Transportation museum not far from Kaiserslautern and Frankfurt

When we went to Badewelt (indoor pool) in Sinsheim, we saw what looked like an airplane museum on the other side of the autobahn. Jeff said, “let’s go there sometime!” During our stay-cation over New Years, we did just that, and would highly recommend an excursion to Sinsheim. The “Auto & Technik” museum is about 1 hour and 15 minutes away from the K-town area, and the brochure says it’s an hour south of Frankfurt. The 14 Euro ticket was worth it to us.

In addition to airplanes you can climb into, the museum includes lots of cars, including old American beauties. Then of course, are race cards, older European models, racing bicycles, and motorcycles. There’s a large section of military vehicles, which includes display cases of military uniforms. One massive room has farming equipment and throughout the building are old organs! You pay 1 or 2 Euro and the organ plays a tune!

On the roof are a bunch of airplanes, including a Concorde and an old Russian passenger plane. They are not handicapped accessible, and are reached by narrow spiral staircases. It is recommended that you wear sensible shoes, as the planes are on an incline with their noses pointed upwards! The cockpits are nifty to see, and kids can go down an indoor slide from the roof back into the museum.

Of course there is a restaurant and gift shop. Thankfully, the restaurant has a small salad bar in addition to hot foods, soup, and desserts. We didn’t see an IMAX movie, but several different shows were played with narration in German. Their sister “Technik Museum” in Speyer is less than half an hour away (closer to K-town), and features astronaut stuff, more planes, a sub, and fire trucks! We’ll let you know after we go there.

Vegetable Quiche Pie

When I think of quiche, it usually includes masses of eggs, cream, bacon, and cheese. In other words, a delicious cholesterol special without much redeeming nutritional value. I received a recipe calendar as a gift, and spotted this cholesterol special right away. The focus on vegetables in the photo was appealing, and I really like pine nuts and Emmentaler cheese, so I decided to modify the recipe!

I’ve always used a typical pie plate for quiche in the past, but decided to copy this photo and use a tart pan for a wider, thinner pie. I did not prepare a crust from scratch, but intentionally used a standard American refrigerator version that was smaller than the crust pictured- it did not come all the way up the sides, which was ok. I’ve commented before on the nice selection of frozen veggies here in Germany, so I lucked out again with a box of chopped spinach which included a bit of cream, thus reducing my need to add butter and whole milk to the recipe.

Here’s what I did: mix 3 eggs plus ½ cup liquid egg substitute. Add ½ cup low fat milk if you are using frozen spinach, which will be wet as it thaws. Add 150 grams Emmentaler cheese (a nice, strong Swiss cheese). Mix in spinach. I sautéed a cup or more of mushrooms in a splash of oil and added the cut cherry tomatoes to give the mushrooms cooking liquid. The tomatoes didn’t look so glamorous in my finished product as in the recipe photo, but they tasted fine. I did not add extra salt.

The recipe does not instruct us to pre-bake the crust, but recommends pricking the crust with a fork a few times. Spread the vegetables and egg mixture over the crust, and bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until the top is nicely browned. The temperature and time are honest guesses, since I’m using a German oven and forgot to time myself! I’d rather have a gently over-done pie than a soggy one, so use your judgment in removing the quiche from the oven. It tasted great! I didn’t stage a nice photo of a wedge of pie with pine nuts sprinkled because I cut the whole thing up into smaller pieces to bring to church, where it promptly disappeared.