If you’re like me, Easter brings almost as many leftovers as Thanksgiving. With two big family dinners to attend as well as our own celebrations, we had food coming out our ears (sliced ham, anyone?). The other day I found myself staring at a fridge brimming with eggs (14 to be exact) and other odds and ends. Since I happened to have some Gruyere cheese, it was clear that a quiche was in order.
Now let me make one thing clear. I’m not really a baker. I mean, I’ll throw together some cupcakes or cookies now and then, but bread and pastry is pretty much beyond me. All that measuring and weighing and delicately combining things just right . . . It’s enough to put me off cooking all together. I’m infamous for just throwing any old thing into a recipe without measuring or even paying attention. It drives my husband bonkers because he’ll really love something and then I can’t recreate it. I think of recipes as guidelines more than anything else. So please forgive me for using store-bought pie crust. I know it’s a mortal sin in the eyes of some, but I’m just too darn lazy to do it the right way.
I should also note that while this recipe is my own, I use America’s Test Kitchen’s method for making quiche which calls for blind baking the crust before putting in the filling.
Easter Quiche with Asparagus, Leeks, and Ham
Serves 6
Ingredients
1 ready-made, refrigerated pie crust
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 leek, white and light green parts cut into 1/2 inch slices and rinsed thouroughlly
1/2 lb. asparagus, tough ends trimmed and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
5 large eggs
2 cups whole milk (don’t use low-fat milk)
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. fresh ground pepper
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
4 oz. (about 1 cup) Gruyere cheese, shredded
3-4 slices baked ham, cubed
Proceedure
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place crust in a pie plate and bake for 10 minutes. Remove pie plate from oven and set aside.
- Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Cook leeks and asparagus until just tender, 4 to six minutes.
- In another bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, salt, pepper, and thyme.
- Sprinkle cheese over bottom of warm pie crust. Top with ham and vegetable mixture, distributing all evenly over bottom of crust. Pour egg mixture over all until it comes just below the edge of the pie crust. Cover edges of crust with foil strips to prevent over cooking them.
- Return quiche to oven and cook until center is set but still a little jiggly, like custard, 40-50 minutes. A knife inserted near the center of the quiche should come out clean. Remove quiche to cooling rack and serve slightly warm or at room temperature.
Melissa Makes it Easy 