Easy Cozy Cabin Roasted Potato & Bacon Quiche

So here we are in Tennessee, cozy cabin, a thick dusting of snow outside - no boys, no men - just me and my mom. 

What is the perfect lunch for girls that is super easy and cozy?  Quiche!  So we did what all moms do when on vacation - we sent the men and all of the boys to the grocery store to buy the ingredients! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! 

List of ingredients:

2 Mrs. Smith's deep dish pie shells (in the freezer section)
12 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk or heavy cream (ooh la la)
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar
1 package Oscar Meyer Bacon Crumbles
Oreida Hashbrown Potatoes (freezer section)
Salt & Pepper to taste

First roast the hashbrowns in the oven for about 20 minutes - or cook in the skillet if you have access to some good ol' bacon grease.  We didn't have any with us so we roasted ours in the oven at 375 for about 20 minutes. 

Next, let those cool a bit and whisk together your eggs and milk, salt and pepper and then add in cheese.  Next add in the bacon crumbles...

Give it a good stir, pour into the pie shells and add in the potatoes on top...

Press the potatoes down so that they are covered in the eggy yumminess.  Place on a foil-lined pan...

(Finally my camera is charged and I can stop with the cell phone pics!)

Now lightly cover in foil and bake at 400 degrees for 1 hour.  Start checking at 45 minutes and take foil off to brown a bit.

This is what you'll get ...

Wasn't it worth it?

Yum!  Enjoy!





Quiche a la Cabin in Tennessee...

Standby for haphazard photos and thrown together recipe for a cheesy-potato-bacon quiche.  And yes, girlie here can blog from a snow covered cabin in Tennessee! 

Come and get it!

P.S.  I am salivating over this pan ... from Williams-Sonoma... to bake my cabin quiche in.  If you do in fact have this pan in your own repertoire, I don't want to hear about it.

June Cleaver or Aunt Bea?

Definition of euphoria - (eu pho ri a) - n. A feeling of great happiness or well-being.

My mom and I are sitting right in the middle of euphoria.  I am on one couch, she is on the other.  I have my laptop (switching between my blog, "Life is Sweet..." and Ree Drummond's blog, "The Pioneer Woman" - can it get any better?)   Mom is reading a cookbook that Grandma VanVonderen sent me for Christmas, commenting here and there about recipes similar to ones we have in the South.  All of the boys (Jim, Tim, Owen and Miles) are on a Walmart run.  Peace and quiet.  So here we are, my mom and I and the plum perfect cabin with the snow outside the windows - all snuggly and warm inside - with a pot of peach tea, the blogs, my latest book - and Andy Griffith playing in the background...

All of sudden Helga (my mom) looks up and out of nowhere says to me, "Now you see, Candace, Aunt Bea used to wear pearls everyday too."

What?  What?  I will tell you what.  My mom is trying to tell me that maybe I should be comparing myself to Aunt Bea, instead of the iconic June Cleaver. 

I give this a half second of thought and then quickly retort that Aunt Bea is short and round - and I'd much rather be like June Cleaver.  June was taller, classy, trim, a wonderful mom - all of the things I try to be.  As I ponder these two women, I realize that Aunt Bea wore aprons too...  hmmmm....  Well, I refuse to think it!  Now where did that feeling of euphoria run off to...?

Tennessee snow and 20 degree weather can't touch my new favorite cheapy (about $6) hand lotion. The best part - it smells a lot like my Bath & Bodyworks Shea Cashmere Lotion (about $16.50.)  

 vs. 

My Jim...

Jim is like no other.  It is Christmas Eve morning and most men would be drinking coffee, watching the Today Show or reading the paper.  Not Jim.  I found his coffee mug and cereal bowl (both left on the coffee table half empty), but Jim was no where to be found.  Sometimes he sits outside in a chair drinking coffee in his own little private garage oasis - away from wife and boys.  Sometimes I go outside and join him there - both of us escaping for a little peace and quiet before the boys wake up.  Not today.  I should have known that because he would have never left his coffee inside, if he was sitting outside. 

When I looked in the backyard - this is what I found...

As I try to sneak across the yard with my camera, I tell him that only he would be raking and burning leaves on Christmas Eve morning.  He says that if we lived on a farm, we'd be working outside right now.  Maybe that means he is practicing for when we do... Merry Christmas everyone!

Piles... Do you have some?

I have little piles all over.  Piles of unread magazines on the chairs at the bar, piles of magazines in the corner of my bedroom, piles of mail on the countertop.  Most recently the most despised pile is the one of Christmas paper, tissue paper and bows beside my dresser - a speedy wrapping station, always at the ready - so functional, yet such a mess!  I wonder if that is the short description of me?

New gray hair...


I think I worry more than some moms.  Maybe more than most moms.  It is a habit that has been fastidiously passed down from 3 generations.  It all started with my Great Grandma Edell - she was a worrier in the utmost sense.  I can remember being bored out of my gourd at her house growing up and one of my favorite activities was to walk circles around her coffee table.  I'd start out slow and then gradually pick up the pace until I was flying around that coffee table like a dog chasing it's tail.  Great Grandma would sit there in her rocking chair and worry the tissue in her hand to death watching me.  She always kept a tissue in her hand for times like this, and also to wipe condensation from the bottoms tea glasses as the women (and little Candace) sat at the table clipping coupons after Sunday dinner.  Great Grandma gave those tissues a work out!  So Great Grandma passed the worrying bug along to her daughter, my Grandma Louise.  Grandma Louise worried, but she wasn't one to sit and worry - that woman would work!  She did her worrying while working - she didn't smile very often and that would let me know that she was worrying.  Grandma Louse then gave my mom the gift of worry and somehow I eventually got it.  It's catching.  I am not quite sure when the worrying started, maybe in middle school, but I have it honed now into a fine art.  (And because I am worrying, I have recently told my mom that she can't worry anymore because I need her to tell me how everything is going to be ok.) 

