Bacon Quiche

Bacon Quiche - made October 12, 2013, recipe modified from For the Love of Food

I love quiche.  I hardly ever make it because of how many calories are in it from the heavy cream, cheese and crust but I still love it.  I had the best quiche when I went to Paris many years ago but it's hard not to have the best anything when you're in Paris.  Come on, it's Paris.  But, back here in the USA, I decided to make one because I had a frozen pie crust in my freezer from long ago and I was tired of looking at it, mocking me for not making a pie and threatening to get freezer burn if I waited much longer.  Plus I still had most of the turkey bacon from the Cheesy Sweet Potato, Sausage and Bacon Chowder.  So I went with this recipe for Bacon Quiche from For the Love of Food.

Since the pie crust was already pre-made/store-bought (sorry, genuine pie crust makers), this was easy to put together. Cooking the bacon ahead of time was the only "complicated" thing about it which isn't complicated at all except that turkey bacon doesn't really get as crisp as real bacon since there's less fat. 

Other than that, everything else was just about mixing the rest of the ingredients together and pouring it in the unbaked pie shell.  I put the pie pan on a baking sheet and baked it that way, partly because you don't want any egg mixture or custard to bake too hot or too quickly or you won't get a creamy texture (the eggs will curdle instead) and partly to catch any spills if the filling overflowed the pie pan.

Fortunately, it didn't overflow and this baked properly to a nice, creamy texture.  I took the picture of the slice I had cut out when the quiche was still a little warm so it might look a bit runny but once it had cooled, it was the right texture.  You don't want to overbake a quiche, especially if you're not going to eat all of it right away.  When you heat the leftovers, the custard will keep cooking and it's easy for the texture to become rubbery. I really enjoyed this quiche, to the point that I had to cut it into individual slices, wrap them up and place them in the freezer so I could space out how often I was going to eat it. No point tempting myself to snarf up more than one slice at a time. When reheating quiche, I recommend wrapping it in foil and heating in a toaster oven.  The bottom crust may still be a bit soggy but at least not as much as it would get if you heated in a microwave.

1 pie crust, unbaked
8 slices of bacon, crumbled (I used turkey bacon)
2 1/2 cups of shredded Swiss Cheese
2 Tablespoons of flour
4 eggs
3/4 cup of heavy cream
3/4 cup of half and half (half cream/half milk – mix it yourself if you can’t find any)
1/2 teaspoon salt
Dash of Pepper
Tops from 2 green onions,chopped, optional

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Cook bacon in the microwave until crisp. Once cool, crumble and set aside.
3. Place your pie dough in the pie dish; set aside.
4. In a medium bowl, combine the cheese and flour; mix well. In a large bowl, beat the eggs then add cream, half and half, salt, pepper, bacon, and cheese mixture. Mix well.
5. Pour into the pie crust-lined pie dish.
6. Bake for 30-45 minutes or until knife inserted into center comes out clean. Let it stand for 10 minutes before serving.