Herbed Quiche {with blue cheese}

I love blue cheese. Honestly it ranks up there with avocado for me. Yesterday while looking through recipes, I got so excited when I spotted this one; a quiche with blue cheese as one of the ingredients. I've never made a quiche before, and I was kind of nervous about it. I don't really know why i felt apprehensive, I guess just the name makes it sound hard to make. (Plus my mom makes the most amazing quiches in the world, so I have quite large shoes to fill.) But i'm so glad that I did it! I really like this recipe because its flavorful and uber creamy. 

Although this recipe is quite easy, it is moderately time consuming, so keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that many of the dairy ingredients need to reach room temperature before you whisk them up, and the dough needs to chill for at least an hour before you bake it, so plan time accordingly. 

The final product is super yummy, and I definitely will be making this again!

Herbed Quiche With Blue Chesse

I N G R E D I E N T S:

~ 1 savory pie crust (recipe posted below)

~ 6 oz. cream cheese at room temperature

~ 2 oz blue cheese at room temperature

~ 2 T butter at room temperature

~ 3 eggs

~ 1 C heavy cream

~ 1 C whole milk

~1/2 t salt

~ 1/4 t pepper

~ 3 T chopped fresh herbs (such as: parsley, thyme, tarragon, chives and/or oregano)

D I R E C T I O N S:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thickness to fit and 8 inch tart or pie pan. Fill pan with dough, easing the dough up against the sides.

3. Line the pastry shell with parchment paper and fill it with ceramic pie weights or dried beans. Place on baking sheet and bake for 9 minutes. Place on wire rack to cool. Remove parchment paper and weights.

4.Lower the oven to 375. In medium bowl, whisk together cream cheese, butter and blue cheese. Whisk in eggs until blended. Stir in cream, milk salt, pepper and herbs. Pour filling into partially baked pie shell. Place on baking sheet and bake, rotating halfway through, until it is puffed and golden brown; about 25 minutes. Quiche is done when knife inserted into the center comes out clean. 

5. Let cool at least 5 minutes before slicing.

tips&&tricks;

     ~Using a pie pan works just fine, as most are 9 inches in diameter. I used one because I don't have a tart pan yet. (insert super sad face here)

     ~I used dried herbs (the ones you buy from the store in glass bottles) because thats all I had, and it worked just fine! I mixed together large amounts of oregano, parsley and thyme, with smaller amounts of basil, rosemary and chives. It still tasted great, but I'm sure fresh herbs will just be that much better.

SAVORY PIE CRUST

I N G R E D I E N T S:

~ 1 1/4 C all purpose flour

~ 1 t salt

~ 1/2 t freshly ground black pepper

~ 8 T cold butter, cut into pieces

~ 3- 4 T ice water

D I R E C T I O N S:

1. Place flour, salt and pepper in bowl of food processor to combine. Add butter and process until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. While machine is still running, gradually drizzle in the water, processing until the dough becomes a ball.

2. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and shape into a flat disk. wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to overnight.

enjoy

xo

B

Blueberry {crumble} Muffins

Brunch is my favorite meal. I love to make it and i LOVE to eat it. I think just the whole concept of it displays decadence. Sleeping in. Eating buttery, creamy, fresh foods. Drinking ice cold juices and warm, flavorful teas.  And just the whole creative world to explore while decorating. Its like a tea party you can attend wearing pajamas. I could go on, and on, but I digress. 

One of my favorite breakfast brunch foods is blueberry muffins. For the past couple months I've searched for that perfect muffin recipe. The one that even before you make it, you know its the one. Well ladies and gentlemen, I have found the one.

The past 5 days or so I've been sick and my appetite is minimal. This morning I woke up planning on making blueberry buttermilk pancakes, but as I walked into the kitchen, i just wasn't feeling it! So i hopped on my computer and Googled around and came upon a recipe for blueberry muffins. I further browsed the website and observed that this would be my "these are the best muffins EVER" muffin recipe. Anything with the word 'crumble' in the title is a winner. Crumble cake. yum. crumble topping on a muffin. double yum. So i whipped these suckers up and BAM. I had my long lost muffin recipe. Seriously, these pictures don't do them justice.
They're a m a z i n g. For real. 

{recipe is courtesy of this young lady's blog found here}

I N G R E D I E N T S

{for the muffins}

~ 1 1/2 C all purose flour

~ 1/2 C white sugar

~ 1/2 teaspoon salt

~ 2 teaspoons baking powder

~ 1/4 C vegetable oil

~ 1 egg

~ 1/3 C milk

~ 1 C fresh blueberries

----------------------------------------------

{for the crumble topping}

~1/2 C white sugar

~1/3 C all purpose flour

~ 1/4 C butter, melted

~ 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

D I R E C T I O N S

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin tin or line with baking cups.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Stir until combined.

