So the other night I had a couple things going on in my brain... I had thought perhaps it would be a breakfast for dinner night because we had eggs, and then I remembered I had 3kg of ground beef sitting in my fridge that I needed to divide and freeze which I had picked up during the glory that was our recent Costco trip. So, eggs and ground beef it was! What the heck can you make from eggs and ground beef other than cheeseburger pie (which I had recently made) or some crazy random scramble? Usually at this point in my musings I ask the Google. The Google tells me a lot of things and I have a pretty good relationship with it. It tries not to steer me too far off base, but every once in a while gives me some shiny distractions to feed my (imagined) ADD.
On this occasion, the Google wasn't really being that helpful, so I went to the old standby allrecipes which, it turns out, was also not that helpful. The problem I was running into was that egg is used as a binding ingredient in almost all meatball, hamburger and meatloaf recipe out there which started making searching annoying. Anyway, I ended up going to the other old standby of staring into the freezer at which point I saw some pie shells that I had cleverly picked up for such an occasion and ... BLAMO! Inspiration hit me like a stack of quarters in a sock. There will be QUICHE TONIIIIGGGGHHHT! (please say that in your head in the voice of Inigo Montoya).
Alright, I have used this quiche recipe before with large success, so I took it as my starting point and then kinda meandered down the "hey this might taste good with that" path that often leads to culinary tasties being created in my kitchen.
First step - veggies. I'm thinking you can really go out on a limb with this, but I happened to have onion, mushroom, red pepper, and fresh baby spinach on hand. There are a lot of other things that would work just fine, but I'll list nifty variation ideas at the end. For now let's stick to what I actually did. I slap chopped. Yup. I do own a big food processor. I also own several knives, and am fairly talented at slicing and dicing food while managing to spare body parts. However, I was in a mood, and the slap chop - although it is certainly not the best product in the world - is most definitely therapeutic since you really have to ream on it to get it to work the way Vince would like you to think you can with one finger. Ok, so first I whacked an onion, several mushrooms and a red pepper (in stages, obviously... the slapability is severely limited by volume). Then tossed the onion in a more hot than medium pan which had a glurp or two of olive oil in it. Sauteed that for a bit - I'm not super sure why, but the real cooks on TV always give the onion a head start, so who am I to question - and after the onion was well on it's way, I carefully got the mushrooms and pepper successfully into the pan from off of the cutting board without dumping half of it on the stovetop. Small victories, people. It's how I get through the day.
Alright, so... sauteed the veggies till they were mostly cooked then seasoned them with a little salt and pepper, turned the pan down a bit to just under medium, then put several large handfuls of spinach on top of the cooking veggies and put the lid on to wilt. If you are using fresh spinach, you want to use a LOT because it's good for you and will wilt down to almost negligible amounts. Now is a good time to preheat the oven to 375F or so.
A few minutes later, I got impatient and just stirred the spinach down into the veggies and dumped everything into a bowl for the time being. Pan back up to hot, and TSSSSSSSSSSS on goes the ground beef. Woohoo! Now the house starts smelling domestic! Nothing smells more like "dinner is cooking" to kids and a man than beef and onions being sauteed. Too bad I was making this mid-afternoon to reheat for dinner and I was alone to smell the domestication wafting around. Alright, so brown the beef. Don't burn it. Can you handle that? Good to hear. When the beef is brown it's time to take it off the heat and start assembling the quiches. If you like to be all crazy and willy-nilly then feel free to mix the beef and veggies together beforehand, but I always feel more chef-like when I layer things. Also, it makes for (imagined) OCD happiness. Alright then. I didn't pre-bake the pie shells because I'm lazy, but you can if you like... I think it will likely make them a bit crispier, but when you're using generic brand frozen pieshells, the quality of crust is not forefront.
The quantities I used were enough for 2 pieshells (one for now and one for freezing) so adjust accordingly. In each shell I spread a layer of veggies, a layer of beef, and then a lot of grated cheese. I was feeling like it might need a little sumthin-sumthin so I dotted small spoons of cream cheese all around the top before the cheddar layer. Also from our happy fun time at Costco, hubby had picked up an insanely large tub of flaked parmesan which I will be using for a while yet, so I dotted some of that around too. Now, for the quiche part. I actually used 8 eggs, but it was too much, so let's pretend I used 6 eggs. Beat them up with a whisk, poured in around a cup or so of milk and then beat it all together. If I had half and half or even coffee cream I would have used that, but I didn't, so milk had to do. I am not a fat cutter. Moderation! Next - pour the egg mixture fairly carefully over the pies. This can be a messy operation, so I always put the pieshells on a foil lined baking sheet because I always overestimate the filling and end up with egg spillage. It's not a big deal, just make sure there's something there to catch the overflow and you're fine.
Your oven should be ready - pop them in and set the timer for around 40 minutes. You know this one is done when it passes the toothpick test - jab a toothpick in the middle and if it comes out clean you're good to go - if it comes out with half cooked eggy bits stuck to it, it's not done yet. It should look something like this:
An inside view:
The verdict:
This was a very good base recipe and can be served as is or tweaked. There isn't a whole lot of super stimulating flavour going on here, but it is yummy and subtle in a comfort food kind of way without beating you over the head. The kids ate it, either the first time or the second time depending on which one. The adults enjoyed it too, it worked great for a "leftovers for lunch" meal.
The ingredients (enough for 2 quiches):
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- small onion
- 8 - 12 mushrooms (around 4-5 oz)
- a red pepper
- a few cups of fresh baby spinach
- a pound of ground beef
- 2 frozen pie shells
- 1.5cup grated cheddar
- 1/2 cup cream cheese
- 1/4 cup parmesan (real! not that crumbly powder nonsense)
- 6 eggs
- 1 cup milk (or cream)
- salt
- pepper
The short version:
- Dice the veggies
- Sautee the veggies, onion first.
- Wilt the spinach into the veggies in covered pan.
- Put the veggies aside for a few minutes, turn on the oven to 375 and brown the beef in the pan
- Layer the veggies in the frozen pie shells
- Layer the beef on top of the veggies
- Layer various cheeses on top of the meat
- Beat the eggs and milk
- Slowly pour the egg mixture over all the other ingredients
- Bake for about 40 minutes until the toothpick test is passed.
- Tex-mex it up - you could easily put some corn and salsa into the veggie mix, some chillies or jalapenos if you're brave (or Mexican) too. I've successfully used that nacho flavoured cheese-like chip dip stuff in similar recipes too, possibly in place of cream cheese here
- Tomatoes in the veggies might add a little twist - try Italian seasoned diced tomatoes - add some tomato paste if you really want a lot of flavour (tomato paste tip: I only ever use a couple of tablespoons at a time, so I spoon the rest out of the tin about 1tbsp at a time on to cling wrap and make little packages, then just pop them in the freezer so I have it on hand when I need it)
- Different cheeses - All hard melty cheeses would work well, cottage cheese instead of cream cheese, even blue if you wanted to go that direction.
- Different veggies - anything you have, really. Carrots, corn, peas, any greens, chopped green beans, mushroom varieties, etc.
Looks tasty Sara!
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