What's for Dinner - Broccoli Cheddar Quiche

Often, when accosted by a head of floppy broccoli, I sentence the limp vegetable to a soupy demise, with delicious results. Broccoli cheddar soup is a wonderful way to use up less-than-stellar broccoli, or an excess of broccoli stems (for those of you who, like me, prefer to eat only the florets), but it's nice to have other options. Enter the alternative user-upper of vegetables in their decline: quiche.

It's an omelet in a pie - what's not to love? You barely even need a recipe for a quiche! Just eggs, some cream (or milk), a frozen pie crust, and whatever you want to throw in. My basic recipe for a quiche is as easy as:

6 eggs
3/4 cup light cream, or milk (skim milk makes it watery, I'd stick to 2% or more)
1/2 cup or so of grated cheese (cheddar, swiss, monterey jack, whatever you've got)
1 cup or so of veggies
1/2 cup of ham or browned and crumbled sausage (optional), or a handful of bacon bits
One refrigerated or frozen pie crust, pre-baked

Bake the crust according to directions for a one-crust pie - mine needed 10 minutes at 425F. If you don't have pie weights to keep the crust down, poking some holes in the bottom with a fork works pretty well to prevent the crust from bubbling up while it bakes.

Cut the veggies pretty small and pre-cook them either by sauteeing (good for mushrooms, onions, spinach, and peppers) or by steaming (best for broccoli). Whisk the eggs and cream together, then add in the other ingredients until you have a thick eggy soup, then pour it into your pre-baked pie shell. Easy as that. If you want to get fancy, you can keep some of the prettiest mushroom slices and arrange them in a pattern across the top, or use thin tomato slices. I never add any seasoning other than salt and pepper, because I like to taste just the egg and veggies. Note: if you're using a salty meat in your quiche, don't add salt!

Cooking time is a little fuzzy, because it will be different depending on how deep the pie plate is, and what kind of cream or milk you used (in my experience, thinner dairy makes a slightly longer cooking time). I usually start checking it at 25 minutes, and then poking it every 5 minutes thereafter until the middle part is set nicely. Nobody likes a runny quiche. Just poke a thin knife into the center of the pie and see if it feels closer to soup or quiche. when you hit quiche, it`s ready.
 

For the quiche I made, I used about a cup of steamed broccoli, chopped small, along with half an onion and half a package of white mushrooms, cooked in a pat of butter. I added some sharp cheddar cheese, and since I didn't have any ham or bacon handy, I kept it meatless. Quiche is always an easy, cheap meal. Also, it's not too far removed from the eternal favorite fun meal: breakfast-for-dinner.


Edited Feb 3 2013 to add cooking time. Thanks to Tasha for spotting that I missed it the first time around.

Kitchen tip!

With the use-it-up challenge in full swing among my internet friends, some interesting and creative meals are coming together, and some people are sharing very useful tips to help keep stuff from going bad.

One I used this weekend: I had half a package of mushrooms languishing in my fridge and my meal plan for the weekend consisted of going out to restaurants. Normally, I'd write them off as a loss and get over it, but thanks to some people who are smarter than me, I had another option.

If you have mushrooms that are going to go bad before you can use them, cut them up and saute them in some butter or oil, and then freeze them. They'll be great in a sauce some other time! I added some onion to the mix because I had some of that around too, and one night in the next week or so I will thaw them and add them to a pan gravy to go over some chicken.

Rescuing mushrooms from a sad fate in the trash can - awesome!

Use-it-up Challenge 2 - Modding the Shake & Bake

I make faux-shake-and-bake-type chicken often, varying the seasoning and/or sauce I coat the chicken with before breading it with plain breadcrumbs. It's just so easy, and we both like the result, so it's in the regular meal rotation. I use plain breadcrumbs because real, packaged Shake & Bake or its store-brand equivalents are much too salty for me, which is unfortunate because I have a packet of that left in my pantry from way back when I was unaware of this fact. The box I bought came with two seasoning packets and after using the first one I stuffed the second one far into the pantry, because I wasn't ever going to do that to my tastebuds and blood pressure again.

But, in the spirit of using it up, and not throwing it out, I took a huge risk and used it to coat some chicken tonight. Why, you cry, would I do that after I just said how much it sucked? Well, I cut it with regular breadcrumbs to try and mitigate the salt factor. Because the packaged stuff was seasoned ("Parmesan crusted"), I skipped my usual dip of the chicken in salad dressing and used a beaten egg to moisten the chicken pieces instead.

To go with it, I added some Stovetop stuffing. I bought a can of the stuff a while ago, instead of a box, because a whole box is always too much and we always throw some out. The idea of making only what I needed appealed to me. I keep forgetting it's there, though. It's always very salty too, so despite my desire to bump up the stuffing flavor with the chicken broth in the fridge, I used plain water to make it.

Toss in some roasted sweet potatoes seasoned with the powder at the bottom of a jar of Mrs Dash, and you've got dinner.

Use-it-up Challenge

Why not use the start of the new year as an excuse to clear out older stock from my freezer and pantry? There are so many things in there I've forgotten I even had, and I don't want to discover them too late and have to throw them out because they're expired. I've decided to challenge myself to use up food I already have before going grocery shopping again, even if it means we'll have some interesting meals. I'm particularly curious what's in the unlabeled plastic containers in my freezer - many are spaghetti sauce, but some of them are a complete mystery, because I'm not good about labeling my leftovers. I'll still buy fresh fruit and veggies if I need to, and definitely milk, but I'm going to see if I can get through the rest of January without buying any meat or anything in a can or box.

Yesterday I made a package of cheddar and broccoli Knorr Pasta Sides, and steamed some frozen broccoli to add in. There was a lot more frozen broccoli left in that package than I remembered, so there's still some in the freezer for another night. With the pasta, I had more maple cinnamon glazed carrots, using up the last of the old bag of sprouting carrots. That all went with a honey ham steak, and it wasn't half bad. I can't believe I'm just now discovering how easy and tasty a ham steak is for a quick dinner!

Tonight I got rid of an almost-empty bottle of honey teriyaki marinade by putting it over a couple of chicken breasts (long-time freezer inhabitants) in the oven. I also had a collection of veggies nearing the end of their usable lifespan, so I stir-fried a green pepper, some mushrooms, and a quarter of an onion, so they could go with the chicken over some rice. And the rice was the last 2/3 of a cup left from a big bag. It's been sitting there forever because I bought new rice since then, and since I always make a cup at a time, the 2/3 cup wasn't enough, and of course the new rice didn't have the same cooking instructions as the old one!

So far, so good. I'm clearing out some room in the pantry for new supplies. It's been crowded in there for a while, and I keep buying more and wedging it in, but it'll be nice to have a little breathing room. I don't want to empty us out completely, of course, but we have some soup that's been in there for at least a year, 6 cans of corn, some old cans of pumpkin, a couple of one-quarter-full boxes of pasta... this overhaul is long overdue!