Best Damn Quiche Ever

This quiche is basically the best I've ever made, the crust filling and the things in it makes it great.  Don't be scared with all the ingredients and preparation of this dish it only took a good hour to prepare and baking was 40 minutes.  I am going to give you directions on the crust, pesto and filling. I hope you all enjoy.

Ingredients

7 Organic Eggs
2 Green Onions (finely chopped)
1 Head Of Broccoli (chopped finely with steam removed)
6 Asparagus (chopped small with fat ends removed)
1 1/2 Cups Organic Heavy Whipping Cream
1 Cup Parmesan Cheese (grated)
Salt and pepper to taste
3 TBL Homemade Pesto (recipe to follow)
1 Pie Crust (recipe to follow 1st)

Making Buttermilk Pie Crust From Scratch

• Ingredients are:

1. 2 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour
2. 2 TSP Sugar
3. 1/4 TSP Salt
4. 1 Cup Cold Butter (diced up)
5. 1/4 Cup Buttermilk + 2 TBL 

• In a large mixing bowl add flour, sugar and salt.  Mix thoroughly with a fork.
• Add butter and mix with a pastry cutter until dough resembles pea like form.
• Add buttermilk and mix with hand until it forms a ball.
• Place dough on floured surface and divide into two balls.  Place in separate ziplock bags and refrigerate for an hour.  
• While in fridge it's time to make the pesto and filling for quiche.

Making homemade Pesto

1. Ingredients

• 1 lb Fresh Basil
• 1/2 Cup Cashews
• 4 Cloves Garlic
• 1 TSP Salt
• 1Cup Fresh Parmesan (grated)
• Olive oil (to desired thickness of pesto)

1. Alright grab a blender or food processor and all ingredients.
2. Add as much olive oil as you like to your desired thickness.
3. Place in a container and it can be stored for 2 weeks in fridge, this is an easy recipe and good with anything.

Quiche filling 

1. Preheat oven to 385. Chop up your broccoli, green onions and asparagus. Set aside.
2. Grab a large mixing bowl and crack eggs into bowl.  Add heavy whipping cream.  Turn mixing on medium speed and let beat for 2 minutes.
3. Add your vegetables, salt and pepper and cheese to mixture.  Beat for another two minutes.
4. Add pesto to mixture and beat for 1 minute.
5. Grab your pie shell and roll out to desired thin or thickness. Add to oil pie pan and pinch edges of dough around the top. Take a fork and gradually dot the bottom of pan a few times. Add quiche mixture, place pie pan on a cookie sheet and bake until top is golden brown and the quiche does not jiggle in the middle.

Chicken Enchilada Soup

Last night Felicia and I made burritos and we have all the left overs.  So today for lunch I decided to use all the left overs and make Enchilada soup.  It's pretty damn good and it was easy as ever.

Ingredients

2 Chicken Breasts (Organic)
1 Can Black Beans
2 Ears of sweet corn (removed from husk)
1/2 Red Onion (Chopped in Small Dice)
4 Garlic Cloves
1 Can Enchilada sauce
2 TSP Cumin
1 TSP Granulated Garlic
1 TSP Granulated Onion
Black pepper to taste
1Avcado (for topping)
1/2 Cup White Organic Cheddar
Salt to taste
3 TBL Cilantro (fresh finely chopped)

Cooking all Ingredients

1. First thing we do is dice chicken and get a medium stock pan on the stove.  Turn it on to medium.  Add olive oil and add chicken.
2. Dice up your onions, cilantro and garlic.  Add to chicken.
3. Take corn off the husk and open the can of black beans (make sure to drain water out of beans and rinse off thoroughly).  Add these to the chicken.  Let cook for 5 minutes.
4. Add seasonings to your tasting.  Let cook for another minute.
5. Add enchilada sauce and fill can up half way with water and add to soup mixture.

Toppings

1. Slice avocado in half take seed out and slice meat length wise.  Spoon out and set aside.
2. Grab a greater and grate your cheese. You can always do more if you like.

Serving and Eating this Wonderful Creation

1. Grab some bowls or just grab the pot.  Add your toppings and dig in.
2. You can also add tortilla chips to give it an extra crunch.  We also topped it with salsa and sour cream.

