New Apartment Quiche!

THE RECIPE

Gruyere & Mushroom Quiche

My OWN recipe!!

Ingredients

1 ½ cups Gruyere cheese, grated (approx .45 oz)

¾ lb of mixed mushrooms: 1 8oz pkge of baby bellas & 6 creminis; quartered & stemless

½ of a small to mediumish onion cut up in pieces that are between a dice & slice: slidiced

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

1 pre-made Pillsbury pie crust

1 egg yolk, whipped

3 eggs

1 cup heavy (whipping) cream (they call it whipping cream at the store)

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix mushrooms, onion, ¼ tsp salt & ¼ tsp pepper in a medium size bowl. Spread mushroom & onion mix onto baking sheet lined with tinfoil. Cook for 15 minutes.

While they are cooking roll one Pillsbury pie crust (that’s at room temp) into 9 inch pie plate. Brush the crust with egg yolk. Line crust with grated Gruyere cheese.

Take mushrooms & onions out of oven & set on stove top to cool. Reduce oven temp to 375 degrees. In a large bowl whip cream, eggs, remaining salt & pepper. Mix in mushrooms & onions. Pour into pie crust.

Bake for approx 35-40 minutes or until it looks done. If I can put a fork in the middle & pull it out cleanly, then I consider it done. But then after that I usually cook it 1 to 2 more minutes for ‘safety’---although, I’m not sure what that even means. I just do.

THIS COOK’S STORY

It’s the first dish I cook in my new apartment (my move was this week & getting ready for it is what has caused a mini-hiatus in posts---I apologize) and new kitchen and it is one of my own recipes. I never thought I’d come up with my own recipe…and granted, it’s sort of a hodge podge of reading up in various places about quiches. But, it’s still mine!

So, here it is…

Why Mushroom & Gruyere Quiche?

I like to ask, why not? I like cheese and mushrooms and quiche. Does there need to be any other reason? I chose Baby Bellas because I know I like them and they came in a nice package. But some fancy quiche recipes I had seen had multiple fancy kinds of mushrooms in them. Some of the fancy ones scare me a little (what parts of them are safe to use, why are they squishy, things like that…)but the Cremini looked pretty normal and also had a lovely sounding name, so once again I figured, hey, why not? Where the selection of Gruyere cheese came from I’m not quite sure. I think I used it last time I made a quiche, but that may have been Swiss…hmm. A friend mentioned Gruyere the other day when I said I was going to make a quiche, so that’s probably where that came from.

And speaking of Gruyere, I’d like to address how recipes talk about cheese. When cheese needs to be grated and it’s just listed as 2 cups or 1 cup or 1 ½ cups---it is NOT helpful if you are grating your own cheese. Cheese wedges come in ounces, not cups! I asked the guy in the cheese dept. how much Gruyere I needed to shred 1 ½ cups and he said that about a lb of cheese is about 1 cup---or at least that’s what I thought he said. Clearly that is WRONG. I bought 3 wedges that totaled about 1lb (16 oz). Guess how much I needed---one of those damn wedges. So, for all future reference approx .43 oz of Gruyere cheese equals 1 ½ cups of grated Gruyere cheese. And I helpfully listed it in my ingredients list as such, I’m hoping this catches on.

What about the crust?

I use pre-made crust! Now that I’m in my new kitchen, I do plan on learning how to make crust. But so far, this Pillsbury one has never let me down, so why fix it if it ain’t broken?

Tips & Hints & stuff like that…

Brushing the crust w/egg yolk & then layering it with the cheese are tips I learned from The Joy of Cooking. I’m not sure what the point of the yolk brushing is---especially because you’re ultimately just pouring an egg mixture into there anyway. But, I tried it last time and nothing went wrong, so I figured I’d keep it up.

I will say, that putting the cheese in the pie crust first and NOT in the egg & cream mixture does do some good---my last quiche was super fluffy and I think its because I put the cheese on the bottom. I don’t know if this is really the case or just something I imagined in my head, but I like to think it keeps the cheese from getting all up in the egg mixture and making it less fluffy. I also read online that cooking the veggies before putting them in the quiche will keep it from becoming watery---hence me including that step in my recipe.

I will say I was a little worried about the cream…I had read you should use heavy cream, but what they had at Whole Foods was labeled heavy ‘whipping’ cream---so when I whisked it with the eggs I prayed it wouldn’t turn into whipped cream. And it didn’t! Although the more I think about it the more I think the last amazing quiche I made definitely had skim milk and not heavy cream. Oops.

The Taste Test

It was good! Not as amazing as I remember my last quiche being---but I now thing 2 key elements are coming back to me. Last time I:

--used skim milk

--used swiss cheese (I think…)

But because this is the first recipe of my own creating in my brand new apartment and my brand new kitchen it shall always have a special place in my heart.

Now, if I can figure out what to do with all that leftover Gruyere…suggestions welcome.