The other day, desperate for a change for dinner from our usual rotation of spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, rice and beans, and stir fry, I found this recipe online and adapted it for what we had on hand and to accommodate my intense hatred of mushrooms. (I tend to think that they have the texture of a slug - not that I have ever eaten a slug but I've seen enough of them to get a rough idea of their probable texture.) I got rid of the mushrooms entirely and replaced broccoli for the asparagus originally called for. I also used a slightly smaller zucchini than was stated in the original recipe because, although I am a vegetarian, I tend not to like vegetables. My general opinion on the categorization of fruits and vegetables is this: if it tastes good, it is a fruit; if it tastes bad it's clearly a vegetable. All in all, although this recipe is full of veggies, it wasn't bad. I would even go so far as to call it quite good. And if you dice the vegetables small enough you might even get a picky eater (such as myself) to eat their greens.
The prep time is about 20 minutes, depending upon how meticulous you are with your dicing, and the cook time is about an hour. Additionally, even though we ate this for dinner I'm sure it would make a good breakfast or brunch dish as well.
8 egg whites
4 whole eggs
1/2 cup skim milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon pepper
16 oz fat free cottage cheese
1 cup shredded monterey jack cheese, divided
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, divided
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 of a yellow onion, diced
1 medium zucchini, diced
2 cups broccoli, diced
1 - 2 tomatoes, diced, seeds removed
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and spray a 3 quart casserole dish with cooking spray. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg whites and eggs until fluffy. Add in the cottage cheese, 3/4 cup shredded cheddar, 3/4 cup shredded monterey jack, milk, flour, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, oregano, thyme, and pepper. In a large skillet over medium high heat, saute the onion, zucchini, and broccoli with the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of salt for about 5 minutes or until tender. Add the cooked vegetables and the diced tomato to the egg mixture and fold everything together. Pour into the casserole dish and top it with the remaining shredded cheese. Place it in the oven on the middle rack. Bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees then lower the temperature to 350 degrees (leaving the quiche inside the oven) and bake for another 45-55 minutes or until it is set and lightly browned.
Monday, August 13, 2018
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Three [escape artist] mice
We have three new mice here on the Unfarm. Recently my two previous mice, Evangeline and Francine, passed away and the mouse cage sat empty with a vacancy sign out front that must have attracted the attention of three new mice who I have named Hermione, Ingrid, and Josephine. (I have been going through the alphabet with mouse names and have already had an Angela, Bernadette, Caroline, Daphne, Evangeline, Francine and Gemima so H, I, and J were up next.) In addition, as the mice are small and relatively unobtrusive it no longer really phases my parents when I show up with three new ones. Thus Hermione, Ingrid, and Josephine came to live on the Unfarm with very little fuss involved. I suspect that had I also brought home a hamster in addition to the three mice there would have been a bit more uproar so I wisely refrained. Besides, the mice were most likely going to end up as dinner for some snake so I really am in the business of saving lives here.
Josephine appears to be the oldest of the three as she is the largest. Hermione and Ingrid are likely much younger and upon settling them into their new home I quickly discovered a problem with this: they are so little that they easily fit through the bars of the mouse cage. I checked up on them a few minutes after getting them settled and found only Hermione and Josephine in the cage; Ingrid was running around the outside of the cage. Fortunately I quickly caught her before she could escape into the rest of the house. Unfortunately, all three of my various mouse cages have bars with the same amount of spacing between them so the only way to fix the problem is to set the cage up high on a rolling cart and hope that the height and lack of anything to use to climb down to the ground will deter them from getting lost should they decide to escape. Well, that and to feed them well and hope that they grow fast and soon are unable to squeeze themselves through the bars any longer.
I am, by nature, a bit paranoid and overly anxious so I do check on the mice and do a head count several times a day to make sure that no one has escaped and up until a few days ago the combination of the height of the cage off the ground and the fact that there is really nothing exciting outside the cage (no castle house, no wheel, no food or water bowls) seemed to keep them safely inside the cage. A few days ago, though, I did my morning head count only to discover that one mouse was missing. But she was nowhere to be found on the outside of the cage or the top of the cart so surely I must have miscounted. Nope. There were definitely only two mice in the cage. Becoming frantic I began looking around the room in frustration as there are probably a million places a small mouse could hide and I had no idea where to start. Before I could go into a full blown panic I noticed some mouse droppings on my tabletop easel on the second shelf of the rolling cart. Further investigation revealed a rather frightened looking Hermione crouched on top of the easel. How she got down there I will probably never know. It's not like there were a bunch of tiny mouse sized sheets all tied together and thrown out of the cage dangling down to the second shelf. I retrieved her and placed her back in the safety of the cage (we have cats, after all, who would probably love to catch one of the mice outside the cage.)
Since her misadventure, none of the mice have ventured outside the cage (at least not to my knowledge). Hermione did pop her head outside the cage bars last night but when I peered at her and said, "where do you think you're going?" she pulled her head back in and went about her mousy business. I am hoping that they soon grow too big to get through the bars, much like Josephine, and I can stop worrying so much about them. Until then I plan to continue my head counts and abundant feeding schedule.
Josephine appears to be the oldest of the three as she is the largest. Hermione and Ingrid are likely much younger and upon settling them into their new home I quickly discovered a problem with this: they are so little that they easily fit through the bars of the mouse cage. I checked up on them a few minutes after getting them settled and found only Hermione and Josephine in the cage; Ingrid was running around the outside of the cage. Fortunately I quickly caught her before she could escape into the rest of the house. Unfortunately, all three of my various mouse cages have bars with the same amount of spacing between them so the only way to fix the problem is to set the cage up high on a rolling cart and hope that the height and lack of anything to use to climb down to the ground will deter them from getting lost should they decide to escape. Well, that and to feed them well and hope that they grow fast and soon are unable to squeeze themselves through the bars any longer.
I am, by nature, a bit paranoid and overly anxious so I do check on the mice and do a head count several times a day to make sure that no one has escaped and up until a few days ago the combination of the height of the cage off the ground and the fact that there is really nothing exciting outside the cage (no castle house, no wheel, no food or water bowls) seemed to keep them safely inside the cage. A few days ago, though, I did my morning head count only to discover that one mouse was missing. But she was nowhere to be found on the outside of the cage or the top of the cart so surely I must have miscounted. Nope. There were definitely only two mice in the cage. Becoming frantic I began looking around the room in frustration as there are probably a million places a small mouse could hide and I had no idea where to start. Before I could go into a full blown panic I noticed some mouse droppings on my tabletop easel on the second shelf of the rolling cart. Further investigation revealed a rather frightened looking Hermione crouched on top of the easel. How she got down there I will probably never know. It's not like there were a bunch of tiny mouse sized sheets all tied together and thrown out of the cage dangling down to the second shelf. I retrieved her and placed her back in the safety of the cage (we have cats, after all, who would probably love to catch one of the mice outside the cage.)
Since her misadventure, none of the mice have ventured outside the cage (at least not to my knowledge). Hermione did pop her head outside the cage bars last night but when I peered at her and said, "where do you think you're going?" she pulled her head back in and went about her mousy business. I am hoping that they soon grow too big to get through the bars, much like Josephine, and I can stop worrying so much about them. Until then I plan to continue my head counts and abundant feeding schedule.
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| Josephine |
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| Hermione, the escape artist |
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| Ingrid, our original escape artist |
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