Make-Ahead Meals for Busy Moms by Jane Doiron

Make-Ahead Meals for Busy Moms by Jane Doiron
Copyright 2009
Outskirts Press - Cookbook
208 pages

Seafood Quiche

A great recipe for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!

9-inch deep dish frozen pie crust, thawed
1 can (6 oz.) lump crabmeat, drained
1 can (4 oz.) medium shrimp, drained
1 cup mild cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
2 tablespoons green onion, finely sliced
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup half-and-half cream
1/4 teaspoon pepper

~A Day Ahead~

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Place the crabmeat and shrimp evenly in the bottom of the pie shell. Top with cheese and green onion. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, half-and-half and pepper. Pour the egg mixture over everything in the pie. Place the pie on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake for about 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Cover and refrigerate.

~Cooking Directions~

Reheat the quiche in the microwave.
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This is my favorite recipe from Make-Ahead Meals, so far. Confession: I didn't do the cooking; My husband did. He does most of the cooking in our house, so he evaluates the cookbooks and I evaluate the food.

Husband's opinion about the book: It's not what he expected. He thought when I described the book he could expect a book of meals that you prepared in advance (like over the weekend) and freeze, thawing one every day or two so that you had a full week's worth of meals. When he saw the book, he was surprised at the beautiful cover and disappointed when he opened the book to find it totally unillustrated. He did, however, like the fact that the recipes are simple, require few ingredients and are not time-consuming.

My opinion: I had similar expectations. Neither one of us could quite figure out how there's any time saving during the week. I would have liked recipes that could be prepared in bulk, frozen in several containers and stockpiled. But, I loved that seafood quiche and there are several more recipes I want to try. I like the fact that the ingredients are easy to acquire (very important in our area -- we don't have access to a lot of unique or ethnic ingredients) and recipes are not complex. They appear to be more time-saving in their limited ingredients and the ease with which they can be tossed together than in any other way.

We plan to try a few more recipes, but our kitchen is currently in a state of minor chaos. I didn't realize we were going to end up remodeling at the time this tour rolled around. If I have any further comments about the book, once our mess is gone and we're cooking normally, I'll mention them in future posts!

Thanks to Jane Doiron for the review copy of Make-Ahead Meals! I received this for a book tour.

In case you're interested, here's the portion of the kitchen we've managed to complete:


We just managed to get the bottom doors on that side screwed on, today. However, there are some gaping holes that you can't see outside the picture frame. We used to have a double oven but when the door fell off (sigh -- I'll bet nobody else can tell me they had a door fall off their oven), we opted to replace our oven with a single and create drawer space where the second oven used to be. Husband is making the drawers to fit. We're just refacing the kitchen - painting, putting on new doors and drawer facings (and the necessary hardware) and adding those drawers, but everything has to come out of the cabinets when we paint. And, we have on inky dinky kitchen and breakfast nook, so it's been something.

If you make the seafood quiche recipe, come back and tell me. I agree with that comment (from the book) that it's great for any meal. I mostly ate it for breakfast. I'm known for eating quiche for breakfast, though. Nothing overly unusual, there.

Don't forget to stand up and be counted (comment at my last post, that is). And, note that I have three giveaways going in my sidebar. I hope to get some more listed, soon. I signed up for more than I realized (blush). I don't know if I've put Sanjay Gupta's book in the "Now Reading" section of my sidebar but I read the first chapter and they weren't kidding when they advertised it as "like a thriller". It's gripping and a bit of a horror in that the U.S. is behind the world in a life-saving treatment. I hope it horrifies a few really noisy Americans. You should read it to find out what I mean.

Must go crawl into bed and attempt to sleep for the third time. Nighty night!