Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death

Reviewers on Amazon give it five stars??? How is a book with "quiche of death" in the title anything but deliciously awful?

 dun dun dun dun duuuuun!

In this highly promising launch to a new mystery series, Beaton turns from the adventures of her Scottish policeman Hamish Macbeth to introduce the redoubtable Agatha Raisin. At 53, Agatha, whose personality is a piquant combination of brusque competence and fallibility, sells her London public relations firm to retire to the picturesque Cotswold village of Carsely. Determined to gain acceptance among the villagers, the undomestic Agatha enters a local bake-off. The judge, Reg Cummings-Brown, not only snubs her entry but later dies, poisoned by cowbane in Agatha's killer quiche. Of course Agatha is innocent: her "homemade" entry came from a Chelsea delicatessen. Knowing news of her cheating will light up the village, Agatha hopes to save face by proving Reg was murdered, even though the police think it was all a ghastly accident. - Publishers Weekly


I hope someone makes Agatha Raisin into a tv show... how lazy does that sound? Reading mystery bores me to tears but I love British mysteries. Like Rosemary and Thyme. They're my homegirls.

Powdered Milk Quiche FAIL

A recent experiment of mine was an attempt at making crustless mini quiches with reconstituted powdered milk and sour cream. I wasn't originally going to add the sour cream but I felt I had to compensate, as an offering to the Gods of Dairy.

The Gods frowned upon me.

I wish I'd taken photos of the beautiful PUFFY tops when they came out of the oven, though. Fresh and ripe and bursting, like muffins made of sunshine. For five minutes I walked away to let them cool and upon my return, they had collapsed into themselves. My cheerful balls of sun had bitter beer face. Imploded and frowny, they were more like souffles than quiches and I failed at both. It didn't even taste good. I had forgotten the salt.

Oh! and I used chopped up American cheese. From slices. It tasted like desperation.

I know it's possible to use reconstituted powdered milk in quiche. It'll take a couple more fails, more than likely, to nail it. But I will nail it. That's just the kind of desperate, suburban quiche baker I am.

The Quiche Experiments

... and for my next trick, I'll be baking a quiche with light cream based on a recipe from Quiche.net. The one single recipe on the site. It's obviously not meant to be an insightful resource on all things quiche, as you'd assume... something you pick up from being an online marketer, I guess. Anyways! Enough about keyword hogging!

 These creams look straight up gangsta.

Soon I'll be experimenting with different types of creams for my custard. I hope that one day I'll get to try out different sorts of eggs, maybe quail or ostrich! But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Sometimes things work out deliciously. Sometimes they fail hideously. Sometimes I'll try some of your recipes and gladly post a link to you. Feel free to repost the recipes here with a link - no permission needed. Just happy to spread the quiche love.

As far as comments go, go easy on me guys... a quiche fail is punishment enough. Are you kidding me? They take like a freaking HOUR to bake and I get excited. So just chill. I'm no Gordon Ramsay. Although I do curse in the kitchen a lot....