Egg Pie

Monday's meals:

Breakfast - Whole wheat bagel with peanut butter and a banana

Lunch - Leftover chili (we'll get to that)

Dinner - Quiche!

In addition to our chosen Lenten discipline of vegetarianism, Nate and I are also "working out". We didn't intend this as a Lenten discipline. It just happened that the start of it coincided with Lent also. Nate is in training for two events he wants to do - a 5K in town in April, and then a Spartan run in July. He's even blogging about it here - he's my inspiration for blogging. So, he's getting up three mornings a week to run. I'm getting up those same mornings and using the Wii Fit to tone I guess. I don't feel a need for weight loss, but better posture, balance, strength, and stamina are useful with a toddler. And I felt a bit lazy staying in bed while Nate got up.

All that to say, I got up to do a half hour workout this morning. Because of that, and because of my new vegetarianism, I figured I ought to smother my morning bagel with peanut butter instead of the usual cream cheese. Not sure it is a ton healthier, but at least there's the protein content.

Lunch was a guilt trip. I had brought with me the leftovers of the mammoth bean burger from Saturday. But when I got to work I realized that the chili I'd brought in to eat on Friday was still there (since we'd gone to Thai Kuu). I had kind of hoped that maybe someone else would just eat that for me over the weekend. But since it was still there, I felt as though I had to get rid of it. I didn't want it going to waste. So, I ate it. That will be my last meat item now. I told Nate to make sure he gets rid of the last of the chicken noodle soup tomorrow.

For dinner this evening Nate and I decided to make a quiche. This is our first homemade quiche! We used this recipe from Emeril - and adjusted it slightly. For instance, we had looked at a few different recipes and accidentally got heavy cream instead of half and half. And we changed some of the veggies - grape tomatoes instead of sundried. We added peppers. We also used cheddar instead of feta. But overall, we followed the technique. Except I did not make my own crust - prepackaged generic brand. This whole thing took longer than we'd anticipated to make. We forgot to check the times on the recipe before we got started. So, we had to blind bake the crust, and chop and cook the veggies, and then bake the quiche and then let it set. So...that whole process was a good hour and a half. And starting it at about 6:30 (because we didn't head straight home after work) meant that dinner wasn't ready until about 8.

This meant that we would not be sitting down to a full meal as a family this evening. We couldn't keep Liam up that late waiting for the "egg pie" to be finished. Which I felt bad about, but it couldn't be helped. I know the best thing for a family is to all sit down and eat dinner together. And that it isn't best to eat standing up. But, because dinner wouldn't be done in time Liam ran around munching on peppers and tomatoes and cheese and other raw ingredients (not the eggs) enough to fill himself. And he watched and helped us cook. So, I figure this was good quality family time. Shortly before we put him to bed he asked if it was "pie time" so we told him not yet and that we'd save him a special piece of pie to eat for lunch tomorrow. He seemed cool with that.

So, results: It was delicious. We were hungry, so we didn't give it a full half hour to cool and set before digging in. The first piece came out sloppy, so I took a photo of the second piece. The only adjustments I'd make would be to add a touch more fresh thyme and to blind bake the crust a bit longer (or use fewer beans to weigh it down so the heat gets through). The bottom was still a bit soft when we put the veggies and custard into the shell. But, small adjustments only.

Yum.