushrooms.

Serve This Bread Pudding For Breakfast, Brunch, or Dessert!

I have a few recipes for bread pudding. This recipe is so easy to make, and it is delicious. Even if you don’t fancy yourself as a baker, you can definitely make this bread pudding! The taste reminds me of a really good cinnamon danish. Of course, this bread pudding isn’t low in calories, but unlike other bread pudding recipes, this recipe uses milk instead of half and half. So, it is lower in calories than some bread puddings. Yet, it still tastes sinfully rich. This dish makes a nice addition to a brunch buffet or even a dessert buffet. It really is comfort food at its best.

• 8 - 10 1 inch thick slices of challah
• 4 extra large or jumbo eggs
• 1 1/4 cups whole milk
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, plus extra for sprinkling
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/3 cup of raisins, currants, or dried cranberries

Grease an oval or rectangular 8 inches by 10 inches by 2 inch baking dish.

Slice the challah into 1/2 inch thick slices. Then cube the bread into 1/2

cubes. Cut the crusts off of the slices of challah. Put the bread cubes in

the prepared dish. It’s okay if you have 2 layers of bread cubes. Sprinkle

the raisins, currants, or dried cranberries throughout and on top of the

bread. In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, the milk, the vanilla, the

cinnamon, and the salt together. Ladle the custard mixture over the

bread making sure that you get the custard over all the bread uniformly.

Sprinkle the top with additional cinnamon. Cover the dish with

plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least 30 minutes or up to 4 hours. Preheat

oven to 350 degrees. Bake uncovered 40 to 50 minutes until a toothpick

inserted in the middle of the pudding comes out clean. Serve hot out of the

oven or at room temperature.

Note: Using challah that is a few days old is fine, because if the bread is just a little stale, it will soak up the custard even better. If you are using fresh challah, I recommend slicing it and letting it sit out on the counter for 1 or 2 hours to let it get a little stale.

This Frittata Is As Good As Quiche But Easier To Make And Healthier Too!

My mother and I were invited over to our friend Sherill Kobb’s house yesterday for lunch.  Sherill is an amazing cook and baker, and a wonderful person.  So between just spending time with Sherill and eating her amazing food, I was in seventh heaven.  It was such a treat for me to enjoy someone else’s cooking for a change.  I felt like a princess, because Sherill is such a gracious hostess, and she really makes her guests feel special.  Well, Sherill prepared a delicious feast which was as appealing aesthetically as it was gastronomically.  She started with French onion soup that was incredible, then she served this vegetable frittata along with a beautiful salad with goat cheese and her homemade mustard and white wine vinaigrette, and then she served a delicious apple cake and coffee for dessert.  What a treat!  

• 5 extra large or jumbo eggs
• 3 egg whites
• 1 heavy tablespoon of sour cream (adds richness and tanginess, but you don’t have to use it)
• 1 large red bell pepper
• about 8 spears of fresh asparagus
• about 4 green onions or scallions, yellow and white part
• about 2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley (parsley adds a fresh clean taste to the frittata)
• about 3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
• kosher salt
• freshly ground pepper
• about 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon of light olive oil  or other vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. 

Snap off the woody ends of the asparagus.  Then cut the asparagus into bite size pieces, about 1-1 1/2 inches long. Blanch the asparagus in boiling water until crisp-tender about 2-5 minutes depending upon the thickness of the asparagus.  Drain the asparagus and then run under cold water to stop the cooking.

Dice the red pepper into about 1/2 inch pieces.  Chop the scallions on the diagonal into pieces about 1/2 inch in length.  Melt the butter with the oil in a non-stick saute pan that measures approximately 8 inches across the bottom and 10 inches across the top of the pan.  Make sure you swirl the butter and oil around so the sides of the pan get coated as well.  Then saute the red pepper and scallions (season with a little salt and pepper) for about 3 minutes until the vegetables start to soften.  Turn heat off and take off stove, and set aside. 

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the whole eggs and the egg whites.  Add a pinch of the kosher salt and about 6 turns of freshly ground black pepper.  Add the tablespoon of sour cream if you are using it and whisk. (You will still see the sour cream in the eggs, and that is ok.)  Set aside.

