To Cheese, or Not to Cheese?

I have made eggs in many forms, in casseroles, frittatas, egg cups, etc. But I realized I had never actually made a quiche. I like quiche, and it seems to be a fairly simple dish, so why hadn’t I made it? It was clearly time to rectify that.

Quiche actually originated in Germany, though it is often considered a French dish. There are many varieties of quiche, but one of the classic recipes is Quiche Lorraine. It is named after the Lorraine region of France. Traditionally, this particular quiche is an eggy custard with bacon and onions baked in a pastry crust. It’s possible that it’s the English who later added cheese to the recipe, and of course, many recipes get behind that addition happily.

I looked up quite a few recipes and landed on my own version of a Quiche Lorraine. I used bacon, sweet onion and cheese – lots of cheese.

I have to admit I did not make a pie crust from scratch. A few of the recipes I looked at encourage using a homemade crust because they tend to be more flavorful and not as thin as commercial, ready-made crusts. But I thought for my first try I would use a pre-made crust. I tried a frozen deep dish crust that I found at Aldi.

Whatever kind of crust you choose, you need to pre-bake the crust a bit, or “blind bake” it. This is necessary when filling the crust with unbaked filling. Before baking, prick the bottom of the crust with a fork in a few places, then place a piece of parchment paper in the bottom of the crust and fill it with pie weights*, if you have them, or dried beans or rice. This keeps the crust from bubbling or shrinking too much while baking.

After baking the crust for 8 minutes, carefully remove the parchment paper and whatever you used to weigh down the crust and set it aside while you prepare the rest of the quiche. The first step is to fry up your bacon. You could use microwave bacon, but the benefit of frying fresh bacon is that you can sauté the onions in a bit of the bacon grease for added depth of flavor.

My recipe calls for 8 slices of bacon, but I fried up the whole pack so that I could have some left over to crumble up in the delicious Fall Harvest Salad that I made to eat with the quiche.

Once your bacon and onions are cooked up, you can layer the Swiss cheese and Colby Jack into the bottom of the pie crust and add the bacon and onions on top of the cheese.

Now you are ready to mix up the egg custard. In a large bowl, lightly beat the eggs and mix in the cream, milk and spices. Surprisingly, a touch of nutmeg adds a subtle flavor to the mix.

Once the custard mixture is ready, pour it carefully into the pie crust. A note on the pie crust I used – my frozen crust used the term “Deep Dish” loosely, and I ended up overflowing the crust. So, for future reference and to save you clean up, pour slowly to ensure you have room for the mixture and can place it into the oven without overspill.

Sprinkle shredded parmesan on top of the egg mixture, and carefully place the pie pan into the oven. Bake for 40-45 minutes at 350º F. Watch the crust while it is baking and if it gets too browned too quickly, place a sheet of aluminum foil on top of the pie or use a pie shield* to prevent burning.

Do not overcook the quiche. It should be mostly firm but still a bit wiggly in the middle. Remove from the oven and allow the quiche to rest before cutting and serving. The egg custard should finish cooking while resting.

Serve it along a green salad or the delicious kale salad I made.

This salad was born out of necessity. I bought a bag of kale for one cup needed in another recipe. If you have ever bought kale, you know this means I had about 12 cups of kale left over. So once again, I took to the Internet to help me find a way to use all of that green stuff.

I found a recipe that used an apple cider vinaigrette dressing and I thought that was just the thing. It’s simple, full of flavor and blends some of the best autumn tastes.

Mix up the dressing, which combines apple cider vinegar, apple cider, dijon mustard, maple syrup and olive oil. Chop up the kale and a sweet, tart apple. Crumble the bacon on top and add some almond slices and dried cranberries. Either toss the whole salad with the dressing, or drizzle it on top of each serving. It’s amazing! If you want to, you can add a zingy cheese like feta or gorgonzola. Feel free to omit the nuts or change which kind you use. It is now my new favorite Fall salad.

As the busy holiday season gets off and running, I think quiche and salad will make a great weeknight dinner or brunch for pop-in guests. If you have favorite quiche recipes, please share them with me.

*As an Amazon associate, I earn a small percent of qualifying purchases made from some links in this blog.

Recipes adapted from http://www.tastesbetterfromscratch.com and http://www.lilluna.com