Cooking with Joe - quiche

I frequently stop at a French bakery near our house and partake of their fine products. For those of you in Las Vegas, it’s Bonjour Bakery at 4012 south Rainbow, near Flamingo. I would highly recommend it – their pastries are great, but I mostly love the baguettes – crisp and light inside (yum). I started stopping there more often after reading somebody’s suggestion of supporting local businesses. The suggestion was to partake of locally owned (non chain) stores in your neighborhood and spend $50 a month or so, to help stimulate the economy in your home town. I don’t spend that much at Bonjour, but my waistline says I spend more than I should. Anyway, when there a few weeks ago I purchased some almond croissant for breakfast and saw on the counter some little quiches (quichies? What’s the plural?) and took some home. B mentioned how we used to make quiche a lot back when, and wondered why we stopped.

Last week I was over at Anna’s place reading about her making quiche, and was prompted to try out her recipe. It sounded simple enough, and when shopping at my local Von’s I picked up some pie shells and cheese to start.

Here is the recipe right from Anna’s, with a few changes:

1 9 inch pie crust
8 slices bacon
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup Gruyere, grated
2 large eggs
1 egg white
3/4 cups half-and-half
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (depending on your taste)
dash of nutmeg

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Brush the pie crust (already placed in a 9 inch pie tin) with the beaten egg white and bake for 5-8 minutes. Or follow the directions that came with the dough or crust.

Lower oven temperature to 425 degrees. Fry bacon until crisp, drain onto a paper towel, reserve the bacon grease. Saute onion in the same pan with the yummy bacon grease until translucent, drain.

Fill pie shell with crumbled bacon, onions and grated gruyere. Combine beaten eggs with half-and-half, salt, cayenne pepper and nutmeg. Pour over bacon and cheese. Place quiche on a cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes or until firm but jiggly in the center. Let quiche cool before serving.

I used readymade pastry, and put it into a pie pan and baked according to the directions on the box (after brushing with the egg white). The egg whites make it shiny, and keeps it from absorbing the liquids of the filling.

Anna uses more eggs, but she might have a bigger pie pan than I did.


It came out pretty good. I paired it with some fresh corn and a green salad – Von’s had a sale on corn, which we buttered and spiced and cooked on the grill outside, after which I cut it off the cob; much easier to eat than directly off the cob even if not as satisfying. And you are probably saying “grill in Vegas in July?”. Yes, even though it was about 42 (108 f) like it is right now we still fire up the grill and cook. We don’t sit out there to eat in that heat, we might be dumb enough to live here but not that dumb. Much better than canned or frozen corn. It was great fresh, and just as good cold the next day. And it has bacon – who doesn’t like stuff with bacon?

If you have a bigger pie pan then double the eggs and half and half part. The rest of the stuff is filler, so feel free to put in things that you like instead. Instead of bacon (OK DM, don't get mad here) use fresh tomatoes and zuchini from your garden, or add basil or whatever herbs you have. Replace the onions with green onions, use turkey or ham instead of the bacon, that kind of stuff. It's just a not sweet pie and you can make it however you want.

So today let's thank Anna for posting that recipe.