3. Add vegetable oil, egg and milk into flour mixture. Mix.

4. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top.

5. To make crumble topping, with a fork, mix together: flour, sugar, butter and cinnamon. Sprinkle over muffins before baking.

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until done.

tips&&tricks; 

     ~use fresh blueberries, they're better 

     ~sprinkle the crumb topping over the muffins generously. (I completely covered the muffin mixture underneath)

      ~ this recipe made me 9 very large muffins, so if you're considering making these for entertaining double or triple the batch as needed. The muffins are very filling tho. 

Right out of the oven. mmmmm.

The finished product.

Excuse my gingerbread men baking liners, it was all i had left!

Enjoy!

XO

B

     

Logged {Out}

I can not express how joyful I am to be writing this post. If you're friends with me on Facebook, you may have noticed, I'm not there anymore. That is because last week I made the decision to sign out on Facebook for the next couple months, as I deactivated my account. Over the past months the Lord had showed me through faithful friends how the amount of time I was spending on Facebook was indeed unwise. It is so easy to forsake real responsibilities and embrace the fake online world. Although in the past few months the amount of time I spent on Facebook had declined, its presence still remained. I can not tell you how many times I've caught myself looking at peoples profiles and thought "Why am I doing this? How did I even get to this person's page? This is so stupid!!" There are so many more profitable things I could be doing with my time, and definitely endless more ways to give glory to the Lord, but in my sinfulness I had neglected to even think of this! With so many crazy things going on in my life, I realized how Facebook was an easy distraction and time-waster.  I hope to use these next months to really get my priorities straight, and use my time and life to better honor and worship the Lord. 

After I deactivated my account, so many things became clear! Looking back its so silly that I would spend time being informed about different peoples lives that I really don't know. I don't need to know who he or she is dating, where you went for your summer '07 family vacation or what you are currently eating! So many relationships and "friendships" sprang up in my life because of Facebook, and needlessly so. I'm talking about those random people who you happen to meet at a friends birthday dinner, and now you talk to every night about nothing just because you both happen to be online at the same time. Its so meaningless! I'm so saddened when I look back at all the minutes wasted on empty chatter, but thankful to the Lord for having brought this to my attention.

Now here is the icing on the cake for me. My close friends, or those who I would call my best friends, we don't even hardly communicate on Facebook! Without Facebook, our friendship will undoubtedly continue and grow stronger. All that said, I see no reason for me to use my time in such a way. But before you think I hate the whole institution, there definitely are things I will miss! The magic birthday calendar is probably number 1 on that list. No way in my human frailty could I remember 700+ birthdays, so if this upcoming year I miss your birthday, I apologize in advance! Tell me and it will be marked on my real calendar, never to be forgotten again. :)

I also will also miss being able to more steadily communicate with those who live far away *cough* Katrina Herrera*cough*. One of my dear sisters and best friends lives in Rhode Island and attends the Naval Academy Prep School. Because of the time difference and our busy schedules it's hard to find time to always talk on the phone, so it definitely was nice to be able to leave her videos and receive wall posts from her, but thank God for texting and email :) 

Finally I definitely will miss all the encouragement that happens on Facebook. So many verses and quotes that give praise to the Lord are posted everyday, andIi definitely was thankful for that. But I'm definitely more thankful to be able to work on this area of my life that has been a struggle! 

Please, please PLEASE don't think I'm saying that it's wrong to have a Facebook, because its not!!! But when I took a survey of my life and looked at areas that I needed to work on, it became apparent that one practical thing to do in order to get rid of distractions was delete my account. For now I plan to fly solo, until school ends and tentatively reactivate it then. (with a better game plan for using my time and who I spend that time interacting with :)  So bon voyage multi-billion social network! I'm so excited to see what the Lord will do in my life and friendships because of this. Yay!!

XO

B

Out With The Old {In With The New}

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The past year has been crazy to say the least! In the very small time of 365 days so much has happened! But the two main things were;

1. High School Graduation: 

needless to say, this was definitely one of the best days of my life. No words can describe the incredible feeling of freedom after I crossed that stage. It was spectacular.

2. My Salvation:

This past summer the Lord entered my life in a personal way. Through Christ's work on the cross, we can now be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to him if we accept him as our savior. My life changed radically from that moment on! So thankful for all the things that have changed because of this.

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I am so excited for what this year will bring! I'm not a huge fan of New Years Resolutions.....waiting until a new year starts to change your habits is in fact...a bad habit. I tend to take the Nike approach "just do it."  But thats just me. However some things I'm looking to accomplishing are: reading a lot more, getting back into rad shape, and getting my NANC certification. 

I am so stoked to see the blessings that will unfold this year, and what the Lord will bring my way! 

<3 

B