Quiche and Company

Last night we had a lovely meal--quiche and an excellent salad full of nuts, beans, radishes, and endives. It's still dreary all the time and is set to rain all week. I feel like I'm in hibernation mode even though it's meant to be summer. Please, blow some sun along.



My schwester's delicious mushroom-spinach quiche--the best I've ever tasted:

For the crust:
1 1/2 c flour
1 t salt
1 t sugar
1 stick butter
1 egg
1 t cold water

Mix flour, salt and sugar; add 1 stick of unsalted butter (cut up), mix with your free hand (your other hand is on the phone with your mutti and vatti) until coarse meal. Whisk egg with cold water; add into flour mix and blend with your hand until the dough is moist and clumpy, but not holding together yet. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until the dough sticks together...around 5 turns, maybe more (and then lick your fingers). Chill for about an hour.

Take your dough out and roll it out to about 12-15" diameter (use a glass or empty bottle if you are pin-less). Put it in a buttered 9 1/2" pie dish. Chill for about half an hour (not strictly necessary, but yarrr). Put the oven to 400° and put in your crust (with pie weights on buttered foil if you have them, but who has pie weights? once I used paper clips but really it's not worth it). Bake for about half an hour (until golden), piercing crust with a fork halfway through.



For filling:
1 bunch green onions
1 box mushrooms
1 1/2 T butter
1 box frozen spinach
1 c half and half
2 eggs
salt + pepper to taste
cheese to taste

Cut off the little root bit of your green onions and discard, then cut them up in about 1/2 cm segments until well into the green (flavor!). Clean and cut mushrooms. Melt about 3/4 T of butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add in your green onions and cook for about 2 minutes. Add in another 3/4 T butter, mushrooms, and salt and pepper to taste; put the heat to high! Cook until the mushrooms are getting nice and brown. Cool.

At the same time you can prepare the frozen spinach. Press out as much water as you can (you can just take handfuls of spinach and squeeze them, it's very satisfying). Cool.

Now for the grand finale! Put your oven to 350°. Mix half and half (or whipping cream), eggs, salt and pepper, and cheese to taste (I just grate til I'm happy, sorry for the imprecision : ). Mix in mushrooms/green onions, and as much spinach as you want (this one has the whole box and as you can see it's really spinach-ey). Pour into your crust, and bake for about half an hour--you want it to not be liquidy in the middle when you jiggle it. Take it out and let it stand for maybe 15 minutes (if you can!) to finish setting, and enjoy!

Best made in pairs because as good as it is the first time it's even better cold for lunch the next day.



...mademoiselle was there too! No quiche for her, only kisses.