A Strong Affinity for Quiche

My favorite way to use up the food about to expire in my fridge is to make a quiche. Over the past years I’ve developed a great love for the dish - it’s delicious, it’s hard to mess up, and it contains the vegetables I always have in my fridge and am never using up quite fast enough.

There are a few key secrets, but once you have those down, you really can’t screw this one up.

• Use frozen deep pie crust – while there is a lesson in fortitude learned from making your own crust, the frozen ones are pretty fantastic and pretty cheap. So as my old boss always said 'why waste time reinventing the wheel?'
• Pre-bake the crust. Poke holes with a fork in the dough, then 10 minutes on 450F will do the trick.
• Make a simple custard – as I learned from Julia Child’s guidelines, the proportions are 1 large egg and milk to add up to a half cup. For the standard size crust I use, generally 1.5 cups of custard. Whisked with a touch of S&P.
• Sweat your Veggies – use whatever vegetables you love (or are getting a bit mature in your fridge..) and sweat them before putting the baking. Olive oil, S&P in a sauté pan.
• Assembly – cheese first, veggies next, more cheese (if you’re into that) then custard. Don’t fill to the top, it will rise a bit.
• Bake at 375F on a top rack in your oven for about 30 minutes, until firm and golden on top.

Tonight I just finished making one with green peppers, onions, garlic, champagne and parmesan cheese and garlic salsa. I really did not know how the flavors would combine, but it came out beautifully! I especially like the kick the salsa added the otherwise very savory taste – definitely a nice touch I will use again the next time.

Side note: you'll find a lot of recipes tell you that you need a lot of fats when the truth is you don't. You don't need butter, nor do you need cream. While they taste great, so does custard from eggs with skim milk. There are a million other ways to make it more delicious without adding more fat.