Recipe Test: Winter Tomato Quiche

For those of you who have been following along in my weight loss pursuit, you may recall that I whined and complained about how bland the Curves Complete diet seemed to me.  Now, don't get me wrong.  There is a lot of good to be gained from following the diet.  But for someone like me who loves to cook, it was lacking in flavor and imagination.  It was sort of like a trip to Taco Bell where there are a few ingredients just wrapped up in a different package to make a different meal.  Night after night of that can seem like eating the same dinner over and over again, despite calling it by a different name.

My Curves coach and I discussed my changing up the menu some.  I've been following the diet for its breakfasts, lunches, and snacks, but for dinner I'm striking out on my own.  I have a huge database of recipes I've already tried (I have even more recipes than quilt patterns if you can imagine that!), and thousands on my to-do list.  So far, so good, if losing 7 pounds in 5 weeks is any indication.  (I hope I didn't just jinx myself.)  I've been drawing on recipes from Cooking Light and other healthy food magazines, and also from a column in The New York Times that I happen to love called Recipes for Health by Martha Rose Shulman.  I've made her recipes many times, and found them to be both healthy and delicious.  (Uh Oh.  I just did a search for Martha Rose Shulman and discovered she has a cookbook.  This is never good news for my bank account.)

Last night I tried a couple of good recipes I wanted to tell you about.  The first was Martha Rose Shulman's Winter Tomato Quiche (recipe here).

(image source:  Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times)

It was so good, and easy to make.  I used her Whole Wheat Yeasted Olive Oil pastry crust.  The crust recipe makes enough for two crusts.  I made it the first time when I made Martha Rose Shulman's Spinach and Onion Tart (also delicious).  I like this pastry recipe because it uses whole wheat flour along with olive oil instead of butter.  Also, it's an interesting texture that is much easier to work with than a conventional pie crust.  The recipe makes enough for two crusts, and the second one was in my freezer.  Bonus!  It had been sitting there for a couple of months at least, and I figured I was going to throw it out.  Then along comes this recipe for the Winter Tomato Quiche!  It's like the kitchen gods were smiling on me!  Using the same crust I used, this recipe clocks in at 289 calories per serving and it makes six servings.  Not bad at all, and I felt satisfied with just one serving.

We're eating the leftovers for breakfast now.  In the winter, it uses canned tomatoes.  In the summer you can make it by lining your crust with fresh tomatoes and then making the "custard" to pour over.  And that just caused me to pause and chant "Come On Summer!" a few times just to let it know its appreciated.

For a side dish, I tried another recipe on my to-do list, this one from Martha Stewart.  Which brings me to the question of the hour.  Last night I was looking at the most recent issue of Martha Stewart Living, and I saw a picture of Martha herself in rubber boots standing practically hip deep in her compost pile with a shovel.  So here's my question:  Do you think Martha actually does manual labor on her farm?  I am very suspicious about this.  

But I digress.  Here's the side dish I made to go with the quiche.  Butternut Squash with Brown Butter (recipe right here).  This was another dish that was so tasty and easy to do.  I plugged the ingredients into Calorie Count and came up with 154 calories per serving.  The recipe as written makes four servings, and it was also delicious.  It was a perfect accompaniment for the quiche.

(image source)

With two tablespoons of butter, it is a little high in fat, but if you consider that it is split among four servings, then you have a half tablespoon of butter per serving.  I imagine you could cut the butter by half and still have it work out fine.  Also, you finish it off with a brown sugar glaze, using one tablespoon of brown sugar.  That would be less than one teaspoon per serving, so not too bad.  It relies on the sweetness of the butter and the butternut squash for most of its flavor.

What I liked about these two recipes together is that they also play well in preparation.  You can make up the crust and the tomato sauce for the quiche earlier in the day, and then put it all together when you're ready to make dinner.  The quiche bakes in the oven for 35 minutes, and then it needs to sit for 15 minutes before you cut into it.  That time gives you plenty of elbow room for making your butternut squash while you wait.

So there you go.  Tips for Tasty Dieting.