Vegetable Quiche

Yes, I finally made my quiche! It's about time, right? Anyway, it turned out well. It was FULL of vegetables, which was surprising. The vegetables nearly filled up the crust! There was barely enough room for the eggs on top. Paul especially liked the fact that it had so many vegetables in it (he doesn't like eggs all by themselves).


Vegetable Quiche
Ingredients:
1 (9 inch) unbaked pastry shell*
1 1/2 c. chopped onion (I just used one medium onion)
1 medium green pepper, chopped (I used half of a really big one)
1 c. chopped tomatoes (I didn't measure, I just chopped up three relatively small roma tomatoes)
1/2 c. chopped zucchini (again, I didn't measure, I just used one small-ish zucchini)
1/2 c. sliced fresh mushrooms (same as above, I used half a package)
2 T butter or margarine (I just used olive oil)
1/4 t. curry powder (Funny story, I was just going to leave this out when I originally planned to make this recipe because I didn't have any...but since it took me so long to make it, I actually bought some to use in a completely different recipe. I figured I'd use it! According to reviews on allrecipes.com, you can leave it out if you want to, but it tastes good!)
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
pinch ground cinnamon
5 eggs
1/4 c. milk
1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese

*I highly recommend buying a pre-made pie shell. I think that the fact that I had to make a crust was one of my main hang-ups with making this. However, if you want to make your own crust, I very much recommend Paul's mom's recipe. It's the easiest crust recipe I have come across. I'll write up that recipe at the end of this post.

Directions:
Line unpricked and unbaked shell with foil and bake at 450 degrees for five minutes. Remove foil and bake for five more minutes. (I have no idea why the crust didn't bubble because it wasn't pricked, but it didn't!) Reduce heat to 350 degrees.

In a large skillet, sautee onions and bell pepper in butter (or, in my case, olive oil). Once they begin to soften, add mushrooms and zucchini. Finally, add tomatoes. (Okay, let's be honest, I just added the vegetables as I chopped them up. I just started with the ones I thought would need the most time to cook. I knew tomatoes break down quickly, so I did them last. It worked well, so there you go. The original recipe doesn't give an order (it just says sautee the vegetables), so I figure this is an improvement.) Stir and cook until zucchini is starting to get soft (with the order I added my vegetables, the zucchini was the last to finish cooking). Add curry powder, salt, pepper, and cinnamon. Mix well. Spoon into crust.


In a separate bowl, beat eggs. Add milk and cheese, mix well. Pour egg mixture over the vegetables in the shell. This completely filled up my quiche pan. If you don't have a quiche pan, you can use a pie pan, but be careful you don't overflow the pan. Bake 40-45 minutes, or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Mine was done right at 40 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes before cutting.


Here's a link to the recipe on allrecipes.com: Vegetarian Quiche.

And for the encore! Here's the easiest crust recipe you'll ever find!

Grace's Pie Crust
Ingredients:
3/4 c. butter flavored Crisco
1/4 c. water
1/4 t. salt (Grace's recipe calls for two generous dashes, so this is an estimate)
2 T. milk
2 c. flour

Directions:
Put Crisco and water in a bowl. Melt in the microwave (it takes about 90 seconds). In a bowl, mix together melted Crisco/water, salt, milk, and flour. It's easiest to mix with your hands. Add a little extra flour if the dough is too wet to handle. Divide into two even balls (the recipe makes enough for a top and bottom crust, or two shells). Roll out one ball for one crust.

Helpful hint from my mom: When rolling out a pie crust place a piece of wax paper underneath the dough and another piece of wax paper on top. This makes it much easier to transport the crust once you've finished rolling it out, and you can make a much thinner crust successfully. When you finish rolling out the crust, peel off the top layer of wax paper and flip crust over on top of your pie pan (or quiche pan! :) ). Peel of the other layer of wax paper and press crust into pan.

Like I said, this is the easiest crust recipe I've come across. It's on the greasy side, but it turns out nice and flaky!

Oh, and by the way, I'm putting a dessert label on this post just so that the crust recipe will show up under that label as well. If I ever post the recipe for Paul's mom's Apple Pie, then I'll post the crust recipe there again and remove the dessert label from this one.