One Dish to Rule Them All

Precious

I was moved up a few weeks in the old "Bring a bag full of shitty bagels and cakes to work Friday" earlier this week as a sort of "End of the year, its all on you and your alleged awesome food, so don't fuck up the most relaxed time you will have all year with some crappy Cheese Biscuits & Syrup breakfast."

I had a ham in my fridge, so I agreed to take up the challenge now and not pass the buck until the 8th of January. It may have been the best professional decision I have ever made: this dish made waves in the Sloan space/time continuum. I truly have never seen such a reaction to anything I have ever done. I had wealthy, world-travelling people in their late 60s telling me it was the best dish they had ever had. And they are supposedly extremely picky people.

This is an "Almost Paleo" only because it has dairy (albeit an absolute ton of it).

The One Dish

This is an egg casserole, not a quiche or frittata. The process is a three stage progression of prep-and-cool, combine-and-chill, and then heat-and eat.

Prep-and-Cool
Each item here takes its own special method of preparation because you want the flavors to not combine before baking into the eggs.

Chorizo Spiced Bacon
My recipe calls for two pounds of this, so I had to make them in two stages of one pound at a time. Take bacon and cut into 1" squares, cook slowly adding chorizo seasoning (I just got it from a Tienda Mexicana, but you can make you own) and freshly ground black pepper. Once crisp, drain off fat on paper towels and let cool to room temperature.

Wilted Spinach
Boil about 2-3q of water. Take two heads of spinach and cut off stems and rinse very thoroughly of all dirt. Once the water is boiling, remove from heat and place spinach in water and cover with lid for two minutes exactly. Drain and rinse with cold water to stop cooking. Let cool to room temperature and chop coarsely and reserve.

Sauteed Baby Bellas
Take about 20 oz of baby bella mushrooms and quarter them, this will leave you with big enough, obvious enough, pieces for those insane co-workers to pick out should they choose. Anyway, saute in olive oil until tender, drain and cool.

Combine and Chill
Make sure you get a huge bowl for this, these quantities are huge. Take 24 eggs and beat until very well combined. I have actually been considering posting on how important beating eggs truly is, I see what is happening out there in Omletland and it makes me sad that people don't take the time to beat the shit out of their eggs. Anyway, beat the shit out of them. Then add 4 cups of full fat milk. Mix.

Add a combination of 2 cups of almond meal and 4t baking powder slowly to the eggs (not ridiculously slow though, they combine pretty easily). Take 2 pounds of Monterrey Jack and 1 pound of mild cheddar and chop into pieces as close to shredded size as possible (I don't have a cheese grater, but this is probably what I would do even if I had one). Mix slowly into eggs. Add 24 oz of full fat cottage cheese, combine.

Now, take one bunch of leeks and slice in half, and then very very finely slice the white parts. I used my Farmer Fresh leeks and they were smaller than what you get at GloboStores (aka super markets), there were three in my bunch, but 2 standard ones would be equivalent. Add to mix. Very finely slice five Thai chilies and combine. Add mushrooms, combine, spinach, combine, and then finally, the bacon, in that order. Season with three huge pinches of salt and lots of black pepper.

Butter some pans (I needed three, a 13x9, a 12x12, and a 7x5) and fill with mixture. Chill in fridge for 3+ hours/ over night.

Heat and Eat
Bring to room temperature. Cover in paprika. Bake on 350F, uncovered, until done. I did mine all at the same time, I was expecting it to take 45m-1h, but it ended up taking 1.5h with the little dish finishing first.

Drive it to work and sit back and wait for a promotion. But seriously, I was so far behind with the additional cooking time needed that I couldn't even finish this dish.

The Return of the One Dish
Had I more time, once the dish had "set" I would have topped the casserole with slices of goat's cheese, and blistered grape tomatoes and then broiled it briefly.

It took me more than 1.25h to just think about how to do this dish, and yes mom, this was inspired by that silly casserole we make on Christmas with the Del Norte canned chilies.