Parlez-Vous Francais?

Knowing I wanted to do a little cooking this weekend, I decided to head out to the grocery store this morning for a few ingredients I didn't have in the house. And quite reasonably, I think, I decided to take the extremely long route to the store--the one that passes by the Goodwill store in the City of Citrus Heights.

Citrus Heights has always been a geographic section of the Sacramento area but only within the last several years has it become an incorporated city. And once it became a city, local government decided that everyone should drive excessively slow within its city limits. I'm certain they can't possibly understand the impossibility of driving slow when one is on one's way to a thrift store!

So I'm driving along, at a speed maybe just a tad over the speed limit, when I noticed an unmarked police car come up behind me with its siren on and flashing lights. Uh oh! Of course, my first thought was, "Is he pulling me over? If he's going to give me a ticket, I wonder if he'll let me take a photo of him for the blog?" But no, he changed lanes and went after someone else. Whew! Except I don't have a good photo for you of a Citrus Heights undercover officer writing me a ticket. Bummer! Not!

So what did I find at Goodwill? Well, I found a few little odds and ends, but today's treasure is an oak bench. They actually had two, but what would I do with two oak benches? And truth be told, it took me several minutes to figure out what I'd do with ONE oak bench, but here it is, sitting in the Wild Child's former room:

Someday if I ever have a house with an honest-to-God entryway or a mud room, I'd like to put a bench in it, but for now, this will do. It's also a nice size to use at our dining table if we have five or six people. So the bench has a new home and Hubby was pleased with it too.

Now, why am I speaking French to you? Because I made quiche tonight! My favorite, easiest quiche recipe lives in this little book, which I stole from my mother when I moved out a bazillion years ago--

And here's the recipe. I think if you click it larger, you can probably see the recipe pretty well.

One of the things I like about this recipe is that it uses ordinary milk. Just about everything in the recipe is stuff I have on hand all the time. Instead of bacon, you can use ham or sausage. I also toss in sliced green onion. You can change from Swiss cheese to another cheese if you prefer. You can add in spinach and/or mushrooms or whatever veggies you like--just cook them first and squeeze out all the moisture you can. In other words, it's a very versatile recipe. I've made a few minor variations over the years.

What I've found is that in order to make two pies--which I usually do because I often use purchased crusts (don't tell Red Geranium Sharon though--I have her half convinced that I'm Martha Stewart!)--I just make one and a half times the amount of "custard"--the milk, egg, butter, flour, and spices--called for in the recipe.

First I toss all my ingredients (in this case, diced leftover ham and sliced green onions) into the pie shells except the cheese . . .

Then I add shredded cheese (about 1/3 pound of shredded Swiss for each pie is fine although the recipe calls for 1/2 pound--whatever floats your boat works!) . . .

And then I just pour the custard in to the top and bake . . .

for around 40 minutes at 375 degrees. I cooked mine a little bit too long (because I was playing around in the Sweat Shop) but it was still quite delicious! And no, the top isn't actually burned--the photo looks a lot darker than it really was!

Yum! So go make some quiche, okay? Once you do, you too will be speaking French! Bon appetit!