Bacon, Caramelized Onions & Spinach Quiche

Saturday morning was particularly drab, grey and drizzling.  Luckily, I had brunch plans with two girlfriends to liven up my morning.  While helping my friend curl her hair to attend a wedding, we decided to prepare a quiche with some of our favourite ingredients – bacon, caramelized onions and wilted spinach.  The combination turned out to be a great match – the salty bacon balancing out the sweet onions and bitter spinach.

Serves 6

Photo courtesy of Jenn Xu

Ingredients

1 pie crust (store-bough or homemade)

5 strips of bacon

1 small onion, chopped

2 handfuls spinach

4 eggs

1/4 cup milk (or cream)

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup grated extra old cheddar

Directions

Pre-bake pie crust according to directions.

Meanwhile, prepare the quiche fillings.  Cook, crumble, and set aside the bacon.  Saute the onions in some of the reserved bacon grease over low heat.  Once caramelized, add the spinach and cook until wilted. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and seasoning.

Sprinkle the cheese and bacon bits over the bottom of the cooked pie crust. Spread the onion and spinach filling overtop.  Pour the egg mixture overtop.  Bake in a preheated 375 F oven for 35 minutes or until set.  Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Bon appetit!

– Catherine

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Mushroom and Tomato Quiche

One of the reasons why I love Sunday brunch is that I have a little bit of extra time to cook something special. I love quiche, but between making a pie shell and creating the filling, for the longest time I thought it was too complex for an easy meal. How wrong I was! Sitelle let me into her secret about quiche a few years back. Simply stirfry your favourite veggies, sprinkle generously with cheese, fill with egg mixture and bake away.  She also uses sour cream in the egg mixture instead of milk, giving the quiche an incredibly velvety texture when cooked!

Mushrooms and tomatoes are two of my favourite veggies, and I heightened these flavours with some crumpled leftover bacon. From there, I added Gruyère and off I went! This quiche was delicious the morning of, and made for tasty leftovers the next day for lunch. For a vegetarian version, omit the bacon. Now that I remember how easy it is to make quiche, I’ll have to try a few of my other favourite flavour combinations (dill and feta, smoked salmon and asparagus, red pepper and basil to name just a few!).

Mushroom and Tomato Quiche
(1 quiche or serves 8)

ingredients
1 savoury pie crust

Olive oil

1/2 red onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

12 mushrooms, diced

Salt and Pepper

1 teaspoon savoury (or substitute your favourite herbs such as thyme or marjoram)

4-5 eggs

1 cup sour cream (light is fine)

1 (or more) cup grated Gruyère cheese (or substitute another cheese like cheddar or feta)

3 pieces of bacon, crumpled

1 tomato, sliced

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 F.  Roll out the crust and place it in a buttered pie or fluted quiche pan.  Prick it with a fork.

In a frying pan, saute the onions and garlic in the olive oil until fragrant.  Add the mushrooms and continue sauteing until wilted. Season with salt, pepper, and savoury.  Set aside to cool slightly.

Crack the eggs into a medium bowl and whisk in the sour cream.  Spread the mushroom mixture into the pie shell, and sprinkle the cheese and bacon over it.  Pour the eggs overtop, and shake until evenly spread. Gently place the tomato slices into the quiche to decorate.

Bake the quiche in the oven until set, about 25 to 35 minutes.  Serve with a toss salad and enjoy!

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Pi Day Special: Quiche aux poivrons, courgettes, broccoli, et onions

For our final pi day celebration today, we offer you a savoury quiche, one of Sitelle’s specials.  This is perfect for any meal of the day, with the delicious cheese and veggies adding personality to the quiche.

And so, we offer you our Pi Day in a nutshell (well, aside from the other two pies):

We ate a few eggs along the way… (the recycling bin had 4 egg cartons by the end of our adventuring)

To quote our dear roomate and friend on our Pi Day activities: “that’s an insane amount of eggs you two used. You guys are like Michael Phelps”.

Higher compliments could not have been given!  We hope you love and indulge in Pi Day as much as we do!

Ingredients – 1 large quiche

-1 quantity savoury pastry crust (*https://gourmeh.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/savoury-pastry-crust/)
-4-5  large eggs (depends on size of dish and how many eggs you have)
-1 cup whipping or sour cream
-2 cups grated Emmenthal or Gruyère cheese
-1 cup red pepper julienne
-1 zucchini, cut 3/4 cm rounds
-1 cup broccoli florets
-1/2 cup green onions or shallots, diced
-1/2 tsp nutmeg
-1/4 tsp salt (and more to taste)
-1 Tbsp parsley, finely minced
-1/2 tsp paprika (optional)
-black pepper, to taste

Directions

Chop the vegetables and grate the cheese, and set aside.  Prepare the savoury crust, then roll it out and place in a buttered pie or fluted quiche dish.  Prick it with a fork.  Preheat the oven to 375F.

In a medium bowl, crack the eggs, and whisk in the cream.  Add the onion, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and parsley.  Arrange the veggies on the crust, and pour the egg mixture over top.  There should not be too thick a layer of egg mixture.  Once it has been spread out (I usually gently shake the whole thing to spread it), sprinkle the cheese over top, and the paprika.

Bake in the oven until it is set, approximately 25 minutes.  This quiche is absolutely delicious with a green salad, and makes for absolutely amazing lunches the next day.  Happy Pi Day!

-Catherine and Sitelle

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