Recipe: Quiche

Another successful venture in the kitchen! Last night's mission: basic quiche. I had grabbed a recipe out of last month's Real Simple magazine, and finally realized that quiche was actually quite simple! (And, a great use for leftover refrigerated pie crusts that I stocked up on for Thanksgiving and never ended up using.) Aside from the cheese that this recipe calls for, the ingredients are pretty cheap, and it filled both NavyGuy and I up without needing anything else for supper.

The recipe can be found here, but I'm going to give my version as well as some notes.


Basic Quiche - Ingredients
- 1 9 inch refrigerated piecrust (any brand works; they usually come two in a box so just freeze the other one for later use)
- 2 medium onions, chopped (I used one big one and it seemed to be enough)
- 1 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped (I didn't measure this either, just chopped up a bunch and kept adding until the mixture looked "green" enough)
- 4 large eggs
- 3/4 cup half-and-half (I used fat-free)
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg (totally forgot to buy this, so I substituted "one shake" of pumpkin pie seasoning - hey it has nutmeg in it! no complaints from anyone)
- 8 oz. , approx. 2 cups, Gruyere, grated (fancy cheese is expensive! from my online search, I found you could substitute Jarlsberg, Emmantaler, or plain old Swiss. I used Jarlsberg which was still more than I'm used to paying for Kraft cheese slices, but just use what you can find at the store - it's not going to make that much of a difference in terms of taste unless you're a cheese snob)
- salt and pepper
- oil to cook the onions

Directions
1. Heat oven to 375. Fit the piecrust into a 9-inch pie plate. Place on a baking sheet. (You totally don't need one of the fancy quiche/tart pans like is in the photo above - I used a regular pie pan, or you could probably even get away with a round cake pan. I sprayed the pan with Pam so the crust wouldn't stick.)

2. Cook the onions in oil over medium-low heat in a skillet, with a little salt and pepper thrown in. Stir occasionally for 5-7 minutes until onion is soft. (My onions were in the pan for a good 15 minutes because it took me longer to grate the cheese than expected. No harm, no foul.) Stir in the parsley.

3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, half-and-half, nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Stir in the onion/parsley mixture, and the grated cheese.

4. Pour the egg mixture into the crust. Bake until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean, 35-40 minutes. (Mine needed 40 minutes.) Let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

It was awesome - this is now a go-to recipe for me if I need a nice brunch item, or just a quick dinner. Now that I know better how to grate cheese, I could probably do all the prep in less than 20 minutes. You can also jazz it up by adding other vegetables (asparagus, spinach, mushrooms) or meat (diced ham) - it's basically a fancier omlete, so I assume anything that works in an omlete, can probably be added to a quiche!

Let me know if you try it out or have any other variations or tips for this recipe!