Birthday Quiche +

Thinking up meal ideas definitely gets old, and cleaning up can be debilitating, but, by and large, cooking is probably my least onerous household task. I usually enjoy it. And I enjoy baking too much for my own good.

Even so, it’s such a treat to have other people do the cooking, and that helped make my birthday fun yesterday. My son-in-law, who’s quite the culinarian, prepared quiches for brunch, packed with excellent vegetables, including artichokes, Brussels sprouts, potatoes, tomatoes, and spinach (not all in the same quiche). One would not have believed it was his inaugural quiche-making. My daughter, with the help of her visiting friends, prepared a perfect fruit salad, which I enjoyed to the same degree as my toddler grandchildren, which is to say a lot. We also had bagels and cream cheese and a home-baked chocolate cake, donated by a friend. My daughter’s guests did much of the cleanup.

And I forgot to mention mimosas.

If you don’t think this was fun, you’re probably not a wife/mother of forty or so years.

Because quiche is one of my go-tos, I thought I would share with you my recipe. It’s adapted from the Swiss Cheese and Mushroom Quiche recipe in the Moosewood Cookbook. My well-loved edition is from 1977, as you can guess from the photo below, but the same recipe appears in newer editions. Here’s my version, with Moosewood suggestions appended.

1. Prepare a single 9-inch pie crust, or use a store-bought crust. (If you’d like to see my pie crust recipe, let me know.)
2. Cover the bottom of the crust with about 1 ½ cups of grated cheese. I usually use cheddar, or a mix of cheddar and mozzarella. (Moosewood uses Swiss.)
3. Cover cheese with about ¾-1 cup sauteed onion, broccoli, and/or cauliflower. (Moosewood says onions and mushrooms, sauteed with thyme.)
4. Cover vegetables with a custard:

–Beat 4 eggs, 1 ½ cups milk, 3 tbsp. flour, ½ teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon mustard (Moosewood says ¼ tsp. dry mustard) in the blender or with an immersion blender.

5. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 375 for 40-45 minutes or until there’s only the slightest jiggle in the center. The top usually gets a little brown.

Sometimes there’s extra custard, which I usually bake in a little tart pan for lunch. Almost any vegetable works in this recipe. Tomato slices are good, especially this time of year. Also chopped scallions, which Moosewood suggests.

This is a convenient dish to take to picnics or as a gift to new moms or people just home from the hospital. You can use a disposable pie plate, or one purchased at a thrift store, so that no one has to return anything to you.

Any other suggestions for quiches? Favorite recipes? Favorite birthdays? Please share!