Eat this with friends, family or by yourself.  Like I said we added sour cream and salsa with homemade tortilla shells at the end.  If you have a lot left over, freeze it and take it out on a cold fall, winter day. I hope you enjoy this, ever have questions just email me, I'll answer any questions you have.

Amazing Granola

As the weather starts to turn into the fall, I have started to work on my comfort foods.  This morning I decided to make my own granola.  I was sick of going to the store and reading the back of the labels and not understanding most of the ingredients and seeing that high fructose corn syrup is in our cereals now!!!!!  So as a result I have created this easy and amazing granola that you can add any dried fruit to as you like and or nuts.  Enjoy and have a great day.  This recipe is gluten free.

Ingredients

3 Cups of Organic Oats
3 TBL Wheat Germ
2 TBL Flax Seed
3 TBL Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Raw Almonds
1/2 Cup Raw Cashews
1/4 TSP Salt
1/2 TSP Cinnamon
1/3 Cup Organic Honey (Preferably Local)
1/4 Cup Canola Oil
1 TSP Vanilla

Mixing Ingredients

1. Preheat oven to 300
2. Grab two bowls, one for your dry ingredients and one for your wet.  
3. Grab a cookie sheet.
4. Combine in one bowl your oats, flax seed, cinnamon, salt, wheat germ and brown sugar.  Mix well with your hands (the best mixing tool you have).
5. In bowl two, add honey, oil and vanilla.  Heat in microwave for 30 seconds.  Add to dry ingredients and mix again with those wonderful hands.
6. Lay on cookie sheet as even as you can get it.

Baking The Good Stuff

1. All you do is place it in the oven for 40 minutes.  But you need to make sure it is cooking evenly and mix with a spoon so that it doesn't burn on the sides.  

Like I said all you need to do is add your favorite fruit, yogurt or hell peanut butter.  It will stay in your dry storage for a good 2-3 weeks.  Make sure you put it in an air tight container.  I hope you enjoy this and the directions were good.  Have fun and Enjoy

Sincerely:

Chef Molatore

Panzanella Salad With a New Twist

So today the weather reached 98 and I wanted to do something cool and simple.  One of Felicia's friends from school gave us a butternut squash from her garden.  So I decided to come up with this awesome new twist on a classic Italian salad.  I hope you enjoy as much as Felicia and I did for lunch today.



Ingredients

1 Butternut Squash
1/2 Red Onion
1 Heirloom Tomato
1 Golden Delicous Apple
5 Slices of Fresh Mozzarella
14 Fresh Basil Leaves
4 Slices of Italian Bread
4 TBL Olive Oil
2 TBL Balsamic Vinegar
Salt
Ground Pepper
1 TSP Granulated Garlic
1 TSP Dried Basil
1/2 TSP Dried Oregano

Roasting Squash

1. Pre-heat oven to 425
2. Slice top and bottom off of the squash.  Stand squash up, trim sides of as thin as you can so you don't waste the meat.  When Skin is off, cut in half and spoon out the seeds.  Dice squash in bite size amounts.
3. Lay squash on a roasting pan or baking sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.
4. Place in oven for a good 30-35 minutes
5. Take out of oven and let cool

Toasting Croutons

1. Grab bread and slice length wise twice, turn bread and slice into bite size amounts.
2. Grab a small roasting pan or a saute pan you can place in the oven.
3. Drizzle with some olive oil.
4. Take your dry ingredients (granulated garlic, basil and oregano) and spread all over the bread.  
5. Toss together with your hands and place these wonderful ingredients in the oven
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
7. Take out of oven and let cool.

Other Great Ingredients Diced Up

1. OK grab a big salad bowl
2. Start dicing up your ingredients in bite size amounts, your apple, tomato, onion and mozzarella cheese.  Add all to the bowl.
3. Take your basil and stack on top of each other and cut from the tip of the leaves down to the steam.  Slice thin, this is called a julienne cut.  Place in bowl.
4.  Grab your squash and toasted bread and add to the bowl.
5. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and salt to taste and ground pepper.
6. Toss your salad ( no pun intended)
7. Serve and enjoy these wonderful flavors popping in your mouth.

This was a great Summer salad with a twist of fall.  I hope you enjoy this as much as we did today and this will also go great with Chardonnay.  Have a wonderful day.  