Add the parsley and the asparagus to the sauteed red pepper and scallions in the pan.  Mix together gently.  Place back on the stove over a medium flame.  Pour the eggs into the pan.  Then sprinkle the grated Parmesan or Romano cheese on top.  As the eggs begin to cook along the outer edge, lift up the cooked part so that the raw eggs can slide under.  Do this until the eggs are pretty cooked around the edges but still uncooked on top.  Slide the pan into the preheated oven and cook for about another 5 minutes or until eggs are no longer raw looking on top and the eggs are just set.  Frittata should be a little browned and puffy around the edges.  If you like your eggs more well done and browned on top, put your oven on broil, and cook for maybe one-two minutes at most, watching very carefully.  When you take the frittata out of the oven, it will continue to cook, so be careful not to overcook this.   

Loosen the edges of the frittata with a spatula, and then slide it onto a  10 inch round serving plate.  If you don’t have a big enough serving platter, then bring the frittata to the table in the saute pan, slice it, and serve it right out of the pan. 

Note:  You may use any combination of vegetables that that you like.  You might use sauteed mushrooms, zucchini, or spinach to name a few.  You may also substitute grated cheddar, swiss, or gruyere cheese for the Parmesan or Romano, but the fresh Parmesan or Romano gives the frittata a great tangy flavor without adding too many calories!    

Serve this amazing side dish to go along with a light dairy meal, as part of  a brunch buffet, or for your Yom Kippur break the fast feast!

My wonderful mother, Shirley Fried, got this recipe from her best friend and our favorite neighbor, Adele Hochheiser. I think the recipe is nicknamed Sister’s, because Adele’s first cousins affectionately referred to her as “sister.” My mother made this often, and oh did my mother, my father, and I love it. For some reason, my brother Kenny was not fond of this dish. My mother made this to go with our fish night- our Wednesday night dinner. I don’t think I’ve written about my mother’s weekly dinner schedule yet- when I was growing up, so this is as good a place as any. Throughout my entire childhood, we basically ate the same thing every week. And believe me, that was not a bad thing. There is something very reassuring about knowing what your meals are going to be. My mother’s meals were all extremely balanced, too. I loved each and every meal. How I looked forward to them!  Here is our weekly dinner menu:

Monday: rib steak ( and sometimes London broil, which was cooked by me in my teen years after we had a gas grill), french fries, LeSeurr peas, salad with Wishbone Italian Dressing, and years later, Ken’s Caesar, or Milani 1890 French)

Tuesday: stew (Adele Hochheiser’s recipe) with rice and salad, or spaghetti and meat sauce (my Aunt Sally Hindes’s recipe) with salad and garlic bread, or sweet and sour meatballs with mashed potatoes, frozen spinach, and salad, or vegetable soup with flanken (a rare treat)- soup served separately and flanken served on a plate with mashed potatoes, or meatloaf (Anita Lapidus’s recipe) with baked potatoes, string beans and salad

Wednesday: a beautiful platter of tuna salad served on a bed of lettuce surrounded by sliced cucumbers, radishes, green peppers, and a plate of sliced Jersey tomatoes (in the summer), accompanied by macaroni and cheese casserole, or this noodle pudding recipe, or brown rice pudding, or apple fritters

Thursday: same as Tuesday

Friday: My mother alternated between chicken and brisket. She cooked one Empire frozen chicken cup up in eighths baked with either Saucy Susan, or Kellogg’s Cornflakes Crumbs, or fried Southern style by our beloved cleaning lady who I loved, Harriet. The chicken was served with one 8 oz. can of peas and carrots, salad, and my mother’s delicious pineapple noodle pudding. She served her brisket with our favorite potato dish, brenta, peas and carrots, and salad.

All dinners were followed by either a half of a grapefruit, fruit cocktail, sliced canned peaches or pear halves, a wedge of cantaloupe, or jello.

This was followed by dessert. My brother Kenny and I were allowed one Tastycake, or 3 Hydrox, or 3 Chips Ahoy cookies. This was my father’s favorite part of the meal.  He would take out one package of chocolate Tastycakes, Krimpets, peanut butter Tandytakes, or  a  Tasycake Junior, and he’d eat the entire package with a few glasses of ice cold skim milk.  How my father adored his Tastycakes!

