Voilà! Quiche!

I bought a hunk of Le Gruyère cheese, real Le Gruyère AOP cheese imported from Switzerland. There's nothing like it. So creamy, so savory, so delicious.  I decided to make a quiche since I've not made one in a very long time. I have an abundance of quiche ingredients -- broccoli, an assortment of other types of cheeses, ham, bacon, peas, onions, mushrooms, scallions, roasted peppers, etc. But the Le Gruyère was beckoning yodeling to me.  I could imagine those pretty cows grazing in their Alpine meadows with their beautiful bells around their necks, sending their sweet melody over the mountains to the kitchens of the world below, "Buy our cheese! Buy our cheese!" Here are the lovely ladies coming down from their verdant meadows to be milked.

http://www.cheesesfromswitzerland.com/cheese-assortment/le-gruyere-aop.html

So, getting back to the quiche, I had a box of Trader Joe's frozen pie crusts (gasp! yes, I used a premade crust, which really isn't all that bad, honestly...) and sauteed very thinly sliced potatoes. I chopped about 10 slices of cooked bacon, grated about 1 1/2 cups of the gruyère, and 8 large organic farm-fresh eggs (their taste is so different than eggs from the supermarket).  I beat the eggs with a splash of milk (from the dairy farm down the road, which tastes off-the-deliciousness-charts from supermarket milk), salt and pepper.  Then I built the quiche.

The pie crust had come to room temperature on the counter this morning so it was as easy as just pressing it into the pie plate. I used a deep dish 9" Pyrex glass pie plate.  Then I blind baked the crust for about 30 mins until it was lightly browned and cooked almost through. Quiche tastes so much better in a precooked crust. The crust holds up to the wet ingredients and doesn't get soggy or gooey.  

I then layered the thinly sliced potatoes on the bottom of the crust, added the cooked bacon, sprinkled the cheese in an even layer and sprinkled a couple of scallions on top.  Next came the beaten eggs and I popped it into a 350* oven for 50 minutes.  I used my Breville toaster oven to bake the quiche and it came out perfectly, see? 

The crust is a bit ragged, but it will be eaten shortly and no one will notice.  I notice, but no one I'm serving it to will notice, nor will they care.  When food is made with love for those we love no one cares about whether or not it looks picture perfect.  If I were in a retail business where I was selling the quiche then it would look perfect. Absolutely. But for my family and friends... I'll be forgiven and I forgive myself.  Better it should taste good than look good.  When you're home cooking I believe best efforts always count and are satisfactory.

Well, it's cooled sufficiently to gather my court to the table.  I've paired this quiche with a big salad of iceberg lettuce dressed with fresh lemon juice, a bit of roasted garlic I made earlier, sliced roasted peppers & olive oil.  Plain but oh so good!  

Time to mangia!