To tailor a classic quiche for two, we need to ditch our full-sized pie plate and grab a 6-inch pie plate to produce a perfect-size quiche for two people. This is not a light recipe, but rather a smooth, no-holds-barred quiche made with cream, cheddar cheese, mushrooms,spinach and bacon. To keep this easy we will use a store-bought, refrigerated,roll-out pie crust.
Prep Time15 minutesmins
Cook Time1 hourhr
Dough Freezer Time30 minutesmins
Servings: 3servings
Ingredients
1store-bought rolled pie crust
2bacon slices
½TablespoonButter
½cupfresh mushroomssliced (button or cremini)
⅔cupwhipping cream
2large eggsslightly beaten
1teaspoonWorcestershire sauce
¼teaspoonsugar
¼teaspoongarliccrushed
⅛teaspoononion salt
⅛teaspoonfreshly ground pepper
⅓cupfrozen spinachthawed and squeezed dry
½cupshredded cheddar cheesegrated. You can vary the cheeses. Some favorites include feta cheese, goat cheese, white cheddar cheese, Swiss cheese, and gruyere.
2Tablespoons Parmesan ,shredded
Instructions
Spray the pie plate with cooking oil or rub with butter papers (What is this?) to grease the pie plate. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and adjust oven rack to lower-middle position.
Pre Bake the crust
Unroll the dough. Gently place the dough onto 6-inch pie plate, letting the excess dough hang over the edge. Ease dough into plate by gently lifting edge of dough with your hand while pressing into plate bottom with your other hand, letting excess dough overhang the edge of the pie plate.
Using a knife or kitchen shears, trim overhang to ½ inch beyond lip of the pie plate. Tuck the overhang under itself, the folded edge should be flush with the edge of the pie plate. Crimp the edges of the dough using your fingers. After crimping the dough, wrap dough-lined pie plate loosely in plastic wrap and place in freezer until the dough is fully chilled and firm for at least 30 minutes.
Remove chilled dough from freezer, set the plastic wrap aside and line chilled pie shell with parchment paper or heavy-duty aluminum foil, covering the edges to prevent burning. If you do not have heavy-duty aluminum foil you can use a double layer of aluminum foil. Fill the pie plate with pie weights. If you do not have pie weights filling with penny’s or other like sized coins works perfectly fine. Bake until pie dough looks dry and is light in color, this will take about 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer the pie plate to a wire rack and remove weights and parchment.
For the Filling:
While crust bakes, cook 2 slices of bacon, cut into ¼” pieces, in 8 or 10-inch skillet over medium-low heat until crisp, about 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer bacon to a paper towel-lined plate. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon fat from skillet, add butter and melt. Add mushrooms and cook over medium high heat until softened and lightly browned, 5 to 7 minutes. Then set aside.
Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with aluminum foil, this will catch any spillage and make for an easy clean up. In a 4-cup liquid measuring cup, whisk together eggs cream, Worcestershire, sugar, garlic, onion salt, and pepper. Stir in spinach, cooked mushrooms and half of the crumbled bacon into the egg mixture until well combined.
It is important to add the custard to the crust while it is still warm; if the crust has cooled, rewarm it in the oven for 5 minutes before adding the custard. Place warm pre-baked pie crust on prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle cheddar cheese into the bottom of the pie plate and return to oven. Carefully pour egg mixture into crust until it reaches about ½ inch from top edge of crust (yes, you are pouring the egg mixture into the crust with the pan in the oven). Use a fork to spread the mushrooms and spinach evenly. Sprinkle with parmesan. You may have left over egg mixture. Bake quiche for 20 minutes then spread the remaining bacon on top. Continue baking until top is lightly browned and the very center still jiggles and looks slightly underdone, and a knife inserted about 1 inch from the edge comes out clean. This will take about 30 – 40 minutes. Let the quiche cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.
Notes
Notes: this recipe was adapted from the Cooking Colorado cookbook.