So this all started with me spotting these really gorgeous leeks at the market the other day. I put them in my basket, but had no idea what to do with them. I thought maybe I'd make a nice potato and leek soup. Or fritters.
Well. It's too hot to make soup or leek potato fritters because typical January in California, it went from being nice and cool to 81 degrees. Yeah. No soup. No slaving over a frying pan being hostile because I'm greasy and sweaty.
So Bacon and Leek Quiche it is!
Quiche is just a fancy word for egg pie. These are great because you can have it for breakfast, lunch and even dinner. Win win. The combinations are endless. Spinach and bacon, broccoli and bacon, mushroom and leek, bacon and bacon (did I mention bacon?) ham and Swiss. I think the fact that there's cheese in it is a given but you don't have to use only one kind of cheese is my point.
I'm also making a vegetarian version for a birthday potluck for work at the same time so I'll post both ways here.
Here are the major players:
Leeks (one large stalk)
bacon (I used maple and super thick cut)
eggs
sour cream
cheese (I used Kerrygold sweet white cheddar for this batch)
Side note on cheese:
You can use whatever cheese you want. I think it depends on what kind of quiche you're making. I also have used sharp cheddar, Parmesan, Swiss, and Gruyere (and to be completely honest, I can't even pronounce Gruyere...). Just use whichever cheese you like as long as you can shred it or grate it. I got this Kerrygold Irish cheddar cheese on sale for 75 cents. Works for me!
For the non-bacon version I used:
Mushrooms and green onions in addition to leeks.
Preparing your leeks:
Okay. If you haven't worked with leeks before they are like gi-normo (giant AND enormous) green onions but with a milder, sweeter taste then green onions. They are delicious raw too. Unlike a green onion, the green parts are not edible. Just the white part is edible Think of it like artichokes, only the ends of the leaves are edible, the rest is too fibrous and tough to eat.
The other thing you should know about leeks is that they are notorious for having a lot of dirt in them. A lot. I cut the bottoms off and the tops and then I cut it lengthwise in half and pull them apart. Wash in cold water. Rinse and repeat several times. I let them soak in cold water too and every time I'm surprised that there's dirt in the water despite all the times I've rinsed them. If you don't really take care when washing them, you'll be crunching dirt later and that's not pleasant...
Shake off all excess water and chop as evenly as you can. Set aside.
A lot of people make crust from scratch and I have, but seeing how it's 81 degrees today, I don't think I could keep my butter nice and cold to make a good crust so I opted to use a frozen pre-made deep dish pie shell that I got from Smart and Final. Two 9 inch 2-packs on sale for $5 (that's 4 crusts for $1.25 each!-At first I wrote $2.50 each, but then realized I messed up the math on that. HAHAHAHA! I am clearly math challenged.)
Follow the directions on the package
(Defrost, prick them with a fork and pre-bake for 10 minutes before pouring in your filling)
I should mention you can also NOT use crust and do a non-crust version...but I'm a fan of carbs so crust it is. So these are deep dish pie crusts and this recipe will make ONE quiche. If you're using the shallower pie crusts then I suppose this filling would make TWO shallower quiches.
Let's get cooking so we can get eating!
Fry up your bacon (mmmmm. bacon....) in a skillet until crispy. I use 3-4 slices of the thick cut bacon (plus one or two extra) per quiche. I will add a few slices extra because somehow, some of it goes missing during the process....
Careful not to cook on high because your bacon will burn.
I'm embarrassed to admit how many pics of bacon I actually have on my phone...I adore bacon. I finished my first marathon because I kept telling myself I could eat bacon when I finished. True story.
Set your bacon aside and in the same pan that you fried the bacon (I removed half the grease) add your chopped leeks with pepper (I don't add salt because the cheese we add is pretty salty).
Saute leeks until soft but not brown and allow the leeks to cool.
Now that your bacon is cool, give them a run through with your knife until you have small pieces of bacon (good thing we made extra because some of it went missing...)
In a bowl, whisk 4 eggs with about 1 cup of sour cream.
Add pepper, grated cheese (I used half the block of cheese pictured so 3.5 oz, but as much or little as you want works great), cooled leeks and bacon.
Whisk up and pour your egg mixture in the your pre-baked and cooled pie crust. Don't forget to wrap the edges of your quiche with tin foil. It will prevent your crust edges from burning. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Your quiche will come out of the oven puffy but will settle in nicely. Wait 10 minutes and enjoy. I may or may not have added another dollop of sour cream on top when I ate mine....
Veggie version:
Using olive oil, saute mushrooms until golden with a little salt and pepper. When they look like this:
add the leeks and green onions (I used a little green onion because it's yummy, but I thought the dark green would look pretty too. Eating is just as much a visual experience in my opinion).
And from here, its the same step by step as above after beating the eggs with sour cream....
The veggie version looks like this and is just as delicious as the bacon version.
Quiche refrigerates nicely and can be warmed up easily....Serve with a side of fruit, hash browns, or a nice arugula salad.
And I leave you with this...
"Very clever dinner. Appetizing food fit neatly into interesting round pie."
"It's a quiche."
"How do you spell?"
"Well you don't spell it, son, you eat it."
If you didn't get that, then you're missing out!!!!!!!!
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