Foody Friday: quiche, quiche and quiche!

You might not have picked up on the fact, but I enjoy food, especially eggy breakfast-type food. I also occasionally experiment in the kitchen and share them with you. Today I'll highlight my recent experiments with quiche.

All you need is ready-made pie crust from the refrigerated section of the grocery store, which you pat down into a pie tin. Then you add the fillings you want, pour in an egg-silk(-cheese) mixture, pop it into the oven for about an hour at 350-400F, and you're done. I referred to the following recipes:
- Quiche @ 1 Blog and 2 Sides
- Cheeseburger Quiche @ RecipeLand.com

My first attempt was back in May 2009:


It contained fake ground beef in taco seasoning, cherry-or-grape tomatoes, spinach, and probably onion, peppers, and of course, cheese cheese cheese. A big problem immediately became clear during the preparation stage: my pie tin was probably too small! One clue was the excess pie crust around the edges, the other was the egg mixture spilling out of the tin when I poured it onto the filling.

It turned out pretty good, but I felt it could be a lot better. I resolved to replace the silk with half-and-half or something even creamier - Kosh's lactose intolerance be damned! :D

So a few weeks later, in mid-June, I tried again:


It was MUCH better! I used the only creamy liquid I could find in a small 8 oz size: heavy whipping cream, LoL! yummmmmm!!!! :D There was still the issue of the pie tin being too small, though, even with my taking the effort to carefully measure out the filling ingredients. So I resolved to use something else for the next experiment, which took place just a few days ago:

Instead of the pie tin, I used one of my round pyrex safe-for-the-oven glassware: I figured I'd prefer the container to be of a smaller radius but be deeper. This way, I hoped to not have an overflowing container (check! in fact, I felt I could have put in more stuff!) and to not feel like I have some wasted excess pie crust (still happened!).



What was cool about this experiment was that this time it rose kinda like a souffle! Unfortunately, perhaps because of the different container, or because of the different oven (this was in the new place, with a gas- and not electricity-powered oven, after all), but the quiche wasn't ready in an hour. It had risen up nicely, but its center was still very much liquid.

Kosh assured me that since there was no actual meat (as usual, I used fake ground beef), the eggs themselves, even if liquid, were safe. Besides, he pointed out the crust that seemed on the verge of getting burnt. Kosh was also hungry, LoL! So I popped the dish into the microwave and nuked it for a minute just to get some of the immediate liquid into solid form.

Getting slices of this quiche out of the bowl was quite a challenge!



But dayyum it was good! :D And that's despite the weird ingredients I put in: I had leftover chickpea/cilantro/diced tomatoes/mango salad with lemon juice & red wine vinegar that had been languishing in the fridge for days... so I mixed that in with some fake meat (minus the mango! that would have been TOO weird!!) then topped that with onions, carrots, orange & green peppers, with a layer of cheese in between. Cheese of course also topped the whole thing. And yes, I again used egg in heavy whipping cream.

Did I already say how good it was?

:D


Tempted to try it out? Blog about it and drop a comment here, I'd love to see how yours turned out.

Have a good weekend, y'all!

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