Deleeecious quiches!

I'm going through a quiche phase. It may have started when my friend Magda made me a delicious chantrelle mushroom quiche for my birthday. It was my first chantrelle mushroom experience: delish.

Shortly after, I visited my friend Jess and her new baby girl Danika. I threw together a quick pie crust and made a quiche filling with whatever I had in my fridge. I think I used onions and mushrooms (maybe some cheese? I don't even remember.) Quiches are just so versatile.

This past Friday, I had a playdate at Magda's again and we had a gourmet lunch with two types of quiche, a green salad, a sweet potato salad, strawberry banana smoothies and apple butter cookies for dessert. That's what you get when 5 women come together for lunch!


Both quiches at the playdate were so delicious: spinach-mushroom-goat cheese and ham-red pepper-onion. I don't think I've had a quiche I didn't like. So much so that I decided to make a quiche with the can of smoked salmon pate that my mom gave me last year.

I honestly have no problems making a pie crust from scratch. It seems like it would be a hassle but I feel like it's less of a hassle than having a pie crust take up space in my freezer. I never have one on hand and whenever I take the time to make one, I find it was so easy I would do it again.

I decided to reward such domestic thinking with a new French rolling pin from Crate and Barrel. I paired it with a new deep pie dish with pretty ruffles. (Thanks to my brother and sister for the Yorkdale gift card for my birthday!) For some reason, an actual quiche dish (the one with the removable bottom) is very shallow. If I had to eat a shallow quiche for dinner I think I'd eat the whole darn thing. I like my quiches nice and deep: a higher filling-to-crust ratio and, let's be honest, more quiche fits on a plate... This ruffled pie dish was perfect.


These days I use Michael Smith's recipe for pie crusts but using the food processor. I think the last time I blogged about a quiche (wow, that was a long time ago) I used Ina's recipe which calls for both butter and shortening. Michael Smith's recipe has been just as flaky and tasty and lately I try to keep things simple.

Also, I think I've changed my mind on the idea of blind baking the pie crust first. Again, out of laziness and the need to get the quiche done before Lily wakes up from her nap, I've just poured the quiche filling straight into the unbaked pie crust (I always chill the crust while I'm assembling the filling), then straight into the oven. I think it turns out pretty great!

For this deeper dish, I used 6 eggs and 1.5 cups of milk, whisked in the smoked salmon pate, added some chopped green onions, and blanched broccoli.

I love eating quiches with an arugula salad. I find the peppery leaf cuts the richness of the quiche really well, but any leafy salad with a nice tangy dressing would go great.


While the quiche was baking in the oven, my dear friend Rebecca called me from Ireland. "Write more blog posts!" she begged. So instead of watching another episode of Top Chef Masters, here you have another blog post in less than a week!