Anyway, here is the recipe for Adele’s noodle pudding.  It is rich and delicious! 

for the filling:

• 1 pound extra wide or broad egg noodles (such as Pennsylvania Dutch)
• 1 1/2 sticks of butter or Fleischmann’s margarine
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 pound small curd or whipped cottage cheese I use Friendship brand cottage cheese)
• 1 pint (16 oz.) sour cream
• 5 extra large eggs, beaten
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup raisins (optional)

for the cornflakes crumbs topping:

Mix one cup of Kellogg’s Cornflakes Crumbs (this comes already prepared as crumbs in the box) with 3 tablespoons melted butter or margarine.  Set topping aside.

for an alternate cornflakes crumbs topping:

Make cornflakes crumbs yourself by placing cornflakes in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade, and pulsing until the crumbs are quite fine. Continue until you have one cup of crumbs.  You will probably need about 3 cups of cornflakes to make one cup of cornflakes crumbs.  Mix with 3 tablespoons of melted butter or margarine. Set topping aside.

for a more rustic cornflakes crumbs topping:

Place about 3 cups of cornflakes into a ziploc bag.  Using a rolling pin or your hands, crush the cornflakes until you have crumbs that are not quite so fine.  Mix cornflakes with about 6 tablespoons of melted margarine or butter.  Set topping aside.

for the filling: 

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Grease a 9 x 13 glass baking dish.  Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Cook noodles till al dente.  Drain noodles in colander.  While noodles are draining, put the margarine or butter into the same pot to melt on low heat.  When margarine or butter is melted, take the pot off the heat.  Put the noodles back in.  Add the sugar and mix with a rubber spatula.  Add the cottage cheese and mix in.  Then add the milk, the vanilla, the beaten eggs, and mix in with the spatula.  Finally, add the sour cream, and blend in.  (add raisins at this point if you wish)

Pour filling into prepared baking dish. Sprinkle cornflakes crumbs topping evenly over the top of the filling.  Bake in the center of the oven for 1 hour 10 min. to 1 hour and 20 min. until starts to puff in the center, and until the bottom and sides start to brown.  The center should be set, and a toothpick should come out clean.

Notes:  The topping is optional.  If you prefer, you can just sprinkle the top with cinnamon.  You can also reduce the calories in the dish by reducing the sugar to 3/4 cup and reducing the margarine or butter to 1 stick.  You may also use a lowfat cottage cheese.  I do not recommend using a low fat sour cream or low fat milk. 

You may freeze this unbaked without the topping.  Wrap it well, though.  Then defrost it in the refrigerator, make the topping, and bake it.  You may also prepare this up to 2 days before you wish to bake it, and keep it refrigerated without the topping on it.  Then make the topping the day you will be baking the kugel, and put the topping on it right before you put it in the oven.  If you are baking this right out of the refrigerator, it will probably take about 20 more minutes of baking time. 

One of my greatest cooking inspirations was provided by my wonderful mother, Shirley Fried. When I was probably about 9 or 10 years old, she bought me the New Betty Crocker’s Boys and Girls Cookbook. I read that book for hours on end. I fantasized about making all of the recipes in the book. (I think I only got to make one, possibly two during my entire childhood.) One of the recipes I was most interested in was the recipe for pancakes. Well, I finally did start making pancakes for my family when I was around 10 or 11. For some miraculous reason that my mother and I still can’t understand, my mother did allow me to make pancakes. My theory is that my mother loved pancakes a lot, and she really wasn’t interested in making them herself. My mother bought a mix, I’m pretty sure it was the Aunt Jemima Complete Buttermilk Pancake mix where you only added water. That was okay. I was very happy making the pancakes from a mix for my mother, my father, my brother, and me. When I had children of my own, I enjoyed making homemade buttermilk pancakes. For some reason, I loved making them when the kids had snow days and were home from school. Well, those years are finished, but I always get the desire to make my homemade buttermilk pancakes during Christmas vacation when my kids are all home with me. Right now it’s Christmas vacation in December of 2007. I’m having a wonderful time because I’m off for the week, and my son Benji is home on winter break during his freshman year at Dartmouth College, my son Danny is home too since he’s unemployed right now, and my married daughter Randi, who is also off for the week (she’s a teacher) has been coming over every day. I can’t imagine a better time than this. There is nothing as much fun for me as being home with my three children. Well, we are literally having a food fest due to my uncontrollable desire to cook and bake for the three of them. This morning, I woke up at 6:00 and I started cooking. I started with my kids’ favorite cake (Judy’s famous birthday cake). I loved calling Benji from his room to lick the bowl and the spatula I used to make the chocolate icing. This big 6 foot kid came running from his room, and you’d think he was still 10 years old. I loved watching my kids as they ate a piece of cake. Then I made a batch of my yummy cheese blintzes. I fried up a few for Randi and Benji, and they loved eating them with sour cream on the side. Then I made made a batch of my homemade buttermilk pancakes. Oh, they are so light and so fluffy and so delicious! We ate them while we caught up on some past episodes of Brothers and Sisters. My kids went crazy for the pancakes. Anyway, once you eat these pancakes, it’s hard to order pancakes out because they just are nowhere near as good as the homemade variety. And making them from scratch is super easy, so please try this recipe.

