Beatiful Shiitake and Oyster Mushroom Quiche with Caramelized Onions, Bacon and Goat Cheese!

I'm not sure if it's an annoying habit for my friends and colleagues or an endearing one, but whenever we have any sort of potluck or event that involves bringing food from home, I pretty much always have to take it a little too seriously.

When I found out that my "Food and Medicinal Mushrooms" class was having a potluck, my mind soared with the possibilities. Originally, I'd asked Mom to make one of my favorite dishes: Huge black slimy mushrooms cooked in a hairlike fungus in a thick delicious broth. It might sound gross to you, but my adventurous class would have loved it. Unfortunately, the potluck snuck up on me a little too quickly to coordinate with Mom, so it was back to the drawing board for me.

First I thought about making Tom Ka Gai with enoki mushrooms. One of my classmates recently did a presentation on the beautiful and cancer-fighting enoki, and it sounded like a good way to showcase the delicious mushroom that many of our classmates apparently hadn't yet tried. But then we found out we wouldn't have access to a kitchen to warm up the soup, which led me to one of my mainstays: Quiche.

But since this is a mushroom class, I wanted to go beyond the more widely available cremini mushrooms I usually use, so I instead used a combination of oyster and shiitake mushrooms. (I used dried shiitake mushrooms, but I'm sure this quiche would be just as good if not better with fresh!) I also was forced to make my own crust since the Asian store that carries these fabulous mushrooms oddly doesn't carry pie crust, too. It turned out so good I included the recipe, but feel free to use any crust for this yummy quiche!

Shiitake and Oyster Mushroom Quiche with Caramelized Onions, Bacon and Goat Cheese
Bacon Grease Crust
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup bacon grease, chilled
1/4 cup shortening (or chilled unsalted butter)
2-4 tablespoons ice-cold water

Filling
6 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped
1 large yellow onion, sliced in 1/8-inch half-moons
3/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste, divided
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
12 ounces sliced oyster mushrooms
12 ounces sliced shitaake mushrooms (or 2 ounces dried, reconstituted)
4 eggs
1-1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup fresh goat cheese
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
4 tablespoons chopped fresh basil, divided
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

Combine flours, salt and fat in a mixer until coarse crumbles form. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time and mix with your hands until dough forms. Do not overmix. Form into a flattened disk and refrigerate while you make the filling.

Cook the bacon until edges begin to brown in heavy-bottomed skillet. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon to a paper towel-lined plate and set aside. Pour off (and save for your next pie crust!) all but 1 tablespoon of the bacon grease and add onions. Cook until caramelized, about 45 minutes, stirring when needed. When onions are soft and lightly browned, stir in 1/4 teaspoon salt and remove from skillet. Add butter to skillet; when melted, add mushrooms and cook until moisture is released then they begin to brown. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon salt then add to onions.

Meanwhile, combine eggs, cream, goat cheese, black pepper, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and 3 tablespoons basil. Add bacon, onions and mushrooms and mix well.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Remove chilled dough from fridge and roll out on a lightly floured surface until it's big enough to hang about 1/4-inch over your pie pan all around. Gently place in the pie pan and crimp your edges so they stay up in the oven. (I did this ahead of time then put the crust back in the fridge for about a half-hour, which I would recommend if you have time.)

Gently pour filling into crust, then top with Parmesan cheese. Cook for about 40-50 minutes, until top is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Garnish with remaining 1 tablespoon basil, and serve warm or room temperature.

Leftover Christmas Ham, Day 3: Quiche

Quiche, quiche, beautiful quiche, how I've missed you!

I was just going to double up my recipe for Spinach-Bacon Quiche (with leftover Christmas Ham instead of bacon, of course!), but I only had enough spinach for one quiche. However, I also had a beautiful bunch of red chard that I just purchased as a new member of PCC Natural Markets, so why not combine both into something even more flavorful?

Christmas Ham Quiche with Spinach and Chard
Makes 2 quiches
1 stick butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bunch chard, stems removed and cut into 1/2-inch ribbons
1 bunch green onions, chopped
10-oz. package frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry with cheesecloth or paper towels
8 eggs
3 3/4 cups whole milk
3 cups grated Gruyere
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/2 t. cayenne
1 t. salt
1 t. freshly ground pepper
Parmesan cheese, for garnish
Paprika, for garnish

Melt butter in a large pan. Add garlic, stir around until it starts to smell, about 30 second, then add chard and saute for a couple of minutes, until it begins to wilt. Add the green onions and continue stirring until the liquid starts to evaporate, another couple of minutes. Add the spinach and stir until well combined, for a couple of minutes. Remove from heat.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, beat the eggs. Mix in the milk, Gruyere, nutmeg, cayenne, salt and pepper.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare crusts for two quiches. Add spinach-chard mixture to the egg-milk mixture and combine well. Pour the mixture evenly into each of the crusts. Top with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese and paprika. Bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes, until you shake it and it doesn't jiggle.

