permission to dine: promise-to-never-get-preachy-again quiche
Monday, September 6 
I have a confession. I buy cheap food. I'm into supporting local, organic food, but because of the additional cost, it often comes from my own back yard, while at the grocery store, I can't always afford to "vote with my wallet." Someday, when it's just Shawn and me, I'll shop the way I want, I console myself. But for now, with three teenage boys at home, two of whom are growing overnight like Jack's beanstalk, they eat a shit-ton of food. They begin grazing as soon as they're home from school, pause to eat the dinner I've made, then continue snacking until their heads hit the pillow. It's frightening. Groceries run us around $700 a month right now — which kills us. (And that's without buying meat. Shawn and Oldest Son supply our meat for the year hunting deer, antelope and elk. They butcher by hand and process them into steaks, ground meat and sausages, then store them in the freezer.)
That said, I'm completely yucked out by the latest news on laying hens and the salmonella outbreak in Iowa. I was listening to NPR, and basically, if you're buying cheap eggs (which I have for years, until I started buying from a co-worker who keeps a back yard flock), those eggs are from one of the mega-laying operations where chickens number in the millions. Five to eight chickens are crowded into each battery cage, with personal space the size of a piece of paper. They aren’t able to walk, stretch, and their beaks are clipped to stop them from pecking each other to death. The ammonia levels from chicken waste in those houses is at a parts-per-million that makes humans tear up.
Anyway, all of this is to say, I'm new to hen rearing, but I've been loving it. We got our chicks last March, and they all were laying by July. The girls make us laugh, and they make me feel like a rock star towering over a mosh pit every time I bring them food scraps or open up their chicken run to let them forage around the yard. I'm not sure how keeping hens pencils out compared to buying cheap eggs, but I'm guessing once the upfront cost of building a coop and fencing are paid for, most come out ahead in egg returns vs. cost of feed.
Okeedokee, then.
Did I just sound preachy, or holier than thou? Soap boxes make me itch. Sorry if I slipped into that voice. How about I lighten the mood a bit with some carrot porn photos that Nice Lady with a Dog (a minor catastrophes reader and friend) emailed me after harvesting these lovelies:
Umm, these carrots appear to be mostly male...
And the one(s) tangled at the top there certainly seems to be up to something. (Hello? This is not very carrot-like. Maybe get a room?!)
Also, I've always liked quiche, and I've been making it more than usual with our abundance of eggs. Here's my favorite recipe, from the Moosewood Cookbook, by Mollie Katzen:
Swiss Cheese and Mushroom Quiche
I went to go get the camera to take a picture of the whole quiche, and by the time I got ready this is what was left. Maybe it was because I added crumbled bacon on top, which the recipe doesn't actually call for.
*Recipe makes one 9" pie
1.) Follow your favorite pie crust recipe for a single crust. (I sometimes buy pre-made crust. I know, they're full of hydrogenated oils and yucky stuff, but I've committed far worse culinary crimes. Trust me.)
2.) Cover bottom of crust with 1 1/2 cups grated Swiss (Gruyere is best).
3.) Cover cheese with 1 medium onion and 1/4 lb. mushrooms chopped and sautéed in butter with salt, pepper, a dash of thyme
4.) Make a custard: beat well together
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
3 Tbsp. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. dry mustard
5.) Pour custard over mushroom layer.
6.) Sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 375 degrees for 40-45 minutes, or until solid in the center when jiggled.
Variations:
*Substitute cheddar cheese for Swiss.
* Substitute 1 cup chopped scallions for the onion.
*Try different sautéed veggies in place of the mushrooms.
Reader Comments (8)
I was making a lot of frittatas with the eggs we had in Napa. We got about 15 a day, so it was kind of crazy. The Moosewood cookbook was one of the books we had up there, so I consulted that a lot. Good stuff.
Funny carrot porn. I love it. :)
Now I know what to make for supper wed. I love the moosewood brownies. Our grocery bill is about 500$ or so a month for the two of us, that is without meat too. We get fresh eggs locally and I love love love it.
Gross on the whole multiple chickens per square inch thing back East. Sigh. Made me double check where our eggs in the fridge were from since I was having one of "those" days and happened to inhale a wee bit of cookie dough while baking cookies today. Quality control, that's all. Got me worried there, though. Was wondering if I was going to be having one of "those" nights in the bathroom again followed by another round on the Darwin Award podium. I think I'm safe, though, for the most part. Fingers crossed.
All your talk of having your own chickens has me wondering if the Hub and I should be looking into building our own hutch. Hmmmm.
I'm liking the carrot porn! I'm thinking if Hugh Hefner were featuring veggie porn this month that those pics would totally be the center spread! =)
Lovely post, I dreamt about your chickens last night, is that weird? (I did NOT dream about carrots-especialy those carrots heeeeheeee) I am looking forward to harvesting my carrots now, I wonder what strange lovely shapes the will take.my I do love that we have a local choice for eggs in our grociery store that does not cost prohibitively more than the factory kind. I too do a fair amount of "quality control" while baking brownies and cookies and such.
When I first heard about chicken conditions I became a vegetarian. That was when I was 16. I still bought cheap eggs, though, because they are cheap and I'm poor.
Luckily, we found a woman in Livingston who delivers eggs TO OUR DOOR! every week. So, now we are sitting pretty (and eating a lot of quiche.) I have the Moosewood cookbook, but haven't made quiche out of there, yet. There are some excellent crust recipes in that book.
It's ok to get on your soapbox now and again...
Becky: Fifteen a day! I'm guessing you guys sold some of them? Oooh, frittatas. Good idea.
SDA: Yeah, I'm guessing where you are groceries are extra spendy, no?
Laurie: Somewhere someone has surely done a coffee-table style book of veggie porn, wouldn't you think? And I do more than inhale that cookie dough, I go right ahead and take my raw-egg chances and snitcheroo...Of course I HAVE gotten food poisoning before.
Mel: Score on eggs delivered to your door! And thanks for the soapbox words. Hard to balance passion vs. preachy sometimes :)
Pooknelle: You dreamt about my chickens? Funny, we just got a new chicken that day, thanks to NLWD. The chickens picked on her terribly for about a day, and guess what? Disciplining chickens works even less than trying to discipline boys. They seem to be doing better now, though. Pecking order had to be established, I guess.
yes we live in a food desert, as my mom puts it. My friends all have their ways of dealing with it. I buy off the Schwanns truck and feel guilty but then I buy fresh eggs locally and from the local( expensive ) grocery store too. I buy things on sale and dont always buy what I need or want all the time. My boss is great and I eat for free when I work. We also sometimes travel 200 miles round trip to shop in Walmart but only if we have to go there anyway. We also attempt to garden and that helps too. Another bonus this time of year is every body gives away as much fresh produce as a body can eat , it all helps .
I just got back from being outatown, and there are my carrots for all to see! I'm so flattered! Here's my dilemma though: when you cook a carrot, it softens, gets limp, and somehow that seems a really tragic fate for those carrots. I'm packing orthodontia so just chomping them raw won't work, plus it seems a bit ... violent ... maybe misogynist? Megan, do you have something in your Permission to Dine files that might do justice to those bad boys?