Kid Vs. Produce

Probably three years ago, The Boy and I went together to our local Dinner My Way restaurant and assembled some entrees for the freezer.  One of the dishes we came home with was called “Spinach Pie” and was basically a quiche using fresh baby spinach, onion, Greek olives, cherry tomatoes and feta cheese, among other ingredients.  It was also topped with puff-pastry, which I thought was overkill.  Anyway, The Boy actually loved this pie, and I’ve been banging around in the kitchen trying to duplicate it for the last three years to no avail.

Let’s just say that making a quiche with an entire brick of feta will yield something so salty you will need to drink a gallon of water after one bite, and then you’ll be throwing it all away.  Learn from me, friends!

The other night, I made another run at it.

Here’s what we started with:

• 4 eggs
• a pint of heavy whipping cream
• a can of water-packed artichoke hearts
• 1/4 of a yellow onion
• a handful of cherry tomatoes
• a handful of Greek olives
• about 3 oz of feta cheese
• about 1 cup mozzarella
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (which is essentially me shaking the shaker over the bowl two times)
• And then a bunch of organic baby spinach
• Oh, and some already prepared pie crusts from the freezer

So, the plan was to make one spinach and artichoke heart quiche, but I had two pie crusts, and once I got to chopping and dicing the ingredients, I discovered that I would easily have enough to make two, so I just went for it.

I call this one, gloomy cheese duo. (You can see, it’s about double the mozzarella to the feta, in an effort to keep the salty factor down.)

The olives I selected to work with had pits in them, so after hacking the olive flesh off the pits of about 6 olives, I ate the rest and moved on.

In a big measuring pitcher, I mixed up the four eggs, the pint of cream and the pepper and cayenne. I would usually add salt to this mix too, but come on. Feta? Brined olives? I skipped the salt.

Into the empty, uncooked pie shells, I had the kids layer the cheese and other fillings. The Boy was not confident that I had the recipe balance right. “There’s a lot of green and things in here,” he pointed out. “Plus, I hate tomatoes.”

At this point, I dumped in the custard mixture and put both into a preheated 400 degree oven for 15 minutes, and then reduced the heat to 300 and cooked them for another 30 minutes.

Ta-daaaaaa!

I baked these mid-afternoon, but by the time we were ready for dinner, the kids were all complaining of upset stomachs and were feverish. By the time I got them all tucked in bed, we all skipped dinner.

I’ve been eating it for lunch, and although I think it’s closer to the original than my usual disastrous attempts, it still isn’t the same. I’m missing some herb or spice. In any case, it is very flavorful and delicious, but all three kids were not enthusiastic about this one. I think there was just too much going on for them to process.