I haven’t had many good quiches, they’re always a bit too eggy for me. Either a strong egg taste or uncooked egg in the middle – eww. This is one of the reasons other family members also haven’t (or should I now say “hadn’t”) liked quiches.

But when I saw a great looking quiche with a fantastic crispy pastry on Not Quite Nigella’s blog, I knew I had to make it. I’ve used the same base for the quiche mix, changed a few different ingredients as I was missing some of the suggested ingredients and used the same pastry recipe.

The pastry is delicious either cooked with the quiche mix or blind-baked for a bit too, it’s lovely and rich and extremely easy if you have food processor, which I now do! We, and when I say ‘we’, I mean Nick has tried grating of butter for the pastry, which is definitely easier when place in the freezer for a bit, although is a little messy and a bit more difficult.

The pastry, bacon and capsicum or pumpkin and ricotta make the quiche a very tasty meal, the only problem is trying to eat a small portion! It’s very easy to divide it into 6 serves… or 8 if you’re not as greedy as me 🙂 .

Quiche
Recipe adapted from Perfect Picnic Quiche on Not Quite Nigella

Serves: 6-8

200g cream cheese
125g cold butter
1 -1 ¼ cups plain flour

4 rashers bacon, chopped – fat removed, but few large pieces kept for cooking
1-2 red capsicums, chopped
5 spring onions or 1 brown onion, sliced finely
Olive oil
6-7 eggs
1½ cups milk
1 cup grated cheese
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2½ tablespoons plain flour
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
Salt and pepper
1 tomato, sliced (or a handful of cherry tomatoes)

Heat a saucepan over medium high heat, add bacon fat with bacon. Cook, stirring, for 3-4 minutes or until bacon starts to brown. Add 1-2 tablespoons olive oil and add the spring onions and red capsicum. Continue to cook on medium high heat for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Turn heat down to medium low and continue cooking until capsicum starts to soften.

Preheat oven to 180-200°C. Place a baking tray in the oven.

Chop cream cheese and place in microwave safe bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and cook in microwave for 30sec or until soft. Grate butter and add to cream cheese, stir quickly and then stir in plain flour, alternately place the soft cream cheese in a food processor, add chilled butter cut in cubes, process then add plain flour and process until combined. If it is too wet, add a bit more flour.

Place in a quiche dish (I used a 20 x 25 cm lasagne dish) and press out dough with fingers until covering the base and sides evenly. (If you want extra crispy pastry, cook this for 10 minutes in the oven, then remove and add filling – my pastry fell down the sides a bit but still turned out good).

Whisk eggs, add milk and mayonnaise and whisk again. Add cheese, parsley, plain flour and salt and pepper and mix. Add the cooked bacon, capsicum and spring onion mix, stir and then pour into the pastry. Place sliced tomato on top.

Place quiche on baking tray and cook at 180-200°C for 40-60 minutes, or until golden brown and firm on top.

Alternative: Roast 1/8 (approx 300-400g) large kent or jap pumpkin, peeled, cored and cubed on a roasting tray in the oven at 180°C for 20-30 minutes or until cooked through. Cube 100g feta and add to normal quiche mix with pumpkin and feta in replace or bacon, capsicum and tomato.

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