Smokin' Chestnut

“Love is a many splendored thing — love lifts us up where we belong! All you need is love.”

“Please, don’t start that again…”

Why…. hello again. Just thought I’d announce my return with a few lines from my favorite movie, Moulin Rouge. Although I have to admit, I thought the line was splendid, not splendored. Never heard of such a word. Anywho.

Part of my absence was due to that awful thing we call laziness and slothfulness (also did not know the latter was such a word but hey, I digress. I promise.).  I’ve been cooking this entire time, but only rarely snapping shots of our dinners. However, once summer rolled around and the sunlight graced our living room again, giving me hours of additional light, it became much easier to snag photos of our dinner.

And they have been yummy.

The other reason I’ve been slow to update is because I’ve been wanting to revamp my blog. It took me a while to figure out what web theme I wanted, and then I had to figure out how I was going to support it, and then I became overwhelmed by it all and pretended I didn’t have a food blog. Bad, Kristen, bad.

But today, after hitting another roadblock, I told myself to JUST DO IT. You’ll never get anywhere if you sit around and wait for life to be perfect. Or, as Walter Scott so aptly put it:

“To always be intending to live a new life, but never find time to set about it – this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking from one day to another till he be starved and destroyed.”

So, after spending six hours (and I exaggerate not) on researching/deciding on a host server, downloading multiple applications that made my stomach cramp with confusion, and wanting to cry from not understanding HTML/.CSS jargon, I FINALLY ended up with what I wanted all along. And here we are! I’m so happy and proud of myself. Perseverance, people.

This is a long post, but it’s been a while so I had to take you through it all. I plan on using this blog also as a photography blog so that I have a place to discuss my photos as I attempt to get better.

The first two photos are of a little wooden statue that my best friend of almost 15 years gave me as a wedding gift.  As I watched the couple sit on our window sill and rest in the soft, afternoon sunlight, I kept telling myself to take a darned photo! So I did. I like to picture Matthew and me as that couple, intertwined and steadfast in our love.

Anyway, this post is ALSO about quiche! Or tart, however you’d like to call it. I’ve made a ton of quiches in my day because they are so easy to whip together in a very short amount of time. They are also endlessly versatile. Leek and salmon quiche. Kale, squash and chive quiche. Sauteed onion, bacon and Gruyere quiche (omgosh, that one is good!). The options go for ages.

This one? Is delicious. And hearty. Wild rice, which has a bit of a crunch to it, combines with a salty, spicy sausage, and melds seamlessly with an almost sweet roasted red pepper. Throw some spinach, eggs and basil into tart pan lined with puff pastry and you’ve got dinner. Top with an avocado tomatillo salsa and you have transcendence.

Want the photo already? OK, FINE.

Oh, recipe now, too?

Wild Rice, Sausage and Roasted Red Pepper Quiche
Serves 4-6
slightly adapted from Pinch of Yum

1 cup cooked wild rice
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 1/2 cups cooked breakfast sausage
1 diced onion, sauteed
6 eggs, beaten
2 handfuls spinach
5 large basil leaves, chopped
1/2 cup jarred roasted red pepper, chopped
crumbled goat cheese (optional)
salt and pepper
Puff pastry sheet, thawed

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine all ingredients, rice through chopped red peppers, together in a large bowl. Line 10-inch pie dish with thawed puff pastry, stretching and crimping ends. Add all ingredients to pie dish. Sprinkle crumbled goat cheese on top, if desired.

Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until knife inserted comes out clean. Top with a mixture 1 smashed avocado, liberal splash of tomatillo salsa, chopped cilantro and squeeze of fresh lime (or, if you’d like the actual recipe, you can also find it at Pinch of Yum). Devour this deliciousness at once.