Quiches!

- z.

So there I was salivating while reading/viewing some food blogs where suddenly, upon cruising through some of their archives, an entry about quiche loaded before my eyes. It was then that I realised that I should probably start making some... before I lose too much liquid from my body. :P

And THUS, the search for easy-to-make Quiche recipes began!

I learnt that there were two ways of making quiche : one where you make the crust and contents separately, and the other where you just pretty much mix the whole thing up. Laziness would dictate that I do the latter, but seeing that I was out of self-raising flour which that one requires, I did the first one, which wasn't too bad to begin with. Later I saw a friend and got some self-raising flour from her, so I did the second recipe as well because I had way too much 'filling'. Much later, I used the excess of that (I told you I made way too much :P) for some pasta.

So let's make some Quiche already!

Quiche #1

The quintessential quiche, for me, is one that uses sour cream or 50% cream 50% milk.
...but to put it simply, I used neither in this first recipe...because I forgot, lol. So this is practically like an egg tart. A very savoury egg tart.

Next time I make these (which will probably be aaaaaaaaages away because they're so unhealthy with all that cheese and eggs, lol) I will :

• add cream (duh)
• add spinach (because I'm dumb and forgetful D:)
• add tomatoes (because I forgot again D: D: D:)
• make the crusts thinner :D
• use cheddar cheese 

Anyway, Here's the recipe I used for this one: ( My comments/alterations are in red. :) )

• Crust (recipe suggested by Afdzal, thank you!!) : from Recipezaar.
  
• Ingredients
• 1 cup flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup olive oil or canola oil - I used soya bean oil
  
• ¼ cup cold water - refrigerated is good
  
  
• Directions
• Mix flour and salt with fork. 
• Beat oil and water with whisk or fork to thicken.
• Pour into flour and mix with fork ~ I think it's perhaps easier to use my hands, so I did. However, if you do this, don't knead too much, and make sure to put it in the fridge for a few minutes.
  
• Press into 9" pie crust ~ I used a muffin tray, it works just as well
  
  
• Filling (found at Suite101)
  
• Ingredients:
• 1 cup shredded cheese ~ I used vegetarian edam. It tastes kinda funny before it's cooked, but the aftertaste pretty much disappears after it's cooked. It's also quite creamy, so it's got a nice texture to it after the quiche is done. 
• 1-1½ cups of whatever ~ I used:
• 1tbsp of finely chopped garlic
• 1tsp of ginger
• 2 cups meat:
• minced chicken (2 burger patties, mashed, actually =_=)
• 1 chopped chicken sausage 
• I realise that these processed meat products aren't as good as real lean meat, and aren't exactly healthy/conventional lol, but they're practical items to have around the kitchen.
• 1 big white onion
  
• 1 carrot
  
• 1 capsicum,
• ¼ cauliflower
• Salt to taste
• Blackpepper
• A pinch of oregano, basil, parsley 
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups heavy cream or half & half with milk ~ Didn't add this in x_x 
• ¾ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp nutmeg, ground ~ Didn't add this either, because I don't have any. And I think I might be allergic to it, for some reason. I substituted this with some basil, a little bit of oregano and some parsley. Because I kinda predicted that I was gonna screw up anyway since it's my first time, so might as well experiment, lol.
  
  
• Crust + Filling (also from Suite101)
  
•  Directions
• Sprinkle cheese evenly over the bottom of the crust. 
• Place veggies, meats and other additions on top of the cheese. ~ I separately cooked my filling first till about 75%, because I use meat and I tend to get paranoid about meat not being cooked well :P.
  
• Whisk together eggs, cream, salt and nutmeg in a medium size mixing bowl on medium speed.
• Carefully pour cream on top of veggies, etc. ~ Seriously, do this carefully or everything may spill out of the crusty bit like mine did. -_-
  
• Bake at 350degF/approx. 176.6degC for 45 minutes or until knife comes out clean.
• Let sit for 15 minutes before slicing. ~ Content IS hot when it's fresh from the oven. Or you'll get a burnt tongue *shifty eyes*
  
• Refrigerate leftovers.
  

And the result?

It doesn't taste that bad, I swear. x_x

~

Next, Quiche #2


Note for next time:

• USE BUTTER! =_= I keep skipping ingredients accidentally, sigh! (I'm terrible at following recipes...)

Recipe taken from Best Recipes. :)

• Ingredients:
• 4 eggs ~ Used probably 3 eggs...long story.
  
• 1½ cups milk ~ I used 2 cups by accident, sigh...
  
• 3 tbsp melted butter ~ I suppose oil would do?
  
• ½ cup self-raising flour ~ IMPORTANT! 
• 1 cup grated cheese ~ Haha I grated my thumb while doing this =_= - the ingredients were fine tho!
• 2 cups of whatever ~ See above 'whatever'
  
  
•  Directions: 
• Set oven to 180degC
• Whisk together thesefirst 4 ingredients (eggs, milk, butter, s-r flour)
• Fold in cheese and filling
• Pour the mixture above into a quiche pan  ~ I used a normal medium-sized square baking pan ... which is a lot thicker than a normal quiche pan (quiche pans tend to be wide but short).
  
• Bake for about 40 minutes ~Wait for about 10-15 minutes before serving
  

 Et voila:

This was right after I took it out from the oven, so the middle part is kinda bulging out.

To be honest, I prefer the taste of the 2nd quiche to the first, but then... I was silly enough to miss the milk of the 1st one, so I guess it's unfair to compare to begin with. Hehe.

As I've written above, due to the excess filling, I decided to make a pasta dish. Thus:

Pasta!

So that's just pasta (leftover elbows and spirals from previous cooking), about 250g, boiled (without the essentials : a tsp each of oil and salt, because, again, I forgot to add until they were done T_T), with other stuff. After sifting out the boiling water, I chucked the pasta into the pot with the extra filling. Then I twirled the whole combo around the pot with medium heat to let it mix. I added some salt, black pepper, oregano too. BecauseomgIloveoreganoomgitisawesome :P

And that's that. End of story, YAY! I can do other things now because this entry's done! :D :D :D

Hope I gave some ideas on how you can venture more in your cooking, or at least improve on. :)