This post should be alternately titled: How to convince someone who hates eggs to eat them and enjoy it.
In a house where half of the residents hate eggs, how do I get away with making a quiche for dinner? The answer: bacon. Especially delicious, fresh from the farmer’s market Jericho Settler’s Farm bacon. YUM. According to my egg-hating partner, the bacon flavor over-powers the egginess.
This is a great twist on the “breakfast for dinner” concept that used to be such a treat when I was a kid. Quiche is really great for any meal, in fact I had a piece for breakfast this morning too. It’s also pretty easy to make, especially if you happen to have a store bought pie crust hanging out in your refrigerator. I tend to go a little overboard on the amount of veggies/meat that I try to fit into a recipe such as this- I often have the same problem with homemade quesadillas…but that’s another story for another day. But I toned it down appropriately here and fought the urge to add mushrooms and tomatoes to the already prepped leeks, zucchini and bacon. That’s another thing I love about quiche. It’s so easy to tailor it to your culinary desires/what you happen to have on hand.
A note on the recipe: I have adapted this from a Mark Bittman recipe in his “How to Cook Everything” cookbook. Like many of Mark’s takes on the classics, it is delicious but a little off on both the proportions and the cooking time. It takes a little finagling to make it come out correctly. I used a standard 10″ pie plate, but if you have something bigger, smaller or deeper you might want to adjust accordingly.
Quiche with zucchini, leeks and bacon – adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything
Ingredients:
1 pre-made pie crust
5 eggs
1.5 cups of milk or cream (I used 1% milk)
1.5 cups of grated cheddar cheese
3 leeks, sliced in half, lengthwise and diced
1 small zucchini, shredded (I used my cheese grater very successfully)
6-8 slices of bacon, chopped
1 tsp. salt
dash of cayenne pepper
Preheat oven to 425 degrees to pre-bake your crust for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Chop/grate veggies. Squeeze as much liquid out of the zucchini as you can. Cook chopped bacon in skillet over medium heat until crispy. Use slotted spoon to drain onto paper towels. 
Remove all but 1 TB of bacon grease and add leeks to the same skillet. Saute leeks over medium to medium-low heat for a few minutes until soft. Remove from skillet and drain on paper towels. Mix all remaining ingredients into large mixing bowl and add veggies and bacon. Wisk or stir until eggs are beaten and ingredients are well mixed. Once the crust is done with the pre-bake, remove it from the oven and turn the temperature down to 325 degrees. Before you pour the egg mixture into the pie crust, place pie dish on baking sheet- this will do wonders to help control and spillage or overflow. Once egg mixture is in the pie crust, place in oven for about 60 minutes, or until you can stick a fork or toothpick into the center without liquid coming out on it. I would start checking your quiche around 50 minutes to make sure the edges of the pie crust aren’t getting burned. Once you take it out of the oven, let it sit for a few minutes before serving. Goes great with a plan green salad or all on it’s own!
For Nana 