Laurel & Ally's Sleep In Cafe: Sausage Quiche #1

(photo by Scott Snyder)

L&A's Sausage Quiche #1

Ingredients:

1 Pillsbury pie crust shell
1/2 lb chicken apple sausage
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 1/2 cps grated cheddar cheese
2 T flour
2 t parsley flakes, or 1 T chopped fresh parsley if possible
3 beaten eggs
1 1/2 cps milk
1/4 tsp salt
coarse grated black pepper to taste
dash ground nutmeg
red and green pepper, chopped
olive oil

Directions:

Prepare pie crust: Line the unpricked pastry shell with double thickness of aluminum foil. Bake in a 450 degree oven for 8 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 4-5 minutes more until pastry is set and dry. Remove from oven.

Turn oven down to 350 degrees. Put in a cookie sheet on the middle rack to preheat.

Cook sausage, onion, and green and red peppers in pan in a bit of olive oil. Drain excess grease if any.

In large bowl, combine sausage mixture with cheese, flour and parsley. Mix well. Spread into pie crust.

Mix together in separate bowl eggs, milk, salt, black pepper, and nutmeg. Pour over sausage mixture.

Bake on a preheated cookie sheet for 30-40 minutes, uncovered at 350 degrees, or until eggs are set and top is golden.

Serving suggestions:

Breakfast - serve with toast and jam, orange juice, and fresh fruit like watermelon or berries.
Lunch/Dinner - serve with green tossed salad with balsamic vinaigrette, champagne or white wine, and crusty French bread with butter.

Enjoy!

And remember: Always cook with love and good music!

~Ally

Allison's Aztec Casserole

Aztec Casserole
~Pastel o Budin Azteca~
adapted from the traditional Mexican cookbook Lauren made for me

Ingredients:

1 lb. chicken breast, cooked, shredded or cubed
1 28-oz. can diced tomatoes (with spices added)
1 11-oz. can Super Sweet Yellow & White corn
1 small can salsa verde (green salsa made from jalapenos)
1/2 lb. shredded cheese (Cheddar or Mexi-blend)
2 flour tortillas, burrito-sized
boil-in-bag white rice, cooked according to package
1/2 green pepper, diced
olive or Canola oil for frying
spices: salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic salt, basil, lemon pepper
(sour cream optional)


Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (Fahrenheit). Lightly grease a 9x9 baking pan.

Cook chicken - lightly salt, pepper, and lemon pepper.
Cook rice - season with onion powder, garlic salt, and basil.

Use skillet to lightly fry two tortillas, not to the point of crispy.
Then add oil and saute green pepper.



Cut each tortilla in half; use two halves as the first layer of the casserole.

Add half the tomatoes and corn.

Add half the diced chicken and rice.


Add half the green peppers and dot with spoonfuls of salsa verde.

Cover with half the cheese.

Repeat each layer. Cheese should top the casserole. (Can add sour cream to top if desired.)


Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. (You may have leftover tomatoes and will have extra salsa verde.)


ENJOY!

~Ally

Making Marie's Apple Pie

(all photos by Scott Snyder) 

On Monday, I had the pleasure of making Marie's wonderful Apple Crumble Pie - the recipe can be found on her blog, A Year From Oak Cottage. 

My dear husband and my mom Charlotte - my pie making assistant - LOVED this pie! Scott says it is better than my usual, and he was a pretty big fan of my previous apple pies. So I suppose I will be using Marie's recipe from now on! The only thing I added was a dash of ground cloves to the apple mixture and some pats of butter to dot the top of the apples once in the pie crust, but before the crumb topping was added.
These three top pictures are the before shots, with a delicious mound of crumbs toppling over in a blessed heap.
And this is the after. Browned beautifully. I cooked the pie on 375 Fahrenheit - about 25 minutes, then added foil to cover the outer crust, and cooked an additional 20ish minutes until I could hear the filling bubbling under the crumbs.
Deeeeee-licious! With Boston Vanilla Bean ice cream alongside, we had a slice of heaven on a Monday night. We enjoyed this pie while watching "Milk," a film I highly recommend.

Thanks for sharing your recipe, Marie! We all loved it!

~Ally

Gookie Gookie

All right dolly, remember this? Well at long last, here is the recipe for yummy Susan's Brownies, an endless crowd favorite.

Susan's Brownies

2 cans sweetened condensed milk
12 oz bag chocolate chips
26 long* graham crackers (*long = 2 squares)

Crush crackers thoroughly (easy in a ziploc, using a rolling pin or can). Mix with milk and chocolate chips. Heavily grease a 9x13 pan. Spread evenly. Bake 40 minutes at 350 degrees (F), until top is just golden brown and starting to come away from pan. Do not wait until top is brown - by tomorrow they'll be hard as rocks! As soon as cool, cut and store in airtight container. Or, um, EAT THEM! ENJOY!

So easy. So delicious. And you heard it here first.

~Ally

THIS

(photo not by me)

is the Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookie, by Martha Stewart.

Uh, yep. These are THE cookies to top all Christmas cookies. They are a bit time intensive, but the effort is worth it. Make sure to take them out before they are too done, and once cooled, to wrap them or store them right away - don't want these babies drying out. If they do, just start dipping 'em in milk or coffee or hot cocoa and you'll have a whole new level of delights. Mmmmmm.

Recipe is on Martha's website, here.

Oy...can you say YUMMMM?

[Photos by Marie from A Year From Oak Cottage.]

I have got to get me some of this. Ohhh, I can just taste it for looking at it. {Note it is 1:29 a.m. and we are coming upon the appointed time for another meal.}

To follow Marie's recipe for Blueberry Soured Cream Cake, go to this post. If you're in the States like me, you will also want to look under "What's On The Menu" in the right column, and click on "Measurement Conversion List," where Marie explains the correct conversion from metric to US measurements. Could you just sink your teeth into this? I know I could. Thanks, Marie!



~Allison