My Magical Quiche Recipe

I had one of those days today where even before 9am, I had fed the baby, fed the dog, cat and chooks (the divas). Cleaned the house, unpacked the dishwasher, re packed the dishwasher, done 2 loads of washing and had 2 quiche in the oven. Phew, that deserves a standing ovation.

Anyhoo, now that I have banged on about my crazy morning I'll tell you about the quiche. Everyone has staple meals that they regularly cook and quiche is one of those for us. With "the divas" (my chooks) producing up to 4 eggs per day, I cook quiche to get rid of some of the eggs! 

There is a base recipe (below) which never changes and depending on what you have in the fridge, you can alter the ingredients that go into the quiche. Today I made it with my favourite combination of ingredients.

I've roasted some pumpkin in the oven with a drizzle of olive oil and salt.

Chopped up bacon and onion, sauted in a pot until cooked. I use organic, locally produced bacon which has been smoked with leatherwood honey because I like the taste the best (Boks Bacon).

I needed to get rid of a heap of eggs so I made two quiche today. One to eat for tea and one for the freezer.

Ta Da! The finished product. 

To make this quiche you can make your own pastry or use frozen brought puff pastry. I personally would say to make your own because it tastes so much better but I'll admit I use puff pastry most of the time.

The pastry:

110g cream cheese
110g butter
1 cup plain flour

Rub all the ingredients together with your fingers. You might need to soften your ingredients in the microwave for a few seconds if they're not already at room temperature. Once you think it's rubbed together well enough, knead together into a dough. Add a bit more flour if you think it's too sticky.

Roll out the pastry on the bench and then put it in your quiche tray. I find that the pastry tends to break a bit when you transport it from the bench to the tray but it's easy to fix up.

Bake blind in the oven for about 20 minutes at 200 degrees. To blind bake, cover pastry with baking paper and then put a cup or more of rice on the paper to hold it down.

Basic Quiche Base mix:

6 eggs
1 cup cream
1 cup tasty cheese (grated)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese (grated)
1 onion chopped

Add ingredients to the base mix like bacon, roasted pumpkin, mushrooms and baby spinach (that's what I've used today) but you can use chicken, smoked salmon, grated zucchini, feta, brie, sweet potato, corn, the list goes on!

Cook at 180 degrees for 45 minutes (15 minutes uncovered so it browns and then put some al foil over it for the last half hour so it doesn't burn). If you can, leave the quiche to sit for 2-3 hours. (So needless to say, this recipe is best made earlier in the day, not an hour before you want to eat.)

Seriously, you need to try this recipe, it's pretty damn good if I do say so myself. Try it with the home made pastry too, it's soooo much better. The good thing about making your own pastry, you can substitute the ingredients with gluten free flour, dairy free cream cheese etc if you have food allergies. Same goes with the base quiche mix, you can use soy or rice milk instead of cream (you might just find it needs cooking a little longer).

I can't wait to get into mine for tea tonight, yummo! Now, I think I deserve to put my feet up with a cuppa for 5 minutes. Cheerio!