Over the last few weeks, I've accumulated quite a new crop of gray hair, which I can attribute to Miles' penmanship (or lack thereof.)  The poor little guy just couldn't get the knack of holding his pen/pencil (and usually marker) properly.  This led to shakey letters and that led to pen throwing.  Besides all of that, he looked terribly uncomfortable.  The whole time, of course, I am worrying... and thinking that maybe I should asked Jennifer and Amy J if their kids were writing perfectly at this point.   

Well, I am happy to report that Miles is holding his marker properly - thanks to Mrs. Kelly at the preschool!  (All that worrying for nothing!) 

Just look at him go!

Georgetown Cupcake...

So I think that my sweet friend, Danielle Hobbs - photographer extraordinaire - might live near Georgetown Cupcake!  This got me so excited and I had to look up their website again - to send it to her - and this is what I found - oh my.  Oh dear. Oh me.

Mama - put this on your blog...

Gingerbread House Building...

Every year at First Steps Preschool, a nice German lady comes in to teach the children how to build Gingerbread Houses.  I love her accent and how she encourages all of the Type A moms to let the children make their houses themselves.  The moms needed to hear that while the gingerbread houses might not be what we would build ourselves, but their creation would be perfect in their little eyes.  I love this.  Apparently some of the moms (like the one across from me and next to me) didn't hear - one "had to have more pretzels" because she "had to finish her gate..." 


Building Materials ... you won't find these at your local hardware store...

Every good builder knows he must inspect his materials before getting started...

Cover your milk carton "house" in royal icing...



It is important to test the quality of your products along the way...  Quality is very important...

After covering the entire house in royal icing, add on the exterior - graham crackers, then cover with more royal icing...

Add some "snow" on the roof. 

Stand back and inspect everything...



Add a few more details...

This is a custom Gingerbread House, you see...

More snow ...

It looks like we can move right in!

Proud builder...

Pretty smile, but the house in a little blurry... Love him love him!

A little more clear...

Teacher Gifts...

Owen and Miles' teachers got Praline Bites and Chocolate Covered Peanuts for Christmas.  I have this innate desire to feed people - all the time and especially on holidays...

I packaged them in cute little "quilted" jelly jars - with handmade tags (because I am insane like that.)

 

And of course I had to give some to Mrs. Lynn too because we LOVE Mrs. Lynn...

Amy Jones Chocolate Covered Peanuts...

First, Amy Jones is phenomenal.  This tiny woman speaks to my soul!  She sees my "deer in the headlights" crazed, panicked look, and completely understands.  That is rare.  Because I don't want to be "fixed" - I just need someone who understands - and then maybe even says "Candace, are you suuuuure you want to do all of that?"  Don't we all need a little understanding?  So that is what she does for me.  I hope that I have somehow been as a good a friend to her as she has been to me.  Amy Jones is good stuff. 

(See this is where I would normally start the recipe, but because I adore Amy Jones so much and miss her because she moved to Anderson, I feel the need to give her the 2nd paragraph too.)  So back to how fabulous she is ... She is a little thing - full of spunk and has this recurring habit of downplaying what she can get done.  While we really don't want to have to get anything done, life happens and man can she move it move it!  So back to the recipe...  Around this time of year, several of us are very lucky to receive a bag or two full of these little gems.  (Some of us hide the bags from our husbands so we don't have to share....) I wonder who would do that?!  ha ha ha ha!

Here is what you need: 
(Important note - while you see two blocks of chocolate almond bark and two bottles of peanuts here, I only used one of each for this recipe, because it makes THAT much.)

Ingredients:
1 large bottle of dry roasted peanuts - Great Value Brand works superbly - save those pennies!
1 block of chocolate almond bark

Tools:
1 crocky (aka crock pot, slow cooker)
1 crock pot liner
Some wax paper or parchment paper (or in a pinch, tin foil will work too.)

Now, it is important to note here that Amy Jones swears she has not made this recipe in her crocky before - and my memory is short and vague, so I still tried it and it works like a CHARM, I tell ya!

Chop up the chocolate almond bark - with a BIG and SHARP knife.  Find a man, if you can, because this is man work.

Now, comes the tricky part - to get your chocolate quickly melted like the picture below - and because I was in a hurry, I put my big crocky insert into the microwave (and turned off the turntable.) Microwave at 30 second intervals for about 3 minutes to get the melting process off to a fast start.  Then I transferred the crocky insert back into the crockpot bottom and turned the temp to the "warm" setting and it stayed nice and melty the entire time!  (Yes, that is a crock pot liner you see here - I am a smart girl.)

When your chocolate is nice and melty like this, start adding in the peanuts.

Yum!

(Do you like my pale blue spatula?  My mom bought these for the two of us from Jennifer Birdsbill's Dove Chocolate Tasting Party - you get two in a pack.)  Want to host a Dove Tasting Party?  Let me know - our girl, Carrie Michlig would LOVE to come to your house and tempt your friends!  It is divine!

So back to the peanuts...

Give it a good stir...

When it looks like this - you are reading to start dipping...

I used a plastic spoon because I thought the chocolate covered peanuts might slip off the spoon better.  That didn't happen - so use whatever spoon you like best.

So you dip and drop, and dip and drop... onto waxed or parchment paper, not on your counter...

And drop and drop and drop...

Ready to see just how smart I am?  Watch this...

Oh yeah, baby!