We needed to include 1 source of complex carbohydrates, a source of protein and at least 1 fruit or veggie. I decided to make a quiche. I'd seen a recipe for an oatmeal pastry crust from the 1940's rationing website (1940sexperiment.wordpress.com) and figured I could adapt that fairly easily to be gluten free. It doesn't roll out like a traditional pie crust, instead I just plopped it in the pan and spread it around with damp fingers, but it worked well and tastes very good. Will probably be using that crust a lot.
So here is my modified recipe:
Gluten Free Oat Pastry Crust:
3/4 cup of Pamela's Baking and Pancake mix (It originally called for a self rising flour.. I had this handy, so used it.. any good flour blend will do, just make sure to include baking powder)
Pinch of salt (I didn't add and didn't notice it missing, though with a different filling it might be more noticeable)
1-2 tbsp of butter or "cooking fat"
1/4 cup rolled oats
water
1 tbsp ground flax seed meal ** (this was not in the original, but I thought it would make a good addition as I'm also working on getting more fiber into my diet. You don't need to add if you would rather not.)
Mix the flour, salt and butter and then add in the oats. Combine well and then drizzle in enough water to form a sticky dough.
Spoon into a greased pie plate and spread mixture around with damp fingers.
Par bake the crust at 350 for about 10 minutes.
Then I chopped and fried up 3 strips of turkey bacon and chopped up some assorted veggies. I used pea pods, onions, green beans, assorted bell peppers, broccoli, zucchini, carrots and mushrooms. Then I diced 2 tomato and basil flavored mozzarella cheese sticks. I combined all of these and filled the pie shell up, adding more veggies as needed until it was full then sprinkled it with some garlic powder and pepper.
I cracked 6 eggs into a bowl and added some Worcestershire sauce and whisked those together and poured it over the veggie/cheese/bacon mix.
Out it into a 350 degree oven and baked for about 35-40 minutes until the eggs are set.
A serving would be 1/6th of the quiche. I have been having it left over and cold for my breakfast all week and am really enjoying it. You could easily change up your fillings to use whatever your family likes or what you have to hand.
These classes have really gotten me thinking and paying more attention to what my family is eating, and it's really coming at a great time as we are still coping with some financial recovery from our stints with unemployment. One of the videos we watched in the Nutrition, Health and Lifestyle class featured a chat with Peter Menzel about his book, Hungry Planet. It showed pictures of families from around the world with 1 week's worth of food... everything they would typically eat in a week and the USD equivalent of what was spent on that food. It was really interesting and fascinating.. refugee families in Chad were living on basically less then $1.50 a week.. not per person, but for the WHOLE family. And there was 5 or 6 people in that family if I recall correctly. Just amazing.
So, to help us save money right now (so we can pay down the credit cards and such we lived on while unemployed..) we're going to be trying to simplify our diet and our food budget. It's going to mean giving up some variety and we might get mighty sick of some things after a while, but we're going to give it a try. And we're not giving up everything or going too drastic all at once.. I know there'd be a revolt in the house if I tried to do too much, but we are going to be cutting back. We're going to try to focus on more veggies as well. Lunches are going to be some nice, lovely big salads. (I'd rather do them for dinners, but Hubby needs easily packable lunches, so I would have some problems with making that our main meal just yet.. and everyone's a bit scattered in the mornings yet, but I've got some ideas there too... just have to see if I can pull them off... This quiche would be great, though there's too many "weeds" in it according to Hubby... his limited veggie tolerance is one of my biggest hurdles...)
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