Turmeric and Quiche

A Tale of Two Dishes

Turmeric is a lovely spice, providing that lovely deep yellow color.  Sadly, I cannot blame the spice for my most recent culinary failure.  I just wanted to clear that up - do not hold the turmeric responsible for this disaster.

I was all excited this weekend (for several reasons, but for the moment I will stick to this one) - I was headed to a Potluck for Progressives event, and I was going to wow all these people I'd never met with my awesome vegan dish.  I was going to make mini crustless quiche from Fat Free Vegan (http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2006/12/mini-crustless-tofu-quiches.html ), which I have been eying for a while.  I was so excited for these, they would be tasty bites of vegan heaven, and these people would instantly love me.  

I went ahead and was making these amazing little yummies, swapping out the mushrooms and peppers for asparagus.  I put the entire mixture together according to the directions (which are surprisingly easy given how lovely they look in the pictures on the blog).  I then scooped some batter into each little greased muffin cup of my mini-muffin tin.  I figured I'd make mini-sized ones, since I needed more than 12...and I don't own a full-sized muffin tin.  

Everything was going according to plan - I had greased the tin, pre-heated the oven, and not overloaded the batter with veggies.  Little did I know the disaster about to befall my little beauties.

The timer went off.  I anxiously tested them with my knife and they were not cooked enough.  So I put them back in and let them cook until the knife came out clean.

I think the first mistake was not letting them cool enough.

I tried to get them out of the pan to put them on my fancy paper plate, but nothing happened.  So I flipped the pan and still...nothing.  So then I picked up this upside-down pan, and shake it, giving it a little smack to shake them out.  And that is when it happened...suddenly I had mini quiche On the table, on the plate (not neatly formed, as intended, but splattered), on my foot, and all over my computer cord.  There was only one word that came to mind at that moment, but for decency's sake I will refrain from writing it here.

So there I was - covered in hot asparagus quiche and no time to make new quiche for this Potluck.  So I did what any respectable person would do...I scraped the rest of the little quiche out of the muffin tin and into a little mini loaf pan to try to make a little quiche loaf to bring...not as cute, but might still work.  I even mushed up an avocado to spread on top with a bit of salsa to cover up the less-than-beautiful top...

However, I had to go to school, and this sucker just would not cook through.  By this time it was also looking less than beautiful...so I just turned off the oven, e-mailed the host excusing myself, and went to school (it was just as well, my meeting went 15 minutes past when I was supposed to be at the potluck, so I wouldn't have made it there anyhow).

When I did eventually get home, I took the pan of tofu-asparagus mess and dumped it in my wok.  I heated it through, crumbled it up a bit more, and it turned out to be a lovely tofu scramble.  I put it in a dish with some of the avocado mush and salsa, and had a delicious dinner.  I took the rest of the scramble and put it in a tomato-basil tortilla with more of the toppings and made a wrap to bring for lunch today.  It actually turned out nicely, but, boy, was this a frustrating cooking experience.  Next time I will use a bigger muffin tin and actually let them cool.

Opening the salsa clearly was its own fiasco:

However, I discovered that if you stab the lid, it breaks the tight seal, and then I could just replace it with an un-violated lid from an old salsa jar I'd saved.  Problem solved.

A less traumatic dish that featured turmeric:  tofu omelets!

This is from the Vegan Brunch cookbook and is absolutely delicious.  The consistency was exactly what I was looking for, and made for a wonderful, hot, egg-y dinner.  I can't wait to make these for someone else eventually...but I think I'd need to double or triple the recipe because they are that good.