MADE: Spinach, Mushroom, and Bacon Quiche

"Why all the cheese?" "It's quiche night, OBVIOUSLY."

One of my New Year's Resolutions was going to be "Eat less food whose primary ingredients are butter and cream." Then I got my Christmas present from Boss Tweed--a copy of Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table, and my New Year's Resolution crumbled before the New Year had even begun. It's an AMAZING cookbook, and almost every page contains a recipe as mouthwatering as it is undaunting. And full of cream and butter.
I fully intend to cook most of the items in this cookbook--perhaps when the Boss herself comes to visit me in March! (Be prepared for a slew of posts and jealousy, because it will be a cookingstravaganza for sure!) I started, though, with a quiche, more because I wanted to make a quiche than because I wanted to use the cookbook. But I figured that my new French cookbook would be a good place to start.

Greenspan's original recipe calls for a tart crust. It turns out that one has to refrigerate a tart crust for several hours, and I certainly didn't have time for that (I'm not known for planning ahead when it comes to cooking), so I fudged it a little bit, and perhaps ruined the tart in the process? The taste and texture came out just fine, though, so I'm inclined to think that the three-hour chill period is a scam.
Also, Greenspan's original recipe called for 1/4 cup cheese. I assumed that to be a printer's error, and used an entire cup of cheese. This is probably why my "cook for myself" philosophy has not been a weight-loss solution, but rather the opposite.

Spinach, Mushroom, and Bacon Quiche


Tart Crust
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter, cold or frozen, cut into 1/2 tbsp chunks
1 large egg
1 tsp ice water

Quiche Filling
6 oz spinach leaves
4 slices bacon
1/2 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
8 white mushrooms, diced
Salt and pepper, to taste
3 large eggs
2/3 cup cream
1 cup shredded cheese (I used equal parts swiss, gruyere, and mozzarella)

To make tart crust:

Whisk together flour and salt. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Beat together egg and water, and drizzle over the dry mixture, tossing with a fork until evenly moistened, and then mixing together by hand. Form dough into a ball, kneading until smooth, and then pat into a flattened disk. Refrigerate this for three hours (supposedly--I only refrigerated it for one, and things turned out fine).
Once you've refrigerated the disk of dough, bring it out and roll it out. Greenspan recommends rolling it between two sheets of plastic wrap, which worked pretty well and made flipping it into the pie pan pretty simple. Roll the dough into a circle big enough to cover a 9" pie pan--about 12" in diameter--and then turn the dough into a greased pie pan. Make sure there are no cracks in the crust, because it will probably shrink, and your filling will wind up leaking out if there are cracks. Puncture the dough lightly in several places with a fork, cover with foil, and refrigerate again for another hour or so. (This is a good time to make the quiche filling.)
Heat the oven to 400 F.
Bake the crust for 20 minutes with the foil insert, then remove the foil and bake for 3 to 5 minutes more. Remove partially baked crust from oven and let cool before adding filling.

To make filling:

Spinach first--rinse spinach leaves and then toss into a skillet while still wet. Cook over medium heat until the spinach is wilted but still bright green, about five minutes. Remove from heat and put spinach onto a napkin-covered plate to soak up the excess liquid. Then, when the spinach is cool enough, transfer it to a cutting board and chop it well.
Bacon next--put the slices of bacon onto a skillet over medium-high heat and fry until crispy. Remove from pan to a paper towel-covered plate. Drain off all but one tablespoon of the bacon grease from the skillet. When bacon is cool enough, chop well.
Now all the rest--put the onion and garlic into the bacon-greased skillet and sauté for two minutes over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and sauté for two minutes more, adding a tablespoon of water if the vegetables begin to brown.
Mix together chopped spinach, chopped bacon, onions and mushrooms, and season with salt and pepper. When partially-baked crust is cooled sufficiently, spread the filling mixture evenly throughout the bottom of the crust.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs and the cream together. Pour over the filling so that it fills in all the cracks. Sprinkle cheese evenly over the top of the quiche.
Place quiche pan onto a baking sheet (to save your oven in case of bubbling over) and carefully put into the middle of the oven. Bake quiche for 30 to 40 minutes (still at 400 F), or until the filling has become puffy, even in the middle. Remove, let cool, and then DEVOUR.