Sincerely:

Chef Molatore

Homemade Chicken Egg Rolls

Homemade Egg Rolls

2 Organic Chicken Breasts
1 Organic Carrot (shredded)
1/2 Purple or Green Cabbage (shredded)
3 Green Onions (small diced)
4 Garlic Cloves (minced)
2 TSP Fresh Ginger (minced)
3 TBL Olive Oil
1/2 TSP Dried Ginger
1 TBL Soy Sauce
1 TBL Sesame Oil
1/2 TSP Rice Vinegar
1 Package Pre-Made Egg Rolls
2 Cups Vegetable Oil (For Frying, the good stuff)

Chicken Breast

1. Normally I get my Chicken from a local farmer or Simply Organic from Kroger's.  When handling chicken please make sure you always use a separate cutting board.  When removing from package place in sink and rinse off thoroughly.  Place on cutting board and slice from top of the breast down to the thinnest part, repeat at least 7 times.
2. Put a medium saute pan on stove at medium to medium high heat.  Add olive oil, when oil starts to run fast in the pan its ready for you to add the chicken.
3. Add chicken and saute for at least 8 minutes.
4. When chicken is done set aside and start cutting your vegetables.

Vegetables

1. Grab a cheese grader and start grading your carrots and cabbage, set aside.
2. Peel your garlic and peel your ginger.  Mince very fine (because you really don't want to bit into a chunk of that).  
3. Grab your onions next and dice as fine as you can.
4. Now grab all your vegetables and throw into the pan with your chicken.  Put pan back on the heat but only turn it to medium low heat.  
5. Start to add your spices, oil and then vinegar.  Cook until items begin to sweat (approx. 7 minutes)
6. Turn off stove and set aside.
7. Grab your shells and lay out as many as you want to make (I usually make about 12)
8. Now grab a shallow pan and add the vegetable oil and turn heat on to about medium high.  You'll know when the oil is ready when you splash a little water in the pan (just use your finger to splash in the oil so you don't start an oil fire).

Stuffing (The Fun Part)

1. OK grab a little bowl and add some water to it for helping you close the egg rolls.  
2. Take a spoon and place about 3 TBL of ingredients in the middle of the shell.  Repeat for all the shells you want to do.
3. Take your water bowl and stick your index finger in it.  Wipe around the edge of the first shell.  Fold the first corner over and then tuck in the right side and then the left.  Roll and set aside.  Repeat with all.

Frying the lovelies

1. Grab a plate or platter with a paper towel and place to the side or in reaching access.  You must also have a slotted spoon too.
2. Grab your egg rolls and place in the oil one at a time very slowly.  Don't add them all at one time or they will not cook all the way through.  Turn egg rolls in about 3 minutes time.  Take out and repeat with the rest.  

Eating Them

1. Eat them as soon as possible, but don't burn your tongue (I have done that before).  Eat with rice and your favorite sauce.
2. Enjoy and let me know if you enjoyed them.

Homemade Quacamole

For the past 10 years I have been making guacamole and I have discovered that roasting the garlic gives this guacamole a great smooth taste.

4 Tender avocados (California)
1 Whole Head Of Garlic (roasted)
5 Green Onions (finely chopped)
1 Roma Tomato (finely chopped)
3 TBL Cilantro (finely chopped)
1 Jalapeño (roasted with seeds)
1 Lime (juiced)
1 TBL Ground Cumin
2 TSP Granulated Garlic
Salt to Taste

Roasting garlic:

Preheat oven to 450.

Take your whole head of garlic and place on cutting board.  Take your knife and slice the top off, leaving little garlic in the top.  Place the head of garlic in a small saute pan, drizzle with olive oil and place in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes.  When garlic is done place on a heat pad until cools down (30-35 minutes cool time)

1.) Cut avocadoes in half and remove seeds, slice the insde of avocadoes and scoop out with a spoon into a medium bowl.  Slice lime in half and (squeeze with meat side up so seeds don't get into dip).
2.) Dice up your onions, tomato, cilantro and jalapeño in small dice, place all ingredients in bowl with avocado.
3.) Add all your spices and squeeze the roasted garlic into avocado mixture.
4.) Take a fork and mash as smooth or as chunky as you want.  Add salt to your tasting and serve with your favorite tortillas, tacos and or sandwiches.

This dip will refrigerate for 3-4 days.  Enjoy.