My first quiche

I'd been thinking of making a quiche for a while. I had a full carton of eggs that hadn't been opened, so I wanted to get rid of a lot of eggs at once. I'm not really a big egg person. Sometimes I do crave them for breakfast (or dinner), but it's rare. Quiche seems to be the exception for me. 

My mom makes a delicious quiche, which is maybe why I put off trying to cook my own for so long. Hers is based on Linda McCartney's recipe in World of Vegetarian Cooking (an amazing cookbook you should own whether you're vegetarian or not). I hope Sir Paul McCartney still eats things mentioned in it. :)

I'm not exactly sure what my mom does with her recipe, but here's what I did to make this delicious dinner (that will turn into lunch and dinner tomorrow, too):

Ingredients:
1 cooked pie crust (I used a frozen one I bought at Trader Joe's)
½ onion, chopped
Handful of frozen mixed peppers (or any veggie you want)
4 extra-large free range eggs
1½ cups shredded cheese (I used a mix of mozzarella, gruyere and cheddar from TJ's)
Sea salt and black pepper
2/3 cup almond milk


Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Sauté onion and veggies.
Whisk eggs and fold in onion, veggies and cheese. 
Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the milk. Pour it all into your pie shell and bake for 30 minutes. Enjoy!

Oscar Wilde Thursday

"It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it." -Oscar Wilde

I am a little overwhelmed by my magazine "to read" pile... I may have to attempt to make a dent in it this weekend so I can recycle them and start a new pile!

Luck of the Irish

This holiday always makes me think of my grandma, Ruth, who (according to my mom) loved playing up her Irish side on March 17. I kind of like to do the same thing. I love the color green and pinching people who don't wear green today... so look out if you see me!


I'm also going to throw in an Oscar Wilde quote since it is Thursday. This feels like something that could be said in Ireland:

"Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future." 

--Oscar Wilde

Other Irish things I love:

• Books: Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt (a great memoir)
• Movies: The Boondock Saints and The Departed (ones about Irish people in Boston)
• Drinks: Guinness (Fun fact: It really is good for you! Low calories and high protein!)

• Music: The Dropkick Murphys (also featured on The Departed soundtrack)

Oscar Wilde Thursday

For a couple of months (ish) on Thursdays, I've been posting Oscar Wilde quotes on my Twitter account. I don't know why I started doing this. Maybe it's because he has a whole lot of quotes to his name, and I find most of them to be really funny and/or thought provoking. 


Or it may be because I was researching e-readers for Christmas (and I got one - thanks, Dad!) which brought me to Amazon to look at the Kindle which brought me to the way-too-expensive Kate Spade canvas covers which brought me to her The Importance of Being Earnest cover:

Isn't it gorgeous?


Anyways, I have loved the play The Importance of Being Earnest ever since I helped created part of the set in high school. My mom was the props master at The Arts Center on Hilton Head Island (I know it's since been renamed, but I don't know what it is now... Coastal Carolina Performing Arts Center or something), and I helped stuff newspaper in chicken wire to create a hedge that was painted green. So I had that connection with the play before I even saw it, but seriously, it is one of the funniest shows. I love playing with words, and it's total wordplay! If you haven't seen this play (or even if you have), you should rent the movie version with Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon. Or grab a copy and read it!


So after the longest tangent ever, I think I am going to continue with my Oscar Wilde quotes on this blog. Twitter is fun (I got on it for work, actually, and then easily got swept up in its 140-character updates), but I'd rather flesh out my reasons for some of the quotes I'm feeling that week.


I'm going to start off with my absolute favorite quote from him: 
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

Vincent Van Gogh's The Starry Night

Okay, so the quote is a little cynical. But it's kind of nice, right? Because it gives you the chance to choose to be the "some of us." If we're all in the gutter, are you the one face down in sludge and the dark? Or are you keeping your face up towards the sky, open to the light that will surely come in the morning and all the possibilities that light may bring?

Eat, Pray, Love: Sending light and love

I'd had Eat, Pray, Love sitting on my counter for more than a week when I finally watched it. I read the book a couple years ago and really enjoyed it. I kind of got a little bored in the middle, but overall I remember I enjoyed it. I may read it again sometime soon.


Tangent: Elizabeth Gilbert (the author of Eat, Pray, Love (2006)) wrote a follow-up book last January called Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage. Oh man is that book good! It's about marriage and what it means to be in a marriage. I really recommend it whether you're single, in a relationship, have been married for a day or married for 25 years.


So this post is not for me to give a little review of the movie. I'm writing about what I want to take away from the movie.


There is this scene where Liz is in a fantasy dancing on a roof in India with her ex-husband. They're dancing like they did on their wedding day, and he tells her he misses her. She says, "Then miss me." 


She tells him when he thinks of her to just send her light and love, and then let it go.


I've found myself doing this several times already. Wishing someone light and love and then letting all other thoughts about that person go. It really works. I feel better at the end instead of obsessively thinking about stupid old things I cannot change that would inevitably make me feel worse.


I don't think you have to necessarily use this for someone you don't want to be thinking about. It's nice to think of someone and then send them light and love. Try it. I bet it will feel good for you, too.


Finally watching this movie inspired me to pick up a book I've been holding onto for a couple years. It's called Turtle Feet: The Making and Unmaking of a Buddhist Monk (2008). It takes place in India, where Liz also went (well, I'm sure they weren't in the same place in India). I am definitely interested in the spiritual journey in the book, but I am also enjoying being transported back to a place of peace for me. Although I haven't been to India, I have visited  several monasteries in Thailand and China. Even though they are pretty bare (well, some are quite elaborate) and often dirty, they are also always beautiful and peaceful. 


So when I read about this monk in India, I pretend that he is in Lhasa, Tibet, and that I am there again, too, for just a little while:

Monastery in Lhasa, Tibet. Can you see the monk in his red robes?

On the roof of the same monastery in Lhasa, Tibet, with the market square below and Potala Palace in the background.