Monday, December 30, 2013

December 29, 2013 Dinner party – Ham, mushroom and cheese quiche and salad.

December 29, 2013 Dinner party – Ham, mushroom and cheese quiche and salad.

We finished packing the luminarias this morning and then Suzette went to work.  I ate a bowl of posole, with a tamale and red chili sauce around noon. 

At 1:30 p.m. I rode my bike and at 3:00 p.m., I went to Costco and bought salad ($3.99), spinach, and eggs for dinner.  I was looking for Swiss Emmentaler cheese for the quiche, but there was none, but luckily there was French Beaufort, which I had never seen before ($13.99/lb.), so I bought a 1 lb. wedge of it.  Susan had graciously offered me a package of two Pillsbury pie shells, so I picked those up and a few green onions on my way home. 
Soon after I arrived home at 4:00 Suzette arrived and I asked her to make the partially cooked pie shells while I chopped and mixed the ingredients for the quiche.  I used Julia Child’s recipe for spinach quiche.  You start with the basic recipe for quiche at the top of page 152 and add the ingredients for Spinach quiche listed on page 153. 


I made a double recipe because we had two shells and six for dinner.  Lauren, a friend of Rebecca’s from Sunday school and her friend, Allison, who were driving to San Francisco for New Year’s Eve had asked to stay the night with us. 
So I chopped up about ½ cup of ham, four green onions, and three mushrooms.  In a separate bowl I chopped the three cups of spinach.  Suzette then sautéed all four ingredients in a large skillet with salt, pepper and nutmeg while I mixed 7 eggs, 3 cups of heavy cream and a pinch of nutmeg in the Kitchenaid.

When the spinach filling was cooked Suzette put them in the partially cooked pie shells and we added the egg and cream mixture to the shells and baked them for thirty minutes at 350˚, as the recipe recommended.
While the quiches were baking, I made a salad dressing with a tsp. of the Herbs Provence that Mike and Cathryn had given us, 2 tsp. of red wine vinegar, a squeeze of lemon, ½ tsp. of Grey Poupon Dijon Mustard, olive oil and pressed in three small cloves of garlic.  I also chopped about two Tbsps. of red bell pepper and a large tomatoes and sliced three palm hearts to make a salad and Suzette filled our new bowl with salad and we added the other ingredients and then I tossed them all in the salad dressing.

When the quiches puffed up a bit and the tops turned golden brown after thirty minutes, we were ready to eat.

Charlie and Susan had brought a bottle of chilled 2012 Bayten Sauvignon Blanc made and bottled at Buitenverwaching Wine Farm located in the Constantia Valley, just north of the Cape of Good Hope.  According to the label it is one of South Africa’s premier wine properties founded in 1796 and Susan said it garnered a rating of 91.  It tasted fine to me and very fresh.  It had a good balance of fruit and light clean flavor and still retained that slight earthiness that is so common among South African wines.

 
We ate and enjoyed the quiche and salad and wine.  After a bit I saw that the wine had been enjoyed and I opened a bottle of Le Ferme Julian rosé, which had darker and more muted smoky flavors, but was nice.  Finally we passed Susan’s red velvet cupcakes with the white icing and Susan and Charlie told us about how two 4 year olds had come over Christmas Eve to help them light the luminarias and had insisted on sprinkling micro sparkles on the cupcakes.
After a lovely meal, I retired to the T.V. room to watch the Dallas Cowboys lose to Philadelphia in the NFC division game with Charlie and Susan and Suzette schmoozed at the dining table in the T.V. room.

After Charlie and Susan left around 9:30 and we went to bed.
Bon Appétit

 

 

 

 

 

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