Thursday, April 15, 2010

Spinach Quiche

We got a bunch of spinach from our CSA yesterday. I wanted to do something different with it. Spring is a healthy time of year - greens, greens, and more greens - but I get sick of eating greens. I've been trying different recipes this spring that mask the fact that I'm eating greens, while enabling me to actually cook and eat them all. Today I decided to make spinach quiche. I've never made quiche before and really had no idea what I was doing. I made two mistakes: 1) I started too late so we ate an hour later than usual, 2) I used a pizza crust instead of a pie crust (I had an extra unopened Pillsbury pizza crust from my Pampered Chef party and I thought, why not try it?). The pizza crust wasn't bad, it just stuck to the pie pan and only Brett can get any pieces out. But it tasted good, so maybe it wasn't really a mistake. Would I use it again? Probably not. It tasted fine, but pizza crust is not as easy to manipulate at pie crust. Anyway, my recipe is a combination of three recipes. The quiche recipes in Joy of Cooking and the America's Test Kitchen cookbook, as well as this one: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/spinach-quiche/detail.aspx. I had to use all three because I couldn't find one for a simple spinach quiche.

I'm convinced that the cheese you use will make or break this recipe. Be sure NOT to buy wax posing as cheese. Ask the cheese specialist at your store which of the cheddars, etc. is worth buying. For this we used Romano cheese that Brett bought in Germany and 365 sharp cheddar.

Spinach Quiche

Crust:
Brush your pie pan with olive oil.
Insert pie crust.
Prick and make the edges pretty (something you can't do with pizza crust).
Brush with olive oil and minced garlic.
Pre-bake 7 minutes or less at temp for pie crust.
Remove from oven.
Set oven to 350.

Filling, etc.:
Cube 1/2 cup strong cheese (Romano, feta, etc.) and 1/4 cup sharp cheddar.
Saute together olive oil, one bunch of spring onions chopped, ~10 oz fresh spinach (stems removed) chopped until the spinach wilts and the water cooks off. Remove from heat.
Beat together 2 cups milk, 4 eggs, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, some nutmeg, a little chopped fresh parsley.
Mix cheese with the spinach and immediately spread the mixture on the bottom of your pie crust.
Open oven and pull out your middle rack. Place pie pan on rack.
Rebeat custard mixture (because all the pepper will have sunk to the bottom) and poor evenly over spinach until 1/2 in from the top of the crust.
Bake for 40-50 minutes, or until golden brown and a knife can come out clean 1 in from edge of quiche.
Allow to cool at least 15 min.
Enjoy!

By the way, when I made this I had a whole bunch of custard mixture left over. I poured it into my mini muffin tin and added a chunk of garlic to each cup. Then I baked them at 350 for 20 min. I haven't tried them yet. I just didn't want to throw away any food. I'm thinking I could put these little cups on a salad or something.

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