Serve with a salad if you're healthy, or potato wedges fried in bacon grease if you're not!

Quiche just isn't as elegant without crust

This may not be as pretty as a real quiche, but it smells just as good when it's cooking and is much easier to prepare than one with a crust. I even prepared it a day in advance so I could just put it in the oven when I got home tonight. Whole Foods calls it "Spinach, Mushroom and Swiss Crustless Squares," but perhaps our version should have been called "Spinach, Mushroom and Swiss Crustless Quarters," because yes, rather than cut the quiche into 24 squares, we cut it into just four!

Spinach-Bacon Quiche from a vegetarian cookbook

I'm always wary about putting something as beautiful as the above quiche in the oven, because I know it's simply not going to look as good when I take it out. The crust never stays quite fluted enough, and the brown is never quite perfectly even enough.

But after we dig in, it really doesn't matter anymore.

Although once upon a time I used "The Ananda Cookbook" I permanently borrowed from Mom to make the vegetarian foods that fill its pages, those days are gone and now it folds directly to the quiche recipes that I have adapted into omnivore dishes. Honestly, the Mushroom-Spinach Quiche that I base the following recipe on is good ... but it's so much better with bacon in it!

Actually, I think my first adaptation of the recipe was with leftover Easter ham, which was probably why Bryan was mad I wasn't making a ham this year. But bacon does the trick as well.

Spinach-Bacon Quiche
Single pie crust
6 strips bacon, chopped
1 c. yellow onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
10 oz. frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry with cheesecloth
4 eggs
1-3/4 c. heavy whipping cream or half-and-half*
1-1/2 c. grated Swiss cheese (or gruyere)
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. cayenne
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
3 T. freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Paprika for garnish

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and prepare pie crust, which means, if you're using a store-bought crust, remove it from the fridge so it has some time to come to room temperature, then set it in a pie pan and make it look pretty.

Cook the bacon in a skillet until crisp, about 10 minutes. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon to a plate lined with paper towels and set aside.

Cook onion in bacon grease until soft, about 4 minutes, then add garlic and cook for about 1 minute. Add spinach and stir until it's heated, about 4 minutes.

Meanwhile, lightly beat the eggs in a medium-sized bowl, then add the cream or half-and-half (*I actually used fat-free half-and-half, which as far as I'm concerned is the most fabulous invention ever), Swiss cheese and spices. Add the spinach mixture and bacon, stir well, then pour gently into the pie crust.

Sprinkle the Parmesan and paprika evenly over the quiche, then bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Substitutions:

To use ham instead, you can use 4 T. butter to saute the onions in, then add about 1 c. of chopped ham to the egg and cream mixture in the end.

If you'd like to make Mushroom-Spinach Quiche, instead of bacon and a yellow onion, you'll want to start by sauteing in 4 T. butter the garlic along with 5 chopped green onions and 3/4 lb. sliced mushrooms for about 5 minutes before adding the spinach.

And you can even make Mushroom-Spinach-Bacon Quiche: Use 4 strips bacon, and substitute the yellow onion with 5 green onions.

Happy adapting!

Welcome spring with morel quiche

Even if Nicole does make fun of me for getting Sunset magazine and says it reminds her of her mother, I can't help but like reading it. Besides, I don't want it to go the wayside like Gourmet did last year, and the only way to keep that from happening is to buy the print edition.

If I'd just let the Internet work its magic, I probably never would have stumbled across this recipe for Asparagus and Morel Quiche that was part of Sunset's Easter package. However, as scrumptious as it all looked, I think I'll have to pass on the Baked Ham with Meyer Lemon-Spice Glaze because there is just no way I'm squeezing five of those tiny little lemons.

It would have made a lovely Easter meal, though. Quiche is always an Easter hit around our house, even if it is crustless like the one we had over the weekend. I am simply not a fan of crust. But this one I would definitely make again. Ten tbsp. butter, 1-1/2 c. flour and an egg, you just can't go wrong with a recipe like that.