Makes about 20

• 2 cups unbleached flour
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 4 T. melted butter/marg.

Into a large mixing bowl, place the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In another mixing bowl, whisk the eggs with the buttermilk and the melted butter or margarine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and combine with a rubber spatula until the batter is still slightly lumpy. Do not overmix.

Heat a nonstick skillet up, and lightly grease it with margarine or butter (butter burns easily, so I usually use margarine). Spoon batter onto griddle. Cook for about 1-2 minutes until the bottom is nicely browned. Then flip, and cook on the other side. Cook about 2 minutes until browned.

Serve with butter and syrup.

Note: You may add fresh blueberries to the batter.

This Delicious Recipe For French Toast Bread Pudding Will Warm You On A Cold Winter Morning! 

My family adores french toast. My mother, Shirley Fried, especially loves my French toast. Every once and awhile, I make a batch for her when she comes down to visit me and the kids. I love cooking for my mother, especially since she is my number 1 fan. (My father was my other number 1 fan, but tragically for me, my mother, and my children, the most wonderful man in the world, Murray Fried died 6 years ago. Anyway, I’ve cooked yummy French toast for breakfast for my family for years, and everyone loves it. I sometimes make my french toast using challah, which is an egg bread that is very similar to brioche. Many diners serve French toast made with challah because it has become quite popular. When you use challah to make your French toast, you are definitely kicking the standard recipe up a notch. Anyway, I decided that I needed to adapt my challah French toast recipe so that I could serve it at family gatherings and feed a lot of people without having to stand at the stove while my guests were over. Plus, I wanted to be able to prepare the dish in advance, and you really can’t do that with French toast. I experimented until I came up with the most amazing version of French toast bread pudding, using challah. I served it at a Chanukah party this past Sunday which was given by the wonderful Marsha Greenhouse. Marsha Greenhouse is my daughter Randi’s mother-in-law. Marsha is a warm and genuine from the heart person (a real mensch), and she hosts the best family get togethers imaginable. I love going to every party and gathering at her house. Plus, she kindly lets me cook and bake for these parties to my heart’s content. One of the dishes I made for this gathering was my challah French toast bread pudding. It was delicious! I got lots of compliments, and of course I love that! I think one of the best moments for me was when Marsha’s boyfriend, Al Berman asked me for another piece of the bread pudding. When he put a bite in his mouth he said, “Ooh, this is sooo good.” And Al knows his food. (He’s an excellent cook himself!) There is just nothing as gratifying for me as cooking and baking for people I care about. Please try this recipe. When you take a bite into this yummy challah French toast bread pudding, which truly tastes every bit as good as regular French toast, you will vow to make this again and again for your friends and family, too.

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine, plus extra for greasing baking dish
• 1 cup lightly packed dark brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons maple syrup (I actually use 2 tablespoons of Log Cabin and 1 tablespoon of pure maple syrup, but I don’t think it matters which type of syrup you use)  *see note at bottom
• 1 large loaf of challah bread
• 8 extra large or jumbo eggs (I usually use the extra large)
• 2 cups of light cream (you may substitute half and half to save a few calories, but I don’t)
• 2 teaspoons sugar (optional- you may eliminate if you want to reduce sugar in recipe))
• 1/8 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (I use this but you may cut it out for a low salt diet)
• sugar and cinnamon (McKormick) to sprinkle on top before you bake

Generously grease the bottom and sides of a 13 x 9 x 2 inch oval or rectangular baking dish (I bought an inexpensive, beautiful white oval baking dish at IKEA). Slice the challah about 1 1/2 inches thick. Then cut the slices into pieces. They don’t all have to be exactly the same size, but they should be somewhere around 2 inches square. You definitely should use the crust- do not cut the crust off! In a small saucepan, melt the margarine over a low flame. Then add the brown sugar and the syrups; mix until the brown sugar is dissolved. Then pour the syrup mixture into the prepared baking dish. Place the pieces of challah in the prepared dish in one layer. Fit the pieces right up against each other, like puzzle pieces. It’s okay to squeeze them a little so they all fit.

