Making Quiche

Back in the 80's there was a popular book called, "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche" that made fun of male stereotypes.  I have to come clean with you.  I'm a man.  I'm real.  I eat quiche.  There, I got that out of the way.

After Thanksgiving, who isn't looking for new and exciting ways to get rid of the leftover turkey?  Turkey sandwich?  Yawn.  We thought we'd make the bird disappear by incorporating it into one of the more popular dishes in our home - the quiche, a french dish that is an open faced pastry or pie filled with cheese, meat, eggs, and vegetables.  We normally make a broccoli and chicken quiche, but this time, we thought we'd deviate and use chopped up turkey coupled with fresh mustard greens from the garden.  That's the neat thing about this dish - it is versatile, you can throw anything you'd like in it - bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, just try whatever is fresh in your garden at the moment.

So first I went out to the garden and selected a nice handful of mustard greens, brought them inside and washed them up real good and chopped them.


Fresh mustard greens

For this recipe, Tricia uses a cookbook by Jude Theriot called La Cuisine Cajun as a starting point, but I think she alters a few ingredients:

We heated up a cast iron dutch oven with some butter and chopped onions in the bottom and then added the mustard greens.  I'll admit, I sampled some straight from the pot.  Good stuff!  When I was younger, I didn't like greens.  Now, wow, I didn't know what I was missing.  I could serve this up on some cornbread right now and be happy, but these mustard greens have a "higher calling."



Pot of sauteed mustard greens

So then Tricia made up a homemade pie crust and added the chopped up remains of the Thanksgiving turkey, a cup of the sauteed mustard greens, 2 tablespoons of slivered almonds, 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese, 1/2 cup of Mozzarella cheese and 1 cup of grated Swiss cheese.



A good meal starting to come together

We then take some eggs from our hens that Russ just gathered from their nests and Tricia broke up 5 of them into a Pyrex measuring cup.

If you're gonna make quiche, you gotta break a few eggs

Then we add a cup of Daisy's fresh raw milk to the eggs and scramble it all up real good.


 A heaping cup full of Daisy

To this developing concoction of culinary goodness, we add the spices: Tabasco sauce, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, curry powder, nutmeg.  Be creative.  Your taste buds will thank you for it.

Adding the spices

Then pour into your pie shell.  Preheat your oven to 375 and cook for 30 minutes or until you can slide a butter knife in and it comes out dry.  In the picture below, I'm peeking in the oven, anticipating the first slice.


Almost done

And here is the finished product, ready for consumption.  We accomplished our goal:  The Thanksgiving turkey is gone and in a few short minutes, so will this quiche.  The cookbook says it feeds 6, but who are we kidding?  I'm going to go ahead and loosen my belt up a notch and eat about a third of it all by myself!


"Honey, can you bring me the pie serving thingy and a fork?"

 Gotta run.  Bon Apetit!