Eat to live, don't live to eat!

I spent a good part of my summer with my dear friends Donn and Diane, who run a restaurant called Mabel's on Block Island. Diane said they could use a hand in the restaurant Wednesday and Saturday mornings doing food prep, but I would have to be there by 6 a.m. Believe it or not, my customarily up-at-7-or-8-am-ass said, "Okay!"

View of Old Harbor, Block Island from Mabel's patio. Tough gig, huh.

BONUS: Driving in to town before most vacationers were even out of bed as the sun was rising over Old Harbor, sipping tea and puttsing (yes, I said "puttsing") around the kitchen before all the crazies want breakfast is a pretty sweet way to start any day in paradise.

My standard duties on Wednesdays and Saturdays were to make a frittata of  my choice, prep fruit for fruit salad, then "sugar" the donuts, which meant to take the fresh donuts (READ: FRESH DONUTS!!!!), after they had come out of the fryer, and dip them in one of three sugars: cinnamon sugar, plain sugar, powdered sugar. Tough gig, huh.


One day, I told Diane I wanted to make lobster quiche for the restaurant. After studying countless recipes for lobster quiche, I decided this quiche would be a lobster and crab quiche with corn and fresh basil.

My recipe is based on several that I looked at, but most of them tried to take the fat out of the recipe. Yikes! A real French quiche has heavy cream, people! It is not made with SKIM FRIGGIN' MILK! Okay, well maybe half-n-half instead of heavy cream cuz that's what the restaurant has in abundance on hand.

The real lump crab meat definitely takes this recipe up a notch. Rich yet delicate, with a little sweetness from the corn, big flavor from the fresh basil, you will want to eat half the pie! I guarantee it!

We made six quiches for the restaurant so I tried to break down the recipe to show what you need for just one quiche.

Lobster and Crab Quiche

• 1 cup cooked lobster meat, pulled apart and shredded
• 1/3 to 1/2 cup cooked real lump crab meat, pulled apart
• fresh corn cut off one cob (when it's summer you have no excuse for not using fresh)
• 1/2 sweet onion, chopped and sauteed (you could use leeks or shallots if you haven't spent your wad on lobster and crab meat)
• fresh basil leaves, roughly 7-10 large leaves, chiffonade
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup of half-n-half
• nutmeg (because anything with egg needs a hint of nutmeg)
• salt
• pepper
• mild white cheddar cheese, shredded

First, MAKE A PIE CRUST. Don't be lazy. Don't buy one. It's not that hard. Don't argue with me, JUST DO IT!

Pre-bake the crust for 10 minutes and then let it cool I can't tell you what a difference it makes to pre-bake and cool a crust for quiche. It will make the crust of your quiche light, flaky and delicate, even though it will be soaking in creamy eggs for a time before the quiche gets cooked through.

Toss together in a large bowl the lobster and crab meat, sauteed onion, fresh corn, and basil. Sprinkle with nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste. Dump the mixture into the pie crust.

I am estimating 4 large eggs, but it will depend on how big your pie pan is and how tall you build up the sides of your crust. It might take 5 eggs. So if you dump your egg mixture in and it is not completely full, crack another egg, help it along with some half-n-half, and keep filling up that pie crust til it's brimming.

Sprinkle with shredded cheese all over the top. A little more nutmeg wouldn't hurt either.

Bake at 350 degrees F until it is golden brown on the top and it stops "jiggling." It will take some time. Probably 50 minutes. I don't walk away from things cooking in the oven. I prefer this method over using timers. But if you insist on using a timer, set it for 45 minutes and then start checking. It will probably take less time in a convection oven.

We served it with a couple slices of watermelon and one of Diane's famous muffins.

Chef's note: You can seduce a fisherman with this quiche.

I'm mixin' margaritas at the following fiestas:

Our Delightful Home Show Me What You Got Tuesday
Boogie Board Cotttage Masterpiece Monday
Debbiedoo's Newbie Linky Party
The Ironstone Nest Transformation Tuesday
Made in a Day Made U Look Linky

I want levels, nothing but levels

Today's project: Put down the book I'm reading, The Thyroid Diet by Mary Shomon, which is basically making me feel like my life is over. Instead, get off my butt and make something. That always makes me feel better.

I've been seeing this project in the antique malls lately (not that I frequent them ;-'). Someone takes an odd china plate and attaches it to a glass base to create a unique cake stand. You might be saying to yourself, when do I have time to bake a cake? But I use cake stands for all kinds of things, for cheese and crackers, for cookies, for cupcakes, for a Sunday quiche, even for side dishes. It's a way of creating more space when you have lots of stuff out on the table, and a way to create visual interest by using vertical space. Thus, the levels.

The ones I've seen in the antique malls usually use a cut glass candlestick as the base. However, being the engineer's daughter that I am, I saw one major flaw in this design. Candlesticks do not have a wide base. They are designed to hold and balance nothing more than a thin long stick of wax. Once you attach a large round plate to that candlestick, it suddenly becomes very top heavy. I almost knocked a couple of them over in the antique mall.

So I knew if I was gonna try this craft, I would have to re-engineer it.