quiche, pronounced keesh

if the recipe is good and i made it and it wasn't one of my mother's recipes, i got it from betty. betty crocker. in the pies/pastry section there is a recipe for a generic pie crust and this has served me well for quiches. without further ado, here is the recipe for the homemade quiche, with adjusted instructions for the fillings.

Quiche: noun

a pielike dish consisting of an unsweetened pastry shell filled with a custard and usually containing cheese and other ingredients, as vegetables, seafood, or ham: spinach quiche.

Pie Crust                                                      Quiche Filling
1 cup all purpose flour                                    4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt                                           1 cup whipping cream
6 1/3 tablespoons butter, softened              1 cup rice milk
2-3 tablespoons cold water                          freshly ground salt & pepper
                                                                         red pepper flakes

mix the flour and salt in a medium bowl. cut in butter. my interpretation of this is to use my hands to mix it all together until it turns into pea sized clumps. or thereabouts. sprinkle cold water 1 tablespoon at a time and toss until it is moist and pastry almost leaves the sides of the bowl. what does this mean? "almost leaves the sides"? should i ask it when it would like to leave and then stop adding water two minutes before that time? anyway, this is probably why i have trouble getting the dough to roll out nicely in step 2 really but more on that later...(i realize i should have taken a picture of the dough in its "pea size" state, but i'll be honest, it very rarely gets pitcuresque. it's more clumpy than pea sized.) gather the pastry into a ball. shape into a flattened round and wrap in plastic wrap. put it in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm it up.

while your dough is getting firm gather all the filling ingredients you want to put in the quiche(s).  i chose: turkey breakfast sausage (honeysuckle white has a good one), an italian cheese blend, green onions, turkey bacon (oscar mayer), cheddar and monterey jack cheeses, and feta cheese.

remove the dough from the fridge and let it warm up a bit before rolling it out onto a lightly floured surface. supposedly you can roll this into a nice flat, cohesive piece of pastry, however i have not had quite that much success. sometimes it rolls out ok and i can pinch a few pieces together to make a pastry large enough to cover a 9 inch pan. typically i end up flattening the pastry in the pan and pressing it out to cover the bottom and up the sides a bit. thankfully this does not lead to sticking to the pan since there is so much butter involved. if it comes to this, no worries, it's still a delicious crust.

from here on out it's cake (or pie). add the ingredients to the crust that you previously laid out. i made three different quiches: sausage (1/2 pound) and italian cheeses (1 cup), green onion (4) and feta (1 cup), and bacon (8 pieces) with cheddar/monterey jack cheeses (1 cup).

now beat 4 large eggs in a large bowl. beat in 1 cup whipping cream and 1 cup rice milk (you can do 2 cups whipping cream if you like but i have found the 1/1 allows for a great consistency without being too rich). add a bit of freshly ground salt and pepper and a dash of red pepper flakes. pour this into the pie dish.

bake at 425' for 15 minutes. then lower to temperature to 300' and bake for an additional 35-45 minutes, until it is firm and a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. this becomes a little tricky as the cheese sometimes makes you think it's not done. rest assured it is after 45 minutes.

one of the best things about this recipe is that you can make and bake it a day ahead and stick it in the fridge overnight. in the morning (or whenever you plan to serve it) put the quiche in a cold oven and let it warm up to 325'. check the quiche until it's warmed through. how long is that? i'd say about 15-25 minutes, but you be the judge.