Quiche Lorraine

I'm weird about eggs. I hate the smell of hard boiled eggs. For the most part, I don't like to eat eggs. I will, however, eat eggs if they are scrambled! I can't eat them plain, though. Aside from seasoning them with the usual salt & pepper... I'm one of those people who eats their scrambled eggs with ketchup *gasp*

Seeing as a quiche is basically a fancy French version of scrambled eggs, I do enjoy quiches :) This was my first homemade quiche. I first got the idea after receiving an email from allrecipes.com I subscribe to their "Daily Dish" emails and the recipe for Monday September 17th was "Quick Quiche." The recipe caught my attention and gave me a craving for quiche. I may one day try that recipe; however, tonight I had some pie crust in the fridge that I wanted to use so I searched Allrecipes to find a quiche recipe worth trying.

That's how I stumbled across this recipe for Quiche Lorraine. It's a great basic quiche recipe, and as you can see from all the reviews, it can be modified in a variety of ways to suit your taste. Many reviewers seem to use half & half instead of milk to make it richer; however, this quiche already has enough fat it in so I did not try that but simply used skim milk. Others added ingredients such as ham, broccoli, spinach, etc. The possibilities with this quiche are endless; however, I do have to say that it is delicious as is. The bacon and onion give it an excellent flavor.

One small side note -- the original Quiche Lorraine recipe calls for heavy cream, and does not include cheese; and the addition of onion to the dish makes it quiche alsacienne. Whatever you want to call this dish, I can guarantee you'll be going back for seconds :)

Based on the many reviews on the website, I made several modifications to the recipe, noted below in red.

Quiche Lorraine
from allrecipes.com

1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch single crust pie (I used a Pillsbury pie crust)
6 slices bacon
1 onion, chopped (1 small onion was plenty; if you don't love onion, I would use 1/2 onion)
3 eggs, beaten (I used 4 eggs)
1-1/2 cup milk (I used 1 cup)
1/4 teaspoon salt (I used 1/8 tsp garlic salt - the bacon adds enough saltiness to this dish)
1-1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese (I used 2 cups of a shredded cheddar & monterey jack cheese blend)
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (I set my oven to 350 F).

Line pastry with a double layer of aluminum foil. Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 4 to 5 minutes more, or until crust is set. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). (I simply unrolled my pre-made pie crust and placed it in an ungreased 9-inch pyrex pie pan and baked at 350 F for 8 to 10 minutes until the crust was just barely golden.)

Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Remove bacon from pan, crumble and set aside. Reserve 2 tablespoons bacon grease in skillet. Cook onion in reserved drippings until tender; drain and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together eggs, milk and salt. Stir in bacon and onion. In a separate bowl, toss cheese and flour together. Add cheese to egg mixture; stir well. Pour mixture into hot pastry shell.

Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes (I baked mine at 350 F for 55 minutes), or until knife inserted into center comes out clean. If necessary, cover edges of crust with foil to prevent burning (I used a pie crust shield). Let quiche cool for 10 minutes before serving.