1 cup couscous
1.5 cups water

Cook the couscous, while you cook your onions, red peppers mushrooms. I use olive oil and toss them each in separate skillets.

Combine the cooked couscous, mushrooms, onions, peppers, and tomato. Stir and let it cool before adding feta.

Serve at room temperature.

Serves 4 as a side dish, 2 as a main dish.

Couscous is made from grains of wheat that are moistened and rolled in dry wheat powder. Buy the larger size couscous that’s sold by itself and I think you’ll find you like it much more.

Couscous is a staple in Northern Africa and also popular in Mediterranean countries.

In some countries couscous is made from barely, millet or corn. So read the label to see what you are buying.

Couscous is made like rice, about 1 part couscous to 1.5 parts water, bring the water to a boil, add couscous and cook until water is absorbed and grains are tender. Usually about 5 minutes.

This is a nice way to use up spinach or dress up some rice. I usually serve this dish with fish.

1 cup white rice

2 cups water

1 cup cooked spinach ( about 12 oz boiled )

1/4 cup Parmesan or other hard cheese, grated

1/2 white onion diced

1 Tablespoon butter

Take the rice, water and place in microwave for 15 minutes or so until water is evaporated.

In a small skillet brown the onion in the butter until clear.

Add spinach, cheese and cooked onions to your rice.

*If you try to save time by cooking the spinach with the rice, you will end up with green rice.

*If you add the spinach, cheese and onions to the rice before it is done you’ll loose some of the flavor. Wait and add them at the end.

We went to a gourmet English restaurant a few weeks back and they had some great quiche. More interesting is that they made it in individual dishes instead of as a pie. This meant you had a lot more crust per quiche. Also it would be faster to bake and the presentation is more impressive. I’ll be baking all mine that way from now on.

Quiche filling:

6 eggs

1 cup of whole milk ( or mix cream with 2% or skim milk )

About 1.5 cups of vegetables. Vegetables need to be cooked first so leftovers are great to use. Here are some of my favorite combinations:

{ tomatoes ( fresh – diced ), spinach, onions, cheddar cheese (grated) }

{ spinach, mushrooms, red peppers, goat cheese (diced) }

Mix all the ingredients.

Pie:

Use one pie crust to line the bottom of a 9″ pie plant.

Pour the filling into the pie.

Bake at 400′ about 40 minutes or until center is set. ( Many people cook the crust first for about 15 minutes then add the filling and bake until set. I always just cooked them together. )

Individual Pies:

One pie crust for each quiche

Line 2 pyrex cooking dishes ( ~6″ across x 2″ deep ) with the pie crust. Let the extra crust stand up around the edges.

Divide filling between the dishes

Bake at 400′ until center is set ~ 30 minutes.

There are medieval recipes for cheese, onion, spinach and spice tarts to be served on days that you were not supposed to eat meat. But quiche itself originally came from Germany. The word Quiche is from ‘Kuchen’ meaning cake in German. Originally it was made with eggs, milk and bacon. Later cooks added cheese. The crust was originally made from bread dough, not pie crusts. It gained popularity in England after WWII and in the United States shortly thereafter.