When I was 10 years old, my favorite food to have for dinner was quiche. Yup, quiche. Yup, for dinner.

My mom didn’t make it too often – maybe a couple times a year – so it had a certain “special occasion” appeal. I didn’t actually know until a few years ago that it’s typically a brunch or lunch item because we always had it for dinner. Years before all the “hide veggies in other foods” craze my mom enjoyed great success in getting my sisters and I to gleefully eat our spinach within the context of a fluffy, custardy quiche. Then, of course, there was the fancy French name. And the spelling! I was sure it had to be pronounced “qwitchy”.

This Crab, Scallion & Tomato Quiche ranks among the top three recipes I’ve tried on this blog. My husband described it as “restaurant quality”, which I’ll take as a compliment. It features a generous amount of lump crab meat (the recipe, of course, comes from a crab meat container I bought at Whole Foods) and the flavor is further enhanced by the Old Bay-seasoned custard.

I’m tagging this as a Brunch recipe, but if you feel like enjoying it for dinner instead, go for it!

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Some people get excited over finding lost change in the couch. I’m thrilled when I uncover food in the freezer that I’ve long forgotten about (that’s freezer, not refrigerator – long forgotten fridge food is no treat!). A few months ago when I was in my “nesting” stage ahead of the birth of our new little guy I became a bit of a cooking-and-freezing fiend. I stacked up all kinds of soups, casseroles, cookies, muffins – anything I thought would keep well. Over time, as the stacks got deeper, I kind of lost track of what was in there. I suppose I could take the time to do a little inventory but it’s actually kind of fun to be surprised when I open the freezer door.

I mentioned before that I’d frozen muffins. Well, I didn’t remember this until after I baked for this post! I was getting ready to stash a few of these Banana Berry Muffins in the freezer when I saw not one, but two previously packed-away bags of muffins. Oh well…is there really such a thing as too many muffins?

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I always thought that if I wanted to make my own homemade jam I’d have to learn the process of canning. It seemed like more time and effort than I wanted to put in – I just wanted the jam. So when it came to my attention that there was a “quick and easy” method to jam-making that didn’t involve canning I wasted no time purchasing my fruit.

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Is there anything better than sleeping in on a Saturday morning and waking up to a stack of fluffy, buttermilk pancakes, fresh off of the griddle, dripping with maple syrup and butter? We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to whomever invented cake we can have for breakfast.

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It’s Part II of my “virtual” Mother’s Day brunch! To complement the brown sugary, melt-in-your-mouth Sour Cream Pecan Coffee Cake, I’ll be celebrating my mom and mom-in-law with a savory Sausage Breakfast Casserole. I know they’ll love it – both moms have prepared similar dishes for my husband and me when we’ve visited. It’s the kind of breakfast we look forward to when we’re together.

The hot sausage and pepper jack cheese give the casserole a little kick of heat without being overly spicy. With the custard soaked into cubes of country bread the dish is very much like a savory bread pudding, or strata. The mustard in the custard (I’ve been reading too much Dr. Seuss!) adds such incredible flavor yet it’s subtle enough that the non-mustard fan in our house still doesn’t know it was in there. I was intimidated at first by the idea of using ten eggs – it’s a few more than I’m used to in a single recipe – but I came around when I realized it worked out to fewer than two eggs per person.

A slice of this casserole is a meal in itself. But if you’re like me, you’ve always got a little room for cake too.

Happy Mother’s Day!

P.S. I’m submitting this to the Celebrating Mother’s Day blog event on Kopiaste.. to Greek Hospitality – the roundup of dishes will be posted on May 10.

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We love living in California but if my husband and I could change just one thing it would be to have our families closer. Both sets of parents and most of our siblings live on the East Coast. On Mother’s Day we catch up with our moms on the phone and send cards but we usually aren’t near enough to sit down together for a good old-fashioned Mother’s Day brunch. So this year, in honor of our moms, I’m preparing a little “virtual” brunch on Cooking On the Side  – along with an IOU to make the real thing the next time we see each other. Two dishes, this post and the next, both special occasion-worthy and incredibly delicious.

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