In large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, light cream, vanilla, salt, sugar,  cinnamon. Ladle the custard mixture over the challah evenly. Then press down with your hands lightly on bread, so challah soaks in all the custard. Cover the dish with foil or plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 or 3 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and take bread pudding out of the refrigerator, and uncover it. Sprinkle the top lightly with sugar and cinnamon (I use McKormick cinnamon and sugar). Bake uncovered in the middle of the oven until puffed and golden for about 35 to 45 minutes. Serve immediately.

Note:  The last few times I made this, I used 2 tablespoons of pure maple syrup and 1 tablespoon of light corn syrup.  I think this combination works the best. 

My mother made this recipe often.  It was her mother’s, my Grandma Hindes’s recipe.  My grandmother was born in 1908, so if she were alive today, she would be around 100 years old.  My grandmother was an immigrant from Europe.  She immigrated to this country from a place called Galicia, which is now part of Poland.  She was a huge fan of a nutritionist on the radio named Carlton Fredericks.  She learned a lot from him and followed his advice.  My grandmother was way ahead of her time.  My mother and her brother Nat were the ONLY children who brought sandwiches to school made with whole wheat bread.  When my mother talks about her mother’s wisdom in this area, she is still amazed by it.  For that generation, being concerned about nutrition and healthy ingredients was very uncommon.  Well, my grandmother developed this delicious rice pudding recipe because she wanted to create a healthy version of a rather unhealthy dish.  She made it as a side dish that she served along with tuna salad or broiled fish.  My mother made this many times, and my father loved it!  He liked it plain or warm with a little milk in it.  When my father was still alive, I often made this for him so he could take it home and have it as a yummy snack.    I also regularly make this and deliver it to my daughter Randi and my mother as they love it too.  As soon as the cool weather hits, I start making this recipe.  It’s such comfort food!  I like to know it’s in the fridge for a late night healthier than usual snack.  When I put that first bite in my mouth, I’m in heaven.  How many healthy dishes can you say that about?  I know that this is not your traditional rice pudding recipe, but it’s mine.  So please, give this family, heirloom recipe of mine a whirl.  Trust me, once you taste it, you will love knowing that this healthy treat is waiting for you in the refrigerator.

• 1 cup whole grain brown rice (not instant)- I use Uncle Ben’s or Carolina.
• a nice chunk of butter or Fleischmann’s margarine- about 2-3 tablespoons
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar 
• 1 1/4 cups of whole milk
• 3 extra large eggs
• cinnamon 

Note:  If you wish to make this dish healthier, you may reduce the sugar to 1/4 cup and use lowfat or skim milk in place of the whole milk. 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease a two quart casserole dish well with butter or margarine.  Crack the eggs in a mixing bowl, and mix them with the milk.

Combine the rice, 2 1/4 cups cold water in a 2 quart saucepan.  Bring the water to a boil, then put the lid on and lower the flame as low as possible.  Simmer about 30 minutes until the water is completely absorbed.

Take the saucepan with the rice off the stove.  Put your greased casserole dish into the oven to heat it up while you are completing the rest of the recipe.  Drop the butter or margarine into the rice and mix it through the rice until it is completely melted through.  Then, dump the sugar in and mix gently with a rubber spatula.  Sprinkle some cinnamon in - about 1/2 teaspoon.  Then pour milk and egg mixture into the rice mixture and mix it in well with the rubber spatula.  Take out the casserole dish, and pour the rice mixture in.   Sprinkle the top of the pudding with a nice amount of cinnamon.  Place the casserole dish in the center of the oven.  Bake it for about 1 hour - 1 hour and 15 minutes until the sides and top are brown.  Let the pudding cool a few minutes before serving, or let it cool completely, and then put it in the refrigerator for later.  You can take out a portion any time, and warm